This book will challenge your perception of how a novel must read. Jelinek's style is uncommon and thus hard to digest in the way we've been conditioned. But her point seems to come across.
The story contains the tales of two young ladies in the Austrian Alps: Brigitte and Paula. They have similar backgrounds; working class families, destined to struggle throughout their lives with menial jobs for unskilled laborers, and subject to society's double standard regarding men and women's sexual activities. Both girls take differing approaches to getting a man, though both ultimately seek the same thing: security.
There is quite a bit of male bashing going on. In fact, all men in this book are self centered oafs, looking for nothing in life beyond their personal satisfaction. But the women portrayed here are not much better, as they lie and scheme and go to extreme lengths to get their men.
I wouldn't completely exclude a certain degree of cynicism on Jelinek's part, but most of her portrayal rings true, even though hers is a culture that differs from mine and I'm definitely no expert in the social habits of Austrian villagers. There are universal truths in the basic premise of the human species' male/female interaction that can be found even in the remotest parts of the world. There is one dominant and one subservient gender in most households, although we may kid ourselves into believing that in our home power is distributed evenly. The balance is usually upset to one side or the other. In less cosmopolitan settings, the physically stronger party will most often take the dominant role.
As cumbersome as Jelinek's writing can be - she uses no capitals (not even for proper names), there is much repetition for the sake of stressing a point, her basic grammatical structure deviates from what we've come to expect, and the narrative is overflowing with negativity - this book reads in a fairly easy manner and is not entirely unpleasant. That and my admiration for her craftiness should explain my willingness to rate Women as Lovers four stars.
Not a book for everyone, but most should give it a try.
Read from June 11 to 21, 2013
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