The trajectory o f the intertext begins with the identification o f the explicitly pornographic female authorial and narrative voice and ends with the autobiographical Erika/Elfriede game, via a quasi-psychoanalytical configuring o f its subjects. The pornographic intertext is the predom inant one, in the sense o f being the prim ary m edium for the expression o f sexual desire and fantasy in its various m anifestations. Its status as intertext is, though, conditional on those other intertexts through which it is articulated. Thus, whilst the text confronts and plays with the whole spectrum o f typically pornographic images and language, these are not translated into vehicles for titillation as such, because o f the way in which they are framed in other discourses. During the course o f the following discussion, 1 shall explore how a reader m ight respond dialectically to a pornographic intertext that constantly both confirm s and rejects its own stated desire, and show how it is a pattern that we can perhaps use as a m etaphor for understanding the complex processes o f subjugation to and appropriation o f an intertextual text.
The pornography debate
Jelinek’s work has often been described by critics as pornographic in nature, both generally and in discussion o f particular explicit scenes in her texts. It would seem pertinent, given this, to begin with a clearer idea o f the margins that serve to define what pornography actually is. As the significant volume o f literature written on the subject would confirm, the huge pornography industry has generated m uch academ ic debate, particularly on the fem inist circuit. This debate seems to have been characterised predom inantly by heavily value-laden and correspondingly fraught interpretations o f pornography and the issues surrounding it, in the face o f its principal defining quality, namely its non-reflexive address to its intended audience. I am therefore immediately
cautious about my own use o f the term in a literary context and especially concerned to analyse more precisely the point at which a text could be thought to become pornographic in nature. The question o f what makes a text pornographic, or w hat makes any m aterial pornographic, relates first and forem ost to w hether it succeeds in sexually arousing its audience. Som ething is pornographic not so much by virtue o f the m aterial itself as o f the context in which it is placed; in other words by reason o f various factors such as how it is produced, how and by whom and in what situation it is used, and finally the special codes that surround it, by which I m ean the social inscriptions that it bears. The fact that its prim ary purpose is to excite physically places it in a - problem atic - social category o f its own, since the state o f arousal is an ‘unspeakable’ one. The term ‘pornographic’ is value-laden insofar as it is not, unlike, say, erotica, imbued with universal (and thus we assume ‘acceptable’) aesthetic associations. It seem s that we disassociate museum s o f erotic art from the concept o f pornography by placing explicit material in a public, collective sphere, and publish explicit art in books under titles like Erotica Universalis.^'^ By contrast, pornography’s traditional environm ent is underground, secret, out o f reach, and individual (think o f the tiny entrances to peepshows, think o f the magazines stored under the bed, or above our heads, alm ost out o f sight, in the newsagent), its traditional function sexual self gratification. To a certain extent, explicit sexual m aterial becomes pornographic if we receive it as such: we confer that status upon it. This basic fact is som ething that m ust o f course be central to an understanding o f the pornographic image and its function, and yet often is not really addressed in studies.
The comm on basis for a feminist critique o f pornography is the notion that the heterosexual pornographic subject is alm ost without exception fem ale and perform s for a m ale gaze. M any feminists have been concerned by the apparent ease with which
pornography is digested in its various forms, and have argued that its presence sustains a basic inequality between the sexes. They claim that pornography can never be justified, not even in its lightest, m ost ‘harm less’ forms, simply because it represents the face o f an inherently unequal sexuality. This is because the objectification o f the female subject arising both out o f the performance and the expectation that the view er will be male and therefore, presumably, both looking at and placing him self as subject into the picture, confirms and enforces traditional patterns o f power. These theoretical claims are supported by a num ber o f studies which have been conducted into the pornography industry and which confirm that wom en in the industry are oppressed on the basis o f gender. Catherine Itzin suggests that pornography depends on w om en’s and children’s subordinate econom ic status, exploiting the poorest and m ost vulnerable m em bers o f society who are often victim s o f child abuse or have been subject to race discrimination.^^ This seems to me to be an appropriate critique o f the practical structure o f the pornography industry, for there is overwhelm ing evidence to suggest that whilst the female pom stars, the ‘big nam es’, might comm and high salaries and good, safe working conditions, the m ajority o f women working in the industry have very few rights, are poorly paid, and are often subject to various levels o f abuse.
