Homage to Czerny [Paperback]

Gert Jonke (Author), Jean M. Snook (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1564785017 | ISBN-13: 978-1564785015 | Publication Date: October 20, 2008 | Edition: First English Translation

Gert Jonke's prose ripples along like a piano etude, transcending its meticulously constructed sequences to transport the reader into an imaginary world. With a delightful combination of the ridiculous and the sublime, Jonke explores surreal dimensions of space and sound, always anchoring his flights of fancy in accessible imagery. More than any other author, Jonke, a pianist turned writer, avails himself of compositional techniques from classical music. Different characters sound their own themes in cleverly orchestrated conversations. Opening observations are restated at the end by another character instead of in another key. Not surprisingly, the first-person narrator is a composer, a young man who is all the more likeable for his difficulties: his missing girlfriend and his withdrawal symptoms. The title is taken from a collection of studies by Carl Czerny; the content is a literary tour de force.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Austrian author and playwright Jonke addresses a host of existential questions through a cast of vaudevillian compatriots in this slim, beautifully written volume. When narrator Fritz, a self-loathing, depressive alcoholic composer, arrives early to help set up the annual garden party thrown by his friends, photographer Anton and his sister, Johanna, everything looks eerily familiar. As Fritz busies himself, Johanna reveals Anton's farcical if slightly malevolent plan to create an exact replica of last year's party. The plan is a success, allowing Jonke to wryly send up Austrian society and muse provocatively on the nature of memory. In the latter section of the book, Fritz and his brother go to the conservatory they attended in their youth to visit their old piano teacher. They end up trapped in an attic with dozens of neglected and decaying pianos. They're rescued, but not before Fritz's sanity is called into question. As intricately structured as a musical composition, with recurring conversational motifs, the narrative—powered by Snook's magnificent translation—moves smoothly and evocatively through fraught emotional terrain. (Oct.)
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Review

"An important voice in the contemporary German-language literary scene . . . Jonke has achieved what his American counterparts merely dream of: highly experimental fiction that is both entertaining and accessible." --Kirkus

"The career of Austrian novelist and dramatist Gert Jonke presents a story of unclouded acclaim." --Vincent Kling, Review of Contemporary Fiction

"Jonke derives a concatenation of the measured and the menacing." --M. Swales, World Literature Today

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; First English Translation edition (October 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564785017
• ISBN-13: 978-1564785015
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,142,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jonke the virtuoso, January 28, 2009

By 

Eric Lundgren (St Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Homage to Czerny (Paperback)

The Austrian novelist and composer Gert Jonke died earlier this month, while I was reading this book, weirdly enough. Hearing the news, I felt like I was mourning a brilliant new friend I'd just met -- mourning an anticipated future rather than a shared past. The Jonke who comes out of these pages is someone I would have liked to know. Companionable, witty, urbane, taking a tactile delight in the oddities of life, Jonke's prose is a continual pleasure to read.

The Czerny of the title is Carl, a 19th-century Austrian composer of piano etudes, and in one sense "Homage" is an attempt to apply musical ideas to fiction. The novel's first section, "The Presence of Memory," is a sort of etude itself: two wealthy siblings, Anton and Johanna Diabelli, are attempting to recreate (in exact detail) their summer garden party from the previous year. This would involve, as Diabelli explains it, "a congruity of chronologically sequential thoughts, relationships, inferences, and insights"--in other words, social music. The reader slides into the ensuing party, at which several bizarre events occur, including a full-blown verbal fugue, a hilariously inept piano recital, and an incident involving a verbose poet and a hollow tree trunk. Brilliantly, as Jonke suspends your disbelief, he also leaves you wondering if this is exactly what happened at last year's party(!)

Part II, "Gradus ad Parnassum" ("Steps to Parnassus," home of the muses and the title of a Czerny piano exercise book) follows two brothers, both musical prodigies, to visit their former teacher at a conservatory, where they get trapped in the attic along with hundreds of damaged pianos. In the section's opening line, Jonke compares the attic of a building to the brain in a body. A few pages later, he elaborates the metaphor, beautifully: "In the brain of the building, I thought, in every brain there's an accumulation of junk, because everything that you yourself have destroyed or that someone else has destroyed for you is stored in the brain where it takes up an amazing amount of space and distorts the space until your head is so full of it that it bursts like a balloon you bought at the fair."

The sentence showcases a lot of what makes Jonke so great, and so approachable. He shares the themes and dark awareness of his compatriots Jelinek and Bernhard -- indeed the first part sounds like a Bernhard sentence -- yet Jonke has that whimsical touch as well, an almost childish delight in sheer possibility. This is a great place to start reading him, in a very attractive edition, superbly translated by Jean Snook. Thanks once again, Dalkey Archive.

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended and riveting reading from one of Austria's best, December 9, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Homage to Czerny (Paperback)

Reliving the good times is something many of us dream to do, but two eccentric and wealthy siblings may just be taking it a bit too far. "Homage to Czerny: Studies in Virtuoso Technique" is the story of a garden party. One that its hosts would like to happen twice...once last year, and this year, again...only in the exact same way, movement for movement, word for word, and more. Hilarious in its approach and masterfully translated by Jean M. Snook, "Homage to Czerny" is highly recommended and riveting reading from one of Austria's best.