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er nicht als er
Her Not All Her is a play about, from, and to the great Swiss writer Robert Walser, by the great Austrian writer and Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek. It highlights what Jelinek calls ‘the fundamental fragmentation’ of Walser’s voice, revealing Walser as ‘one of those people who, when they said “I”, did not mean themselves’. Presented here in a prize-winning translation by Damion Searls, it shows Jelinek to be an impassioned virtuoso reader of classic European writers.The cahier contains an essay by the Director of the Robert Walser Centre, Reto Sorg, and thirteen paintings by the British artist Thomas Newbolt.
48 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1998
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About the author
Elfriede Jelinek
162 books1,137 followersElfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist, best known for her novel, The Piano Teacher.
She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."
She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 28, 2014
My feature piece on Walser and Jelinek published in The Quarterly Conversation: http://quarterlyconversation.com/walk...
April 28, 2022
Leuk boekje, de dvd was veel interessanter.
March 13, 2016
I recommend you read a review by someone familiar with the work of Robert Walser (the subject of this short play). That's what I'd do. I prefer a well-informed perspective, but for such a short work, really couldn't be bothered with any prep.
Only 11 1/2 pages of dense text on pages around the size of a hardback novel's, this seems the sort of play that would be on in a a theatre's smallest studio, audience seated on tiered benches amphitheatre-style around a plain stage, actors (actors? reciters?) in all black speaking non-sequiturish lines. a) a sort of thing I kind of enjoy in small doses for the feeling of having my thoughts dragged in many odd different directions, but also b) Pseud's Corner type stuff. As I read I always heard the cold echoes and mannered speech of theatre, swish of jazz-shoes on floor in the silence.
There are no stage directions or designations of who's speaking. Only the first words, italics: A number of people to each other, all very friendly and well-behaved (perhaps lying in bathtubs, as was once the custom in mental hospitals) And then follows words set out as a monologue, which at times addresses a "you". The monologue is essentially by Walser, spoken by these random people who are the voices he heard in his head. Though at times somewhat abstract and rambling, the monologue is essentially more coherent than you may expect. The "you" is sometimes Jelinek. From the afterword: the German title, literally He Not As He formed out of the sounds of Walser's name, announces Jelinek's fundamental concerns: this is to be a text on and with Walser, in which he appears, but not as himself...a polyphonic language-cloud in which Jelinek's own voice(s) cut across, overlay, multiply, dissolve, and counteract Walser's. I'm entirely sure that if you'd read Walser, you'd hear his own prose and ideas mirrored at various points. As it was, I found this quite an interesting short read but couldn't really connect with it personally or relate it to many other things.
It probably also doesn't help that I've only read one other thing by Jelinek - and in the years since I've worked out that the author wanted a particular interpretation (the afterword says for English-language readers, probably familiar with Jelinek's reputation as a strident feminist rather than through her work as a playwright or her engagement with writers of the past, the whole project may come as something of a shock). The Piano Teacher was not the easiest novel with which to start attending a new book group entirely made up of girls rather more conventional and conservative than I was - that already set me up to be judgemental of their judgementalism of the book, and not of the characters. (Within a few months I found a better book group.) Besides which, (given that the Piano Teacher's female protagonist is a self-harmer who's also sexually submissive) as I was fresh out of a relationship with a man who cut himself, and I had/have a strong intellectual belief in the 'your kink is okay' principle, I was just about the least likely person to come to the intended conclusions. (I recall also having great sympathy with the character regarding her difficult mother.) As far as I was concerned the main character was simply an individual who responded in particular ways, wasn't exactly happy but appeared engaged in some perfectly valid process of exploring things and trying to shake off aspects of her past - one person, not any kind of socio-political symbol. I was interested to read Jelinek again with a work that was very unlikely to spark repetitive ideological conflict, just to see her write. Her Not All Her (a title chosen for its sound, the al-er in Walser - the play is about Walser, not about a woman, except, as noted in that useful afterword, the title in English translation ... adds another layer: the text comprises the words of Jelinek but not only of her, of Walser, of the translator) had a similar effect to those budget avant-garde plays: it does temporarily drag my thoughts hither and thither in odd directions, an interesting experience for a while, but nothing especially leaves me wanting more. (However I am very impressed that she has translated both Wilde and Pynchon.)