In term s o f w hat pornography actually represents, we do not, I think, have to go as far as radical feminists such as Andrea Dworkin, who m akes overarching claims about pornography’s role in the universal oppression o f W oman, to m ake the observation that pornography as fantasy is not innocent o f the power imbalance betw een the sexes.^^ We m ight look to these fantasies and ask ourselves why the fairly staple diet o f sexual dom inance and subservience to be found in pornography is such a potent part o f the sexual imaginings o f both genders. Fantasy is often deeply conservative, an act o f
C atherine Itzin, ‘Pornography and the S ocial Construction o f Sexual In eq u ality’, in P o rn o g r a p h y : W omen, V iolence a n d C iv il L ib e rtie s , ed. by C atherine Itzin (O xford: O xford U n iv ersity P ress, 1 992), pp. 5 7 -7 5 .
‘im agination’ that re-enacts (and thus is totally dependent on) existent sexual discourses. This is where we can really approach the com plex and urgent issue o f the
response to what is shown, as something that is both highly physical and at the same tim e absolutely dependent on the significations surrounding a sexual act and the gendered body itself. W hilst pornography speaks to the body, it also relies on the view er (or reader) being able to sustain the fiction o f what is being shown and to summ on the ‘correct’ response. W hat is being shown is, generally, a limited num ber o f repetitive acts or shots: the viewer m ust suspend the knowledge o f the reality o f the production and be able to enter fully into its excessive, repetitive representational mode. This is undoubtedly a m ore com plex experience for women: besides the intellectual knowledge that the pornography m arket has always been and continues to be driven by male interests, the fictions them selves and the way that these are shown by the camera obviously reflect this interest. From an industrial perspective, wom en are faced with a literal and m etaphorical male gaze, making it more difficult to identify with that gaze, even if what they see might still arouse. W hether there will ever be a ‘pornography for w om en’ is doubtful. The fact that lesbian pom has been co-opted by the male heterosexual m arket (so-called ‘girl-girl’ scenes have become an intrinsic part o f porn m ovies over the last decade) demonstrates how the discourse o f pornography is constructed and read: the pornographic subject is principally female, perform ing for and objectified by a male gaze. Gay pom, by contrast, is a niche market, because only queer m en are allowed to be interested in queer sex. Laurence O ’Toole, whose text
Pornocopia (as the title m ight suggest) attempts to rehabilitate the pom ography industry as a valid form o f entertainm ent - for wom en as for men - is o f course anxious to suggest that w om en’s situation is improving, and uses the ‘girl-girl’ scene as an example. He says that ‘[wjhat was damned for so long as being particularly reprehensible, especially exploitative o f women, has turned into a key site, or sign o f
porn w om en’s growing power. [...] [M]any women spend a long tim e while working in the business ‘doing’ only other wom en prior to their first on-stage screw with a m an.’^^ As an argum ent in support o f the emancipation o f women in the industry, this could not be less convincing. O ’Toole uses as the basis o f his argum ent m aterial collated in interviews with performers and internet pom users. W hilst his text affords an interesting glim pse o f the world o f pom ography, its thesis seems to be that desire and fantasy share universal characteristics across the board, and that therefore it is only a m atter o f tim e before women are full participants in the creation o f the discourse o f pom ography, as happy, self-determ ined female actors, as directors, and as viewers. It seem s to me though that established pom ographic codes fundam entally depend on the view er being able to enter into certain fantasies that are always already strictly delineated along gender lines, and it is clear that these fantasies are structured around the wom an as object o f the male. As she is (fictionally) already both desired and desiring, and therefore as it were colluding in the male fantasy, it is difficult to imagine how either fem ale actors or viewers m ight effect change in these coded representations on which pornography relies.
Quoting porn: pornographic iconography in D ie K lavierspielerin
I have tried, in this brief account, to address some o f the w ell-known debates around the pom ography industry, as well as to attem pt a definition o f it, as a way o f approaching a text that seems to encourage the use o f the term. The publicity shots for Die K lavierspielerin depict the author in full bondage, inviting the ‘view er’ to look and to enter into the text. Once there, the reader is rewarded with peep-shows, accom panies Erika on a nightly excursion to the Prater to watch copulating couples, is party to her s/m fantasies, and finally witnesses her rape. The text offers, in short, a good range o f
L aurence O ’T o o le, P o rn o c o p ia : P orn, Sex, T ec h n o lo g y a n d D e s ir e (London: Serpent’s T ail, 1 9 9 8 ), p. 195.
staple pom ographic images. However, as I have discussed at length, the text is exceptionally self-conscious, and the narrative voice m ilitates against our identification with w hat is shown. M y aim, in the following analysis, is to inquire into the nature o f the relationship betw een the pom ographic codes o f the narrative and the self-reflecting narrative mode. I w ant to ask also whether and if so how Jelinek, as a female author writing into a traditional male territory in language, accords any transform ational quality to the pom ographic elem ents by m eans o f which the narrative proceeds.
