Imagen del autor

Gisela Elsner (1937–1992)

Autor de The Giant Dwarfs

18+ Obras 85 Miembros 2 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Obras de Gisela Elsner

The Giant Dwarfs (1965) 29 copias
Offside (1982) 19 copias
Die Zähmung. Roman. (1984) 5 copias
Heilig Blut Roman (2007) 5 copias
Das Berührungsverbot (1970) 5 copias
Das Windei : Roman (1987) 4 copias
Fliegeralarm (2009) 2 copias
Otto, der Großaktionär (2008) 2 copias
Der Punktsieg. Roman. (1977) 2 copias
Der Nachwuchs (1968) 2 copias
Al margen (1983) 2 copias
Die Zerreissprobe (1989) 1 copia

Obras relacionadas

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1937-05-02
Fecha de fallecimiento
1992-05-13
Género
female
Nacionalidad
Germany
Lugar de nacimiento
Nürnberg, Bayern, Deutschland
Lugar de fallecimiento
München, Bayern, Deutschland
Causa de fallecimiento
suicide
Lugares de residencia
Frankfurt, Germany
Rome, Italy
Paris, France
Educación
University of Vienna
Ocupaciones
freelance writer
novelist
Relaciones
Roehler, Klaus (spouse)
Platschek, Hans (spouse)
Roehler, Oskar (son)
Organizaciones
DKP
Group 47

Miembros

Reseñas

Das Windei (The wind-egg) was one of Elsner's last novels: it's a rather heavy-handed satire on the aspirations of West German capitalist consumer society. Heiner Wurbs, whom we first meet as a schoolboy in the 1940s, is the archetypal victim of the system, a man with the muscles of a Greek god who knows no way to measure his own worth except by acquiring real-estate, consumer goods and fashionable friends. His tragedy, of course, is that he isn't very good at it: he believes the propaganda, scrapes and saves and ruins his life to make mortgage payments, and is left with little but negative equity to show for it.

There are some very funny moments, and some sharp bits of satirical observation, like the TV interview in which a journalist tries to persuade the Bundeskanzler to explain exactly what the "self-correction mechanism of the free market" actually is, and the scene where a bankrupt businessman invites his friends to a last dinner in the old home but doesn't have anything but radishes and herb-tea to offer them. From time to time, you get a strong feeling that this was someone on very much the same wavelength as Günter Grass. However, Elsner doesn't seem to be able to step back far enough from her political agenda to give the book some perspective, and the result feels a bit clumsy. She is constantly hammering away at the same point, as Heiner fails as a home-owner, a landlord, an employee, an entrepreneur, a husband, an adulterer, a consultant, a son, and a keep-fit enthusiast.

Interesting, but probably not the book on which someone who was obviously a very interesting outsider should be judged as a writer.
… (más)
½
 
Denunciada
thorold | Sep 20, 2016 |
In ice hockey, an offside occurs when the puck crosses into the defensive zone of the opposing team before the attacker's skates have crossed the blue line that demarcates that zone. When this happens, the puck is returned to the neutral zone for a face-off.

Gisela Elsner may have known nothing of this, but offside is an apt title for her novel. Lilo Besslein, the main protagonist, is constantly getting ahead of herself in her skirmishes with her parents, her husband, and even her lover. Each time this happens, she must go back for a new face-off.

Lilo lived in the post war planned suburb of Lerchenau. By the 1980s, the time frame of this novel, the suburb had become reasonably desirable, while still maintaining the sterility of 1960s housing estates. She lived there in a seventy square metre apartment with her husband Ernst, a man married to convention, but too tight fisted to achieve even acceptable standards of dress and decor in an appealing way, something which Lilo would not forgive.

The reader first meets Lilo and Ernst on the day their first child is born. The new parents somehow feel defeated by this event. Nothing works out. Once discharged from the maternity hospital with her antidepressants, Lilo begins a slide that will take her into multiple addictions.

There is nothing happy in this novel, yet Elsner somehow manages a savage humour when writing of suburban despair and tedium; a degree of levity that sustains the reader for awhile. Ultimately though, this was like a cross between darkest Doris Lessing and a John Cassavettes film. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie with its interminable rides comes to mind. One of Lilo's displacement escapes was putting on her eye makeup. Even as a teenager who loved the stuff, I don't think I've ever read one and a half continuous pages describing this process. Lilo however repeats the ritual again and again in preparation for her next offside, for Lilo can never play the game in a relatively straightforward manner, the way everyone else in her suburb did.

When the novel reached its inevitable expected climax, I felt a huge sense of relief to have actually finished the book. At the same time, I felt shortchanged, for Elsner is an excellent writer. I would have been thrilled to discover her had the material been different.
… (más)
3 vota
Denunciada
SassyLassy | Jan 2, 2015 |

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Obras
18
También por
1
Miembros
85
Popularidad
#214,931
Valoración
½ 3.6
Reseñas
2
ISBNs
33
Idiomas
2

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