Lust (Paperback)
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Sport, capitalism, male penetrative sexuality, bourgeois consumerism, the family - are pilloried in between the ceaseless rapes, buggeries and other adventures. Extraordinarily well-written, with many brilliant turns of phrase, this remains in my mind as the most disturbing European novel I have read this year
In a quaint Austrian ski resort, things are not quite what they seem. Hermann, the manager of a paper mill, has decided that sexual gratification begins at home. Which means Gerti - his wife and property. Gerti is not asked how she feels about the use Hermann puts her to. She is a receptacle into which Hermann pours his juices, nastily, briefly, brutally. The long-suffering and battered Gerti thinks she has found her saviour and love in Michael, a student who rescues her after a day of vigorous use by her husband. But Michael is on his way up the Austrian political ladder, and he is, after all, a man.
Elfriede Jelinek
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