SOURCE: Atzert, Stephan. Review of Gier: Ein Unterhaltungroman Elfriede Jelinek, by Elfriede Jelinek. World Literature Today 76, no. 1 (winter 2002): 184.

In the following positive review of Gier, Atzert calls Jelinek “one of the few established and interesting authors in the German-writing world.”

In nine numbered but untitled sections [in Gier], Elfriede Jelinek tells a story of violence, set in rural Austria. The police officer Kurt Janisch is interested in women and houses. His wife watches TV serials in their home, while the elderly original owner slowly disintegrates psychologically, uncared for in her upstairs flat. By means of the power he yields as a police officer, Janisch identifies, courts, and soon abuses Gerti, a middle-aged homeowner, with a view toward obtaining her villa. While Gerti is caught up in her hopeless dependency on him, Janisch maintains sexual relations with Gabi, an underage teenager. At the end of the book Gabi and...