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A review by porgyreads
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
5.0
Interestingly this stands out to me more than anything as an original and imperfect read. Jelinek writes in such a lyrical and conversational manner it is breathtaking, spellbinding at times. But her metaphors and abstraction do skew a tad too much at points forcing the meaning to be lost or grappled with, diluting its power.
“No artist tolerates anything incomplete or half baked in his work”
“A world opens up to HER… the pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music.”
“Health-how disgusting. Health is the transfiguration of the status quo… well, health always sides with the victors; the weak fall away”
I could spend hours typing out quotes I highlighted or finding ones I couldn’t highlight because I didn’t have a pen with me and fell ill about leaving behind as I turned the page on my commute.
It is such a considered and harrowing piece of work that doesn’t shy away from its horror. And even in rereading lines from the earlier half of the book the foreshadowing and inevitability of Erika’s fate - deemed not by her but by Klemmer’s hidden nature of cruelty and narcissism only rocks me more.
I held back from reading the final few pages because I wanted clarification on what the characters were thinking to compare to the later scenes of the film and was almost scared to be proven right but also scared to be proven wrong.
The piano teacher is about abuse. It is about art as shelter and romance as a “Trojan horse.” It is characterised by Erika, whose earnest and repressed longing for mutuality and dictated tenderness, after years of parental imprisonment and arrested development, is met with misunderstanding, cowardice, unwarranted humiliation and abuse.
“If you weren’t a victim, you couldn’t become one.”
Both book and film have taken over my entire January and though it wasn’t exactly “fun” or entertaining to engage with and pick apart, it was necessary.
“No artist tolerates anything incomplete or half baked in his work”
“A world opens up to HER… the pustules with which the world can be joined together release an equally tiny world of music.”
“Health-how disgusting. Health is the transfiguration of the status quo… well, health always sides with the victors; the weak fall away”
I could spend hours typing out quotes I highlighted or finding ones I couldn’t highlight because I didn’t have a pen with me and fell ill about leaving behind as I turned the page on my commute.
It is such a considered and harrowing piece of work that doesn’t shy away from its horror. And even in rereading lines from the earlier half of the book the foreshadowing and inevitability of Erika’s fate - deemed not by her but by Klemmer’s hidden nature of cruelty and narcissism only rocks me more.
I held back from reading the final few pages because I wanted clarification on what the characters were thinking to compare to the later scenes of the film and was almost scared to be proven right but also scared to be proven wrong.
“If you weren’t a victim, you couldn’t become one.”
Both book and film have taken over my entire January and though it wasn’t exactly “fun” or entertaining to engage with and pick apart, it was necessary.