Lust

Incredibly difficult. To read. And at times impossible to comb out meanings. Metaphors on top of metaphors. Spiraling out to the limited edge of an intensely debauched world. Must be able to stomach oppression well. Offers death and sex different, but same treatments. Not a book for everyone.Critics of Lust criticize its nauseating repetition. True to some extent. But the repetition has a forced of its own, and with a great deal of patience and discipline, the repetition bears beautiful fruits. The dance of oppression, erotica, and abuse like a literary machine can't be swallowed with ease. Mastication is difficult. Elfriede Jelinek ought to be applauded for her intense focus and extraordinary manhandling of the difficult subject of Lust.Some favorite excerpts from the book (brilliant prose):"If you ask me, postcards treat landscape more sparingly than time treats women." -p.134"Her thighs under the panty-hose are sticky with the Direktor's daily slime. He likes to show that he could duplicate himself if he wanted, even if there's not much ink in his machine any more." -p. 135"And there they go, leafing through the catalogues of exotic women, high performance models that are more economical to run and need less fuel." -p.93"Many have to take terrible buses and regret it terribly where they remain on the wrong genitals for too long."-p.89

Hermann, the owner of a paper mill, runs roughshod over his wife Gerti. Pursuing the limits of her feminist critique of capitalist relations, Jelinek's novel is unremitting in its violence and twisted irony. The language, as musical as ever, is densely metaphorical. (Metaphors pile on in confounding succession). In German, I imagine, Jelinek's intentions are clearer than in translation. I found myself unable to enter in to this one. Lacking, as it is, any room to breath.

I first discovered Jelinek about a year ago; I was amazed. The Piano Teacher: A Novel, for all its macabre violence and the horror of it subject matter, is a novel of astonishing power; Wonderful, Wonderful Times is one of the most perfectly crafted pieces of fiction I have ever encountered, filled with beautiful lyricism, rich in symbolism and connotation...Then I came to this volume, "Lust." Much as I enjoyed Jelinek's other works, I found this to be one of the most worthless volumes I have ever encountered. Formally speaking, it is interesting enough: no quotations or direct speech; no view to the interior of any of the characters, only a reportage of their external actions. (Jelinek has experimented with this technique in previous novels.)As for the content of this book...there are only a few characters: The Boss, most commonly referred to as The Man, who is a supervisor at the local factory; his wife (Gerti), most commonly referred to merely as She; their self-absorbed young son, who takes after The Man. Literally about half of the narrative consists of graphic descriptions of The Man sexually abusing The Woman, making use (against her will) of every available orifice. (Occasionally Jelinek's narrator turns to the [presumably male] readers of the book and says: "don't pretend that this sexual violence doesn't turn you on...")Other than violent sexual content, this work consists primarily of a Marxist diatribe in the form of an allegory. "Yeah, yeah, I get it," I kept saying to myself as I read the book. "The Man is men, the Woman is subjected women, the townspeople are the exploited masses..."So what? There's no new insight here, no psychological exploration or brilliant commentary, only an overused allegory so ossified as to be meaningless.Read The Piano Teacher and Wonderful Wonderful Times, they're worthwhile. Skip this emetic and worthless volume.

There is a certain kind of uncomfortable silence when someone mentions Elfriede Jelinek, especially in a circle of literary critics, authors and most of all Austrians. Not so much of femme fatale but more like a destructor of modern pre-concepts of society. As it happens, no one likes destructor very much. Of grassy highlands and pictoresque little towns of Austria remained bleak destruction of every cliche out there. There are no "fine" ladies anymore which love theirs husbands and whose husband love them. There are no sweet children playing in the garden obeying their parents, being sweet as kids are supposed to be. Austria form the postcard doesen't exist. Nor it has ever existed.In the shapeless cloud that became Austria, there are much to be done yet. One of those things is setting the nature of man-woman relationship in the right place.What would one happen nowadays? Well one does not get it.For Jelinek, women is piece of meat, and as meat she has to have its owner. And, naturally it is her husband. To destroy something that exist one has to try living inside it.There were much talk of kind of language used in this novel. Some of it was aimed towards high pornographical value of it. So it is. But, in a words of Elfriede Jelinek "only man is able to produce pornography". Constant repetitions of sexually explicit (I almost said lyrics) scenes is mere mechanism of their destruciton.Maybe it is true that this novel lacks a plot or any kind of interesting narrative. And because of it some may find it boring.But, what remains of highly "engaged" text is great passion "to fix wrongness" in world. And to do that one has to be, in Jelineks own words, banished into the sidelines ("im abseits").To be read and be thinked upon

I couldn't get comfortable with the writing style.