Women as Lovers

This is a short, compact, stinging book about two women and their love lives in post-World War II Austria. Brigitte and Paula work in an underwear factory and are subjugated to brutish men. Brigitte is obsessed with an unhealthy love for Heinz, who is only gotten with a sneaky pregnancy, and Paula is attached to the drunken and abusive Erich. One of the women ends the novel in a safe and status quo position, and the other simply loses everything. The two women are drawn with the deftest characterization; we only know of their seemingly pathetic desires and their sad rationalizations for how they go about achieving them. There is no spark of life or happiness here; once one of the women finds joy near the end it is but a false construct in an unsatisfying life. Jelinek is known for her heavy books filled with the bleakest themes, but there is a masterful use of metaphor here, and a strong statement about misogyny in general that sheds a light on an issue that only she recognizes in this way. Women have forfeited joy and freedom to barter for a mundane-at-best life with thuggish men because they feel that's all they are good for. That's the way Jelinek sees it, anyways. Another intriguing aspect of the book is its essential lack of structure; the text is a grouping of staccato, matter-of-fact sentences that present everything as-is without the slightest trace of description or embellishment. Jelinek is a rare and thought-provoking writer who deserves more recognition.

To you out there, who perchance have never lived in smaller towns or villages of Europe (though I would dare to say that situation described here is pretty much the same everywhere), the world described in this novel of Elfriede Jelinek may feel awfull strange. Allmost impossible. We live and grow in "advanced" civilisation, we educate ourselves, attend to schools, feel free to question world around us and finaly, we refuse to be bound by that same world more than is necessary (or yet we perceive it that way). But believe it or not, in the same planet that we ourselves live in, there exist not so small community of Elfriede Jelinek's characters from this book. There is a world without "prospect", with a church in the center of town, and one factory, owner of which is like a modern day dictator...as I write this down, it reminds me a lot of Simpson's Springfield. But without loveable characters, without joy of life, with only bare reality that is left and which we must satisfy ourselves with. In their quest for identity, for happinnes, Jelinek's characters conduct themselves in a narrow world, trying to become queens in a small world, which, in a brilliant irony, does not care for queens at all. Only kings play their role which must be fulfilled and never questioned. To question would mean that one denies tradition and that one feels himself above the rest. As you may guess, that will not be allowed. This is the first book of Elfriede Jelinek and in many things it stands for what shall later be known as her own writing style. That peculiar dark grey colouring of the world outside just starts to shape itself here, but her narrative discourse still doesn't concern itself with principles of relation man-woman in a magnitude that it does in later work. This is very good book, one which shall introduce you to universe where only rare individulas would like to dwell. If you are already introduced, it will do you good to remind yourself...

I HAD to add this in reaction to the published review. It might be hard for Americans to admit that all the depicted hopelessness, sexism and pointlessness exists in relationships, not only in Austria. We WISH it wouldn't, but it does. And the fact, that we have such a hard time admitting it is all the more reason for this book exist and be read.I have come across the very same relationship patterns in the U.S., it's just the way this culture deals with it, that makes it hard for writers like Elfriede Jelinek to get the appreciation they deservre.

2 frauen. eine fabriksarbeiterin, eine die schneiderin lernt. eine will einen mann und ein kind haben um zu haben, die andere will mann und kind haben um dabei ihr glück zu finden. beiden ist gemeinsam, daß sie sich nicht vorstellen können, ohne mann und kind glücklich zu werden, ohne mann und kind als frau wertvoll zu sein, ja, ohne mann und kind überhaupt leben zu können. die sprache ist, dem milieu der hauptpersonen angepaßt, einfach. die geschichte authentisch, mitnehmend. die hoffnungslosigkeit der hauptpersonen überzeugend. die hauptpersonen sind aber keine heldinnen, sie sind nicht einmal persönlichkeiten. sie sind klischees. und als solche werden sie von jelinek ohne gnade behandelt. das ist es denn auch, was abgeht: ein bißchen menschlichkeit, ein bißchen mitgefühl. ein etwas weniger hartes urteil über diese "klischees" die menschen sind. und damit auch ein recht darauf haben, als solche behandelt zu werden. denn schlußendlich fällt jelinek mit diesem buch zwar ein urteil über die gesellschaft, die dieses milieu geschaffen hat, aber ebenso über die menschen, die diesem milieu angehören. ein auf jeden fall lesenswertes buch, das nachdenklich macht. aber als "statement" eines, mit dem ich persönlich nicht ganz einverstanden bin.