This Paperback Book item from Serpent´s Tail was reviewed on 24-Oct-2008. Search ISBN:1852427507 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. The Piano Teacher Reference Book. Classifications : General AAS Literature Humanities New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General AAS New & Used Textbooks Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books General AAS Qualifying Textbooks Custo . Click the following link to view the cover of The Piano Teacher. Related topics: General AAS. Literature. Humanities. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. General AAS. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. requestid: 6aa1677f-fe53-4033-ad21-9f5b78518c55
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1) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. As an Austrian I was skeptical. Is it possible to translate Jelinek properly ? Joachim Neugroschel, who has also translated works by Kafka, Hesse, Mann, etc. proves that the answer is Yes. Jelinek´s novel, respectively Jelinek´s sharp deconstruction of phrases does not lose more than what necessarily gets lost. Neugroschel successfully managed this task !
~Pat Paul Jammernegg, author of Prototype¤ 2) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. I was taken aback by this book, and had to abruptly throw it down near the end. Now I can hardly even look at the cover without feeling slightly ill. Perhaps I missed the point - perhaps I´m too squeemish - but I could NOT read the end of this book. I´m confused about why it won a nobel prize, certainly, and as an avid reader and literature major, I have read quite broadly. When I got this book I had no idea I would find it so disturbing and that it would be so sadomasochistic. I thought I should warn other readers of this. (The reason I have it two stars is that the writer is obviously gifted and parts are written beautifully.)¤ 3) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. This is probably Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek´s most famous novel. Here she creates an arena in which three characters -- Erica, the teacher of the title, Erica´s mother, and Erica´s prize student, a young engineering student named Klemmer - stalk and attack each other to the ultimate benefit of nobody. There is a fourth person who cannot be ignored - the unnamed narrator, who it is difficult not to identify as Jelinek herself. Each of the character´s thoughts and feelings are dutifully provided to the reader, but only as deconstructed, to the character´s disadvantage, by the narrator, who relentlessly strips away all pretense and self-delusion. Jelinek employs multiple techniques in this implacable exercise in ridicule, and this is where her considerable artistry is most on display. Probably the most obvious weapon in her arsenal is in tacking some cliché or banality onto her characters´ sentiments, but she has many more subtle strategies for degradation; I can´t itemize them all. There is no direct speech. The book proceeds primarily by offering the characters´ perceptions as reified by the narrator. The plot builds inexorably toward three climactic (I use this word ironically) scenes compounded of extreme sexual frustration and violence, the last of which involves all three characters. I have read that Jelinek´s ultimate intention is to satirize the flimsiness and hypocrisy of contemporary Austria. I´m not competent to judge her success in accomplishing that goal. What I can say is that she is the mistress of scorn, and she gives us an authentic depiction of the mentality of the damned.¤ 4) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. This book depicts a woman who grew up in a company of a controlling mother, who kept her in rigid boundaries. She´s been deprived of everything a normal girl has while growing up. No clothing, no games, no friends, no loving tender family. Thus she constantly has to suppress her feelings and sexual drives. This abuse forms her into a person with confused, hurt psyche, cut from the world, and totally disconnected from her own emotional world as well. And because she does not understand her own feeling, she has no empathy for other people at times as well. She torments her students and Klemmer, a man who happens to step into her life. Since her relationship with her mother is based on love and hate at the same time, she is used to being tortured by someone she loves. And she projects this pattern of relationship into her connection with Klemmer. She has an anomalous and confused understanding of a relationship. She expects to be hurt on one hand, and on the other hand she is terrified of being hurt. And so this confusion of hers develops into a tragedy. It does, because Klemmer is an ordinary guy with normal perception of the world. Just like a normal society responds to anomaly, so does he, with disgust. He´s hurt himself and to restore his inner balance, he revolts and ends up acting violently himself.
I love this book, because not many creators manage to delve deep into a psychology of anomalous behavior so well. Jelinek makes her life personal. Society often mistreats abnormal people, responding to them with mistrust and repulsion. That happens because we do not understand them. This book is a chance to see up close what it is like to live a life of a deviant. Now we´re in her shoes.
¤ 5) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. From a Nobel-Prize-winning novel, I expected a whole lot more than this. Am I amiss for expecting greatness? Instead, this novel is confusing and hard to follow, and not in an incompetent reader sort of way. The novel pushes the envelope with its hyperbolic discussion of male sexuality and the male tendency/necessity to gaze at the female. Maybe in the height of the feminist-crazed, literary world, this translation from German was all the hype.
Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens¤ 6) Paperback Book The Piano Teacher by Serpent´s Tail. "The Piano Teacher , [winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature,] is an exploration of fascism, not so much in the political sense as in the personal. In Joachim Neugroschel´s excellent translation, the language is simple yet full of imaginative, often-funny metaphors, the view of the world original, if at times almost painfully bizarre."-New York Times Book Review "A dazzling performance that will make the blood run cold."-Walter Abish "A brilliant, bitter, wonderful portrait of mother and daughter, artist and lover."-John Hawkes "A brilliant, uncompromising book."-Publishers WeeklyErika Kohut teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory by day. But by night she trawls the porn shows of Vienna while her mother, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, waits up for her. Into this emotional pressure-cooker bounds music student and ladies´ man, Walter Klemmer. With Walter as her student, Erika spirals out of control, consumed by the ecstasy of self-destruction. First published in 1983, The Piano Teacher is the masterpiece of Elfriede Jelinek, Austria´s most famous writer. Now a feature film directed by Michael Haneke, The Piano Teacher won three major prizes at the Cannes 2001 Festival including best actor for Benot Magimel and best actress for Isabelle Huppert. Elfriede Jelinek was born in Austria in 1946 and grew up in Vienna where she attended the famous Music Conservatory. The leading Austrian writer of her generation, she has been awarded the Heinrich Bll Prize for her contribution to German-language literature. ¤Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 21-Nov-2008, 18524275079781852427504, 860-520-711-811-351-781-071-P6B-QUB-5EB-8 
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