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Article: A tribute to Elfriede Jelinek: Jelinek taps at language to hear its hidden ideologies, much as a doctor might tap on a patients's chest. In her works, the dead return not to comfort but to bear witness.(Obituary)
- Article from:
- World Literature Today
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 University of Oklahoma. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHAT FIRST PERPLEXES when reading Elfriede Jelinek is the strange, mixed voice that speaks from her writing. The author is everywhere and nowhere, never quite standing behind her words, nor ever ceding to her literary figures in order to allow the illusion that they should exist outside her language. There is nothing but a stream of saturated sentences, seemingly welded together under high pressure and leaving no room for moments of relaxation.
Jelinek deliberately opens her work to the cliches that flood the news media, advertising, and popular culture--the collective subconscious of our time. She manipulates the codes of pulp literature, comics, soap operas, ...