1983: The Piano Teacher

Book Name: The Piano Teacher

Author: Elfriede Jelinek

Genre: Novel

Year Published: 1983

So it turns out A Song of Ice and Fire is a terrible series to be reading alongside other books as I never seem to read anything else... but back in March(!) I did finish reading The Piano Teacher. (Thanks E-T for lending me a copy.) The cover described it as "the masterpiece of Elfriede Jelinek, Austria's most famous writer." I'm not sure how true this statement is as I know pretty much nothing about Austrian literature, but I had heard of the film adaptation and I certainly really liked the book. It is about the life of Erika Kohut, who lives with her super overprotective and overbearing mother, her fascination with sex and peep shows and her relationship with one of her students. Whilst the story is a bit hard to describe without just explaining everything that happened, it does cover various points of Erika's life with flashbacks and also follows her mother and student's actions in parts, which makes for quite a choppy and sometimes hard to follow storyline.

When I began reading The Piano Teacher I was worried it wouldn't flow for me. The opening sentences are extremely short and to the point e.g. "She is trying to escape her mother. Erika is in her late thirties."..."Erika entered, her father exited." Whilst these kinds of short sentences were commonplace throughout the book, I ended up finding them a nice change from other authors - Jelinek was able to fit a lot of depth and description into her work without having long winded and lengthy paragraphs about one small detail. On top of that, I also really enjoyed the way she described everything, with great use of metaphors, such as this description of a concert audience: "...fat islands floating in the amniotic fluid of the notes. They imbibe temporarily, but do not understand what they are drinking."

I really enjoyed this once I got into it and was able to deal with the story's rhythm. The way Erika's character was developed during the book and having such an intense link with her feelings and thoughts really made this a winner for me. There is definitely an adult theme to this book, including as mentioned sex, but also abuse/violence and perhaps depression, so bear that in mind if you were interested in reading it. It is certainly worth reading at minimum for Jelinek's wonderful use of language.

Other Books I Considered: Pet Sematary - Stephen King; The Sheep-Pig - Dick King-Smith

Books I Read Inbetween: An Abundance of Katherines - John Green; Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn; How to Make a Golem and Terrify People - Alette J. Willis; A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow - George R. R. Martin