I w ould contend that Jelinek’s own gender does contribute a particular focus to a text like Die Klavierspielerin, even if only because it destabilises reader expectations. The production o f pom ography, like the product itself, is gendered, and even though Jelinek in principle refuses the label o f woman writer, she is well aware o f the fact that her texts invite a scandalised response at least partly because o f her gender. Discussing the P rater
scene in an interview, for example, she remarks: ‘[d]as ist ein M oment, der ziem lich schokierend ist fur die meisten Leser, weil daft eine Frau sowas tut ist schon mal schlimm genug und daft eine Frau sowas beschreibt ist nochmal ein bissel schlim m er.’^* She is also highly conscious o f the way in which a pornographic discourse is marked as m asculine. In an interview with M argarete Lam b-Faffelberger, discussing her later novel Lust, she com m ents on the supposed failure o f her objective to create a pom ography for wom en by women:
Es w ar nur eine vage Idee, einen G egenentw urf zur G eschichte des A uges von B ataille schreiben zu wollen. D ann habe ich im Laufe des Schreibens eben diese Strukturen bem erkt: daB es nicht m oglich ist, in derselben W eise wie ein M ann über die Lust der Frau und die Lust des M annes zu schreiben, sondem eben nur aus einer anderen Perspektive, aus der Perspektive des O pfers heraus. AnschlieBend habe ich gesagt, es ist m ir miBglUckt, weil es miBglücken muBte, die Frau als Subjekt ihrer Lust und als Subjekt des Schreibens über die Lust darzustellen. Das ist m ir miBlungen, aber es ist m ir nicht personlich miBlungen, sondem es muB so ein Versuch je d e r Frau miBlingen.^^
‘R eg in a Friedrich und H orst Tim Lehner unterhalten sich m it E lfriede Jelin ek über den R om an D ie K la v ie r s p ie le r in ’, S D R 2, 2 2 July 1983.
M argarete L am b-F affelb erger, ‘In terview m it E lfriede Jelin ek ’, in M argarete L am b-F affelb erger, Valie E x p o rt u n d E lfrie d e J e lin e k im S p ie g e l d e r P re sse : z u r R e ze p tio n d e r fe m in is tis c h e n A v a n tg a rd e
Since both the language and the perspective o f pom ography are male, according to Jelinek, as a female author she is outside its structures and incapable o f realigning them. Yet the fundamental incom patibility she perceives is precisely the source o f the parodie force o f her writing, as Allyson Fiddler has dem onstrated in an article com paring Lust
with the text that inspired it, Georges B ataille’s ‘Histoire de l’O eil’. Fiddler’s detailed analysis o f the narrative voice allows her to conclude that ‘in L ust the sex is m ediated and comm ented upon by the narrator, in ‘Geschichte des A uges’ the narrator merges into and endorses the pom ographic s c e n a r i o .U l r i c h Struve, similarly, points to this lack o f narratorial endorsem ent in a text whose ‘camouflage as a pornographic book enables the attack on reader expectations and the subversion o f the genre: what pornography promises unceasingly, Lust, is [...] strikingly absent in the text.’^’ Struve quotes the narrator’s comment, ‘[hjaben Sie noch imm er Lust zu lesen und zu leben? Nein? N a also’ {Lust, 70), in support o f his assertion that the central (desired) effect o f the text is ‘disrupting pleasures (o f textual consum ption).’ (105) These analyses can, I think, be applied equally to the pom ographic pattem ings o f Die Klavierspielerin, whose particular characteristic m akes o f it neither a ‘miGlungenen P o m o ’ nor, exactly, a ‘weiblichen anti-Porno’ (both descriptions employed variously by the press). Jelinek does not adopt a pom ographic discourse uncritically, but rather inhabits it and m imics its structures and codes. W hat I am therefore concerned with is to explore how the m im icking narrative avoids a perpetuation or reinforcem ent o f certain discourses. I shall contend that it does, convincingly, transform the pom ographic discourse into something self-reflexive and therefore self-critical, and that it does so by placing the reader in a particular uneasy relationship to