Serpent’s Tail Classics, £7.99 (280pp) from the Independent Bookshop: 08430 600 030
The Piano Teacher, By Elfriede Jelinek
Friday 29 October 2010
Latest in Reviews
Related stories
When this startling novel about sado-masochism, morbid voyeurism, self-harm and stifling maternal love was published in German in 1983, it divided responses, as so many of Jelinek's writings have done.
In 2004, a scandalised member of the Nobel Prize panel resigned over the decison to award it to the Austrian author for her "whining, unenjoyable, public pornography," as Razia Iqbal mentions in her introduction to this latest edition (translated by Joachim Neugroschel). Erika Kohut, a talented Viennese piano teacher with an overbearing mother, finds moments of empowerment only in perversion and self-violation. Filmed by Michael Haneke, the novel is eloquent, intelligent and deeply unsettling; the polar opposite of pornography.
- 1 Publishing: Rude bits in disguise
- 2 A dark day for goths (in a good way)
- 3 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (12A)
- 4 BANNED: The most controversial films
- 5 French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy calls for West to intervene in Syria
- 6 Spencer Tunick creates 'naked Dead Sea'
- 7 Free Range: Meet the designers of tomorrow
- 8 Win a limited edition Tracey Emin monoprint
- 9 The ten best: Bollywood movies
- 10 Cannes: Too much rain, too few women, but great movies
- 1 Mark Zuckerberg saved $111m by selling Facebook shares before stock slumped
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 Schoolboy spiked brownies with cannabis in cookery class
- 4 Police letter reveals St Paul’s cathedral involvement in Occupy eviction
- 5 Fat? Really? Olympic hope laughs off official’s jibe – but others aren’t amused
- 6 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 7 African monkey meat that could be behind the next HIV
- 8 Cameron aide's cosy chats with News Corp revealed
- 9 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
- 10 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Ridley Scott: The most macho man in movies?
Gallic gourmets put France back on culinary map
The outsider: Margaret Howell
For men only: A pilgrimage to Mount Athos
Feeding a hungry world – or meddling with laws of nature?


Comments