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.