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The Piano Teacher (Paperback)

by Elfriede Jelinek (Author), Joachim Neugroschel (Translator) "THE PIANO TEACHER, Erika Kohut, bursts like a whirlwind into the apartment she shares with her mother..." (more)
Key Phrases: Walter Klemmer, Erika Kohut, Herr Klemmer (more...)
3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Teaching piano daily at the Vienna Conservatory is all that remains of Erika Knout's once promising career. Lately, however, her love for her star student, Walter Klemmer, is disrupting both her well-ordered professional life and her emotionally rigorous world at home with Mother. This neurotic love triangle, in which violence is confused with love, evolves toward inevitable breakdown as Erika finally defies Mother and, through Klemmer, excites chaotic passions. With her facility for metaphor and stylish narrative, Austrian Jelinek bears comparison to Schmidt and Boll at their best. Hers is a powerful debut in English; with five other novels awaiting translation, she should develop a large audience among serious readers. Paul E. Hutchison, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Serpent's Tail (July 1, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1852427507
  • ISBN-13: 978-1852427504
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #267,722 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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THE PIANO TEACHER, Erika Kohut, bursts like a whirlwind into the apartment she shares with her mother. Read the first page
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Walter Klemmer, Erika Kohut, Herr Klemmer, Herr Nemeth, Professor Kohut, Frau Kohut, Friulein Kohut, Engineering School, Franz Schubert, The Korean
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Customer Reviews

34 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.5 out of 5 stars (34 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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69 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A devastating meditation, April 27, 2002
This review is from: The Piano Teacher (Paperback)
You might not expect to find a novel that among other things links chamber music with the perils of perfectionism, sexual masochism and sadism - and the inner and outer life of a talented and tormented woman. "The Piano Teacher" does this and much more.

Erika Kohut is a former music prodigy in her late thirties, a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory, strict and rigid with her students - as well as with herself. Her father left shortly after her birth and she lives with her elderly mother, who is, we are told, old enough to be her grandmother, and her "inquisitor and executioner all at once." Her mother has given her all to assuring her daughter's talent: "Erika has never had to do housework, because dustrags and cleansers ruin a pianist's hands." The daughter's "vocation is her avocation: the celestial power known as music." Erika has a room of her own in their apartment - mostly a place to hide some of her possessions. Mother and daughter sleep in one bed. Her mother expects obedience, loyalty - and Erika's paycheck, which is to help buy them a new apartment.

Erika wants a life of her own but has no idea of how to go about getting it. She is repulsed by the fact of her aging and by her femaleness. Love and suffering are inextricably linked. She wanders through Vienna after work and lies to her mother in order to indulge herself occasionally in excursions to peep shows and furtive shopping trips to buy beautiful, well-made clothes which she takes home stuffed in her briefcase - so that Mom won't see.

Erika's cacophonous memories of her past sexual episodes with men roil in her head. She is overwhelmed by herself. She cannot feel nor respond to conventional expressions of tenderness and love. She knows what she wants, however, and develops a relationship with a much younger student, Walter Klemmer, in order to get it.

This is an amazing novel about an unconventional and unconventionally disturbed woman, the urge to direct one's own suffering, and the consequences of a life so thoroughly dedicated to control and perfection. The descriptions are compact and rich: not a word is wasted. It's a political novel, too: critical of modern bourgeois life. I was mesmerized and disturbed by it, and awed by Jelinek's abilities.

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36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Devastating, December 17, 2003
This review is from: The Piano Teacher (Paperback)
Chamber music and sado-masochism: not your usual mix, but they represent the inner and outer lives of a tormented woman. Holy moly, what a story, as well written as it is shocking, as mesmerizing as it is terrible.
Erika, a child musical prodigy, is now in her late thirties, a teacher at the Vienna Conservatory, a teacher as strick and rigid with her students as she is with herself. She lives very unhappily with her elderly mother who has given her all to assure her daughter's success. Erika has a room of her own in the small apartment they share, a room in which she hides the secret yearnings of her stifled life. But mother and daughter share a bed - definitely a weird dynamic going on here, and it gets weirder. In return for her lifetime of sacrifice, the mother expects loyalty and devotion; Erika wants only to escape - but she's powerless to know how to do it - except by the excesses of her sado-masochistic desires. It's when she enlists the complicity of a young male student, Walter Klemmer, that things begin to veer into the truly disturbed corners of Erika's brain, cracking the fragile shell of a life thoroughly dedicated to control and perfection.
Yowie!
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Twisted Minds, March 16, 2003
By Anna Ryklina (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Piano Teacher (Hardcover)
I was first exposed to The Piano Teacher by way of film, which is excellent, but it left some lingering questions about the psychological mindframe of the leading characters. The book offers a very twisted glimpse into the minds of Erika, her Mother and Walter Klemmer, and does so with incredible dexterity.

If anything, I was impressed by the fluidity of the text, of the author's ability to integrate all three voices into one and still sound impartial with every character. Her language might bore some people as it is filled with curious metaphors and details, but she has an amazing ability to go on many tangents from something very trivial to something quite absurd.

This book is very psychologically disturbing. There is a constant power struggle within the Mother-daughter-intruder triangle and the roles are constantly switching off, with the rarest of outcomes. Sexual roles are also misplaced, with the woman the violent and rapeful while the man is cast into the submissive and traditional type.

If you could look past the violence and insanity of this book, you would find it highly enjoyable and thought provoking.

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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars gorgeous, gorgeous
This is, by far, the most well written book I have ever read. The language is absolutely gorgeous and the story is simply perfect in its unraveling. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Samantha D. Fisher

5.0 out of 5 stars A very well done translation
As an Austrian I was skeptical. Is it possible to translate Jelinek properly ? Joachim Neugroschel, who has also translated works by Kafka, Hesse, Mann, etc. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Tookyoo-ni ikimasu.

2.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't finish this...
I was taken aback by this book, and had to abruptly throw it down near the end. Now I can hardly even look at the cover without feeling slightly ill. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Isobel Snow

4.0 out of 5 stars MISTRESS OF SCORN
This is probably Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek's most famous novel. Here she creates an arena in which three characters -- Erica, the teacher of the title, Erica's mother, and... Read more
Published 20 months ago by John D. Burlinson

5.0 out of 5 stars In her shoes.
This book depicts a woman who grew up in a company of a controlling mother, who kept her in rigid boundaries. Read more
Published on February 3, 2007 by L. Liz

3.0 out of 5 stars All the Hype
From a Nobel-Prize-winning novel, I expected a whole lot more than this. Am I amiss for expecting greatness? Read more
Published on October 26, 2006 by Jonathan Stephens

4.0 out of 5 stars the human bond
Elfirede Jelinek approaches her subject, the human bond, with a brutal honesty that cuts to the heart of what it is to be human. Read more
Published on July 23, 2006 by Shoshana Olidort

4.0 out of 5 stars A compelling pathology
This is a difficult book, though gruesomely compelling in its exploration of psychological and sexual pathology. Read more
Published on June 13, 2006 by Roger Brunyate

4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and strange.
Took me seven days to read this book, in the midst of living in two houses, working two full-time jobs, and exercising 2 days a week. Read more
Published on April 27, 2006 by Emma Kate Powell

5.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing, compelling, funny...the most real novel I have read
A few minutes ago I was listening to an interview with Jane Smiley. She said that one of the functions of The Novel, as an experience that is simultaneously public and private, is... Read more
Published on March 22, 2006 by Carl Herder

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