Wonderful, Wonderful Times Book

Suffering is for sissies, full blown hurting is order of the day!

"Anna despises two classes of people: first, those who own their own homes and have cars and families, and second, everybody else. Constantly she is on the verge of exploding." Pretty much sums up the tone of this novel.

The setting is post-war Austria, late 1950s. After signing a treaty, occupied forces had left Austria. Bourgeois war criminals have been forgiven and taken back the reins of Austria again. Past fascist crimes and skeletons are comfortably hidden in closets. Economic bloom.

Elfride Jelenik's 'Wondeful, Wonderful Times' explores a few weeks of four violent adolescents' activities. Novel starts with a violence, wherein these four youths attack and loot a complete stranger, out for walking in municipal park. The novel ends with an even more brutal violence. Rest of the fiction involves depicting darker sides of human beings. Compared to 'The Piano Teacher' and 'Lust', this novel has more characters, 7 to be precise. So, it naturally gives Ms. Jelenik more opportunities to explore filthy side of human beings in turmoil. And, she capitalized it wonderfully.

The foursome is a worthy enough sample to explore class structures and conflicts. One (Hans) is from an working class family rooted in socialism, two (Rainer & Anna) are from a petite bourgeois family, whose father is an ex-SS. Remaining one (Sophie) is from an aristocratic family, which made fortunes during war time, using forced laborers. While Hans and Sophie could elude the madness because of aspiration for economic ascent and assured financial foundation respectively, it is an irony that Rainer and Anna gradually degenerate into ashes.

Pessimism, Domestic abuse, Perversion, Misanthropism, Brutal crimes, Cowardice, Misunderstood Existentialism, Depression, House corners with piled up garbage, Dirt, Sweat, Hatred, Humiliation… About three fourth into the novel, paused a moment to wonder why was I reading this book. Do we really need these kind of books? Life is no fairy tale! And, life is not only of misery things either! However, not many dare to explore these dark areas. Of them, only a few can handle with surgeon like precision. Ms. Jelenik's impassive approach in this novel is really a rarity in fiction writing. Whereas 'A Clockwork Orange', Charles Bukawski's novels and other transgressive fictions sometimes tend to show crimes in glamorous light and tempt a reader into filthiness, Ms. Jelenik's characters at best emote only pity for them. You despise their acts, you despise their characters, but you never want to be one of them. Ms. Jelenik cleverly employs voices and mocking counter voices with a dry humor. Every other line makes you to laugh and cry at the same time.

Do not get misled by the title, it is about anything but of wonderful times.