Elfriede Jelinek on Haider “the Redeemer”

It was only a matter of time before Elfriede Jelinek – Austria’s gift to the Nobel Prize Committee – – would weigh in on the death of Jörg Haider – Austria’s gift to neo-fascism.  You could say that Jelinek has had an unhealthy obesession with Haider for years.  Where will she find her inspiration now that he’s gone? Today Elfriede Jelinek finally published the  piece we have been waiting for, two weeks after Haider – drunk and speeding – crashed his VW Phaeton into a concrete barrier.

You can find Jelinek’s piece on Haider on her Hompage, in the Aktuelles sidebar.  It carries the title "Von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit" (From Eternity to Eternity). Jelinek never once mentions Haider by name; he appears as der Erlöser (the Redeemer)- no doubt Jelineks cynical response to the national outpouring of grief over Haider’s death. But she juxtaposes Haider the Redeemer with Haider the Erlkönig.after Goethe’s famous poem, which every German-speaking school child can recite by heart:

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.

He holds the boy in the crook of his arm
He holds him safe, he keeps him warm.

But while the Erlkönig is an omen of death in Goethe’s poem, Jelinek sees the Erlkönig as the doomed Haider – the Redeemer- whose young male lover and "disciple" calls him on his cell phone at the worst moment – precipitating the tragic accident.

"Sein Lieblingsjünger hat vielleicht mit seinem Klingeln, mit seinem
Rauschen den Dahinrasenden gestört, aufgeschreckt im Rasen, den
Altersjüngling, der sein Blut noch dazu eigens gedopt hat, für die
Schnelligkeit des Phaeton zurechtgemacht, wie es Sportler eben tun
müssen, um mithalten zu können, um siegen zu können. Jetzt hat er den
Erlöser aber gestört, der Lieblingsknabe, hat das
Erlösungswerk, dessen wichtiger Teil er doch war, dieser Jünger, hat
das Werk gestört und den Erlöser gleich mit zerstört. Der ist jetzt
kaputt." (His favorite disciple perhaps disturbed the speeding one with his ringing, his noise, putting shock in to the aging boy who had doped his own blood to accomodate the speed of the Phaeton, which true athletes must do in order to keep up, in order to triumph. But now the boy-lover had disturbed the Redeemer, had destroyed the work of redemption, of which the disciple was such a critical part, disturbed the great work along with destroying the Redeemer. He is now broken.")

(Note: Elfriede Jelinek expressly forbids quoting her texts, but the above fragment was published in the Berliner Zeitung).

It is interesting that Jelinek’s Haider piece appears the same day that Haider’s  party deputy – the "favorite disciple" – Lieblingsjünger – in Jelinek,  outed himself as Haider’s gay lover. But Austria is still deep in mourning for its lost Redeemer.