Rein Gold E-Book

Elfriede Jelinek

• Herausgeber: Fitzcarraldo Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Originally written as a libretto for the Berlin State Opera, Elfriede Jelinek's Rein Gold reconstructs the events of Wagner's epic Ring cycle and extends them into the present day. Brünnhilde diagnoses Wotan, father of the gods, to be a victim of capitalism because he, too, has fallen into the trap of wanting to own a castle he cannot afford. In a series of monologues, Brünnhilde and Wotan chart the evolution of capitalism from the Nibelungen Saga to the 2008 financial crisis. Written with her trademark 'extraordinary linguistic zeal' (Swedish Academy), Rein Gold is a playful and ferocious critique of universal greed by the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.

Leseprobe

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‘In rein GOLD, Jelinek reimagines the characters of Brünnhilde and Wotan from Wagner’s Ring cycle and transposes them into the context of modernity. She delivers an impassioned exposé of the discontents of capitalism. Her musical thought is interwoven with myth, politics, and Wagnerian motifs. Gitta Honegger’s excellent translation allows us to experience the intense flow of her characters’ streams of conciousness entangled in greed and alienation.’

— Xiaolu Guo, author of A Lover’s Discourse

‘rein GOLD is a masterful, obsessional, hypnotic journey. Jelinek brings a sharp modernity and relevance to a series of inward wanderings. She is equal to a great myth and makes it new.’

— A.L. Kennedy, author of The Little Snake

‘Living legend Elfriede Jelinek’s rein GOLD, rhapsodically written from the maw of forlorn gods, echoes like an incensed dialogue-eulogy designed to fill the space soon left behind the eventual implosion of the twenty-first century’s bottomless appetite for capital, for absent love. “For what?” rein GOLD’s Brünnhilde asks and asks, trying out answers like mad masks, in search of something lost out here among us that even the gods cannot quite name, yet found as if alive here for all to feel – as in the masterworks of Bernhard’s Correction and Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H. – by the inimitable, majestically incensed end-visions of master Jelinek.’

— Blake Butler, author of Alice Knott

‘Jelinek’s work is brave, adventurous, witty, antagonistic and devastatingly right about the sorriness of human existence, and her contempt is expressed with surprising chirpiness: it’s a wild ride.’

— Guardian4

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REIN GOLD

ELFRIEDE JELINEK

Translated by GITTA HONEGGER

Contents

Title PageRein GoldNotes from the translatorAbout the AuthorCopyright

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Rein Gold

B: Brünnhilde

W: Wotan, the Wanderer