More memorable for me were the visual aspects of the book. It's part of a series called Cahiers. Under the laid-paper dustjacket, it is in fact a cahier, a plain soft card cover just like a school exercise book, in that slightly lurid but not-quite-lime mid-green. (I'm still trying to remember what subjects we used this shade for.) No staples though, it's bound with two long expanses of dark green thread. So fragile - poor old library copies. And the text is only on the right-hand pages. The left features a series of paintings of faces by an unfamiliar artist, Thomas Newbolt, which I thought of as vaguely post-impressionist (very much not a fan of this style), messy and ugly, although there was something profound about the eyes; I didn't want to look at the pictures any longer than I had to. Then, nearly the last thing in this book? pamphlet?, 'A note on the images'. You could say he found them in the dark. Most of them are done when there's no light left. He describes the struggle when the conscious intention is dull, the painting gets into an unconscious area and is in danger of getting lost, that's when he will do anything to save it. When the light fades, Newbolt knows exactly where each colour is, moving like a machine at dusk... putting the paint down where he thinks the nose is, because he can't really see. Talking about the series, Newbolt has said that 'the face must contain the possibility of happiness and unhappiness, thought and not-thought'.... Lucian Freud [said that] in the intervening half century he had realised that painting was all about paint... [Newbolt's] paintings are all about oil paint, and the discoveries that can be made with it. The series is called Heads and a few of them are here. After reading that note, the paintings somehow looked entirely different, fascinating and incredibly affecting, so much I could feel it physically. This little experience of dismissiveness, then empathy being woken up was, one way and another, more memorable than anything I got from the text.
Only 11 1/2 pages of dense text on pages around the size of a hardback novel's, this seems the sort of play that would be on in a a theatre's smallest studio, audience seated on tiered benches amphitheatre-style around a plain stage, actors (actors? reciters?) in all black speaking non-sequiturish lines. a) a sort of thing I kind of enjoy in small doses for the feeling of having my thoughts dragged in many odd different directions, but also b) Pseud's Corner type stuff. As I read I always heard the cold echoes and mannered speech of theatre, swish of jazz-shoes on floor in the silence.
There are no stage directions or designations of who's speaking. Only the first words, italics: A number of people to each other, all very friendly and well-behaved (perhaps lying in bathtubs, as was once the custom in mental hospitals) And then follows words set out as a monologue, which at times addresses a "you". The monologue is essentially by Walser, spoken by these random people who are the voices he heard in his head. Though at times somewhat abstract and rambling, the monologue is essentially more coherent than you may expect. The "you" is sometimes Jelinek. From the afterword: the German title, literally He Not As He formed out of the sounds of Walser's name, announces Jelinek's fundamental concerns: this is to be a text on and with Walser, in which he appears, but not as himself...a polyphonic language-cloud in which Jelinek's own voice(s) cut across, overlay, multiply, dissolve, and counteract Walser's. I'm entirely sure that if you'd read Walser, you'd hear his own prose and ideas mirrored at various points. As it was, I found this quite an interesting short read but couldn't really connect with it personally or relate it to many other things.
It probably also doesn't help that I've only read one other thing by Jelinek - and in the years since I've worked out that the author wanted a particular interpretation (the afterword says for English-language readers, probably familiar with Jelinek's reputation as a strident feminist rather than through her work as a playwright or her engagement with writers of the past, the whole project may come as something of a shock). The Piano Teacher was not the easiest novel with which to start attending a new book group entirely made up of girls rather more conventional and conservative than I was - that already set me up to be judgemental of their judgementalism of the book, and not of the characters. (Within a few months I found a better book group.) Besides which, (given that the Piano Teacher's female protagonist is a self-harmer who's also sexually submissive) as I was fresh out of a relationship with a man who cut himself, and I had/have a strong intellectual belief in the 'your kink is okay' principle, I was just about the least likely person to come to the intended conclusions. (I recall also having great sympathy with the character regarding her difficult mother.) As far as I was concerned the main character was simply an individual who responded in particular ways, wasn't exactly happy but appeared engaged in some perfectly valid process of exploring things and trying to shake off aspects of her past - one person, not any kind of socio-political symbol. I was interested to read Jelinek again with a work that was very unlikely to spark repetitive ideological conflict, just to see her write. Her Not All Her (a title chosen for its sound, the al-er in Walser - the play is about Walser, not about a woman, except, as noted in that useful afterword, the title in English translation ... adds another layer: the text comprises the words of Jelinek but not only of her, of Walser, of the translator) had a similar effect to those budget avant-garde plays: it does temporarily drag my thoughts hither and thither in odd directions, an interesting experience for a while, but nothing especially leaves me wanting more. (However I am very impressed that she has translated both Wilde and Pynchon.)
