The Piano Teacher

During my senior year of high school, when I was taking the PSATs, I remember being enchanted by an excerpt credited to The Piano Teacher. Assuming that it would be easy to find later, I didn't take note of the author's name...and boy, was that a mistake. What I remember of that excerpt was a poetic, romantic, beautiful piece of prose that felt like poetry. After googling the book title, I came across 2 books, one being Elfriede Jelinek's work, which is included in the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. With this kind of accolade, I assumed it was the dead ringer. I looked forward to reading this book for years, assuming that skillful writing would balance out crude topics. But lol, NOPE. It's just a work of brutal, disgusting images and emotions, through and through. 

Jelinek's characters embody the most repulsive characteristics and desires of humanity. All self-obsessed and deeply cruel, I suppose it's a study on the reality of society's baseness. 

The writing is often chaotic, jumping between actions and time with no warning or context. It adds, somewhat, to the raging mental states of the characters in these situations, but is also confusing and unpleasant to experience. Still, since I basically just wanted the thing to be over as quickly as possible the whole time, I wasn't about to complain about holes in the narrative. 

Would not read again or recommend, but glad I know now that this wasn't the book I was idolizing for so many years 😂