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Sexuality and violence are coupled in this brilliant, uncompromising
book set in modern-day Vienna, by the winner of the 1986 Heinrich Boll
Prize. Erika Kohut, a spinster in her mid-30s, has been selected by her
domineering mother to be sacrificed on the altar of art.
Carefully
groomed and trained, she's unfortunately not gifted enough to become a
concert pianist. Instead, she teaches piano at the Vienna Conservatory.
She still lives at home, and in the eyes of the world is the dutiful
daughter. But there's another, perversely sexual side of Erika that she
finds difficult to repress. She goes to a peep show, frequents the local
park where Turks and Serbo-Croats pick up women and, just for kicks,
slices herself with a razor.
When one of her students, Walter
Klemmer, falls in love with her, Erika demands sadomasochistic rituals
before she'll agree to sleep with him. While the subject matter is
deliberately perverse, Jelinek gets behind the cream-puff prettiness of
Vienna; this novel is not for the weak of heart. Violence is a cleansing
force, a point that brings back uncomfortable overtones of an Austria 50
years ago.
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