More memorable for me were the visual aspects of the book. It's part of a series called Cahiers. Under the laid-paper dustjacket, it is in fact a cahier, a plain soft card cover just like a school exercise book, in that slightly lurid but not-quite-lime mid-green. (I'm still trying to remember what subjects we used this shade for.) No staples though, it's bound with two long expanses of dark green thread. So fragile - poor old library copies. And the text is only on the right-hand pages. The left features a series of paintings of faces by an unfamiliar artist, Thomas Newbolt, which I thought of as vaguely post-impressionist (very much not a fan of this style), messy and ugly, although there was something profound about the eyes; I didn't want to look at the pictures any longer than I had to. Then, nearly the last thing in this book? pamphlet?, 'A note on the images'. You could say he found them in the dark. Most of them are done when there's no light left. He describes the struggle when the conscious intention is dull, the painting gets into an unconscious area and is in danger of getting lost, that's when he will do anything to save it. When the light fades, Newbolt knows exactly where each colour is, moving like a machine at dusk... putting the paint down where he thinks the nose is, because he can't really see. Talking about the series, Newbolt has said that 'the face must contain the possibility of happiness and unhappiness, thought and not-thought'.... Lucian Freud [said that] in the intervening half century he had realised that painting was all about paint... [Newbolt's] paintings are all about oil paint, and the discoveries that can be made with it. The series is called Heads and a few of them are here. After reading that note, the paintings somehow looked entirely different, fascinating and incredibly affecting, so much I could feel it physically. This little experience of dismissiveness, then empathy being woken up was, one way and another, more memorable than anything I got from the text.
January 21, 2021
Nefis bir metin. Jelinek'in romanlarına da kesinlikle bakmalıyım dedirtti. Kendisi Nobelli zaten ama nedense pek tanınmıyor. Üslup ustası bence. NOD'un 333 adet basılmış ve numaralandırılmış bookletlerinden biriydi, fikir de içerikle uyumlu, aşırı kaliteli.
February 5, 2015
Rob-er-t nicht als Wals-er, er nicht als er.
Fuge. Unfug-e
Zwölf Variationen über die Unbehausheit eines Dichters. (in der Sprache?)
"Das Chaos beginnt, und die Ordnungen verschwinden." E. Jelinek
İch bin wiederspenstig
İch bin nicht in mir zu Hause!
Und es ist mir sogar egal, wo ich sonst sein konnte. Vielleicht lebe ich woanders fleissig fort bis zu meinem Tode.
Fuge. Unfug-e
Zwölf Variationen über die Unbehausheit eines Dichters. (in der Sprache?)
"Das Chaos beginnt, und die Ordnungen verschwinden." E. Jelinek
İch bin wiederspenstig
İch bin nicht in mir zu Hause!
Und es ist mir sogar egal, wo ich sonst sein konnte. Vielleicht lebe ich woanders fleissig fort bis zu meinem Tode.
January 26, 2025
Doch was bewirkt die Sprache? Sie ist so wenig wert wie das Leben selbst, denn sie ist das Leben selbst
Read
May 25, 2025„Mühsam sucht der Erschütterte seine Besinnung aufrechtzuhalten; es gelingt ihm. Später spaziert er vertrauensvoll weiter.“
October 10, 2025
Rating: 3,4 / 5
May 17, 2013
This is an outstanding translation. Damion Searls does some amazing things with a very difficult text, starting with the genius title solution. A beautiful edition with artworks by Thomas Newbolt and an accompanying afterword by the director of the Robert Walser Centre.
Without the afterword, I wouldn't have understood anything. With it, my second reading was a little more coherent. I shall have to read it a few more times though. I think it's about Robert Walser and the phenomenon of Walserification, which Reto Sorg addresses. But it could also be about a lot of other things. Certainly it has more confusion to offer than the other examples Walser tribute writing I've come across.
Without the afterword, I wouldn't have understood anything. With it, my second reading was a little more coherent. I shall have to read it a few more times though. I think it's about Robert Walser and the phenomenon of Walserification, which Reto Sorg addresses. But it could also be about a lot of other things. Certainly it has more confusion to offer than the other examples Walser tribute writing I've come across.
March 24, 2014
Perhaps it's unfair of me, but this one loses a star because it's a play and I can't really wrap my head around how it would be performed.
March 30, 2016
A beautiful and terrible portrait of madness
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews