Women as lovers - Elfriede Jelinek

A book

Last year i found this book in a bookshop in a corner of Prenzlauer berg. It cought my eye cause i watched the "the piano teacher", and that was weird, and i like weird. she won the literature novel, also the title is catchy.

Am just gonna paste some quotes here of my favorite moments

Brigitte also hates heinz among other things, because he always lets a physical feeling for brigitte rise, just when gitti would like to talk about her emotional problems, which involve a little house with a garden. whenever brigitte wants to turn her innermost to the outside and spew out all the crap about happiness, future, baby care and washing machines, then heinz acts as if he didnt have a brain, but only a cock. (p.62)

You ve got yourself completely dirty, says susi in a friendly way, she is quite indifferent to brigitte. as far as susi is concerned it doesnt matter if b exist or not. brigitte's existence does not affect susi's life in any way. susi is very nice to brigitte, because it doesnt cost anything, and brigitte can take anything from her, not even her cooking skills. Brigitte however hates everything about susi. susi's existence is a constant threat. if heinz is once shown something better, he may possibly then also want to own it. NO! (p.78)

And erich the happy father, will spend every free minute with the mother and child, will spend every free minute looking after his young wife, give up alcohol, no longer hate everybody, not fritter away any money any more and so forth. paula intends to open her whole overburdened heart to her momma. the reason: her momma has herself been several times a momma and consequently understands her condition, which paula is in. she even understands this condition better than a man, who can always only be a daddy and has nothing more to do with all that shit, that's women business. paula tells women's business to a woman, that is her momma, who is a woman. (...) paula's momma has often enough hated her husband because of the children in her stomach, because of the extra work and the horrible birth process, had also very many times hated the children inside her stomach and later the children outside her stomach, now momma has finally cracked, so that not only does she hates a child outside her stomach in her daughter's stomach, but the daughter as well (p.114).

Paula suffers so much, she almost goes mad. she thinks that her mind is running away out of every orifice, out of every orifice a little bit of mind, until it's empty. she runs her poor head against the wall again and again, her good parents are happy, that they can save themselves the bother of more thrashing, paula is taking care of it herself, well done. there is no female solidarity to be expected from her mother. if she has to croak because of cancer, then paula can at least suffer a little in her head, which is much less serious than the physical pain, which mummy will shortly be facing. her father says now you can go on with the dressmaking, so that you can support your child (p.124).

the two of them go to the old barn, it doesn¡t matter now anyway. paula has already endured so much, this is a proper holiday by comparison. at least she can lie quietly on her back and rest. a flock of birds flies over the mow field into the forest, one behind the other, autumn will soon be here. you can expect description of nature here for your money as well! this isn't the cinema after all. paula lies very quietly and peacefully on her back. she has a section of the hard-worked back of erich, who is fumbling about with her there, in sight, but she can rest a little too and look up at the blue sky, it's already getting cold, soon the first snow clouds will appear. a mist is rising from the ground, the forest turns into a wall, the pale trunks disappear in the darkness. nature for a human being, it is an elemental force. is that not a little deer over there? the evening news will soon begin on television! at last paula can rest a little and perhaps still bind erich to her. one can forget the slight pain of it, there are worse pains, which paula could name. love is lesser pain in the hierarchy of pain. then, as erich rises from her stomach unbound, unimpressed, wipes himself and stows it away again, buttons himself up, a hope falls away from paula again down into the rotting straw. but if one has at lost hope, one has at least been able to rest. lying down is good for the baby too.(...) there is not the least love in paula, if there is something in paula, then it's hate, which grows and grows. these feelings didn't enter her of their own accord, some people had to work hard for it (p.127).

some thoughts

There are basically two couples, which due to the similarities are very difficult to keep apart for i will say the first half of the book, they are described very mixed also. the quotes i picked are very good examples of daily inequalities, i think i like the book because first its from a woman's perspective, and second because its very raw. I like particularly the example of "female solidarity" gone wrong and also the way love and hate are portrayed, I think this painful love that she uses to describe sex (rape actually), goes very much together with the whole bunch of "romantic references" where love is supposed to hurt, still the result of these interaction is not love but hate, i find that very powerful. hate somehow is a controllable feeling, it keeps you at peace(or pace?) with things, you know its not love, thus you can remain focus on what you have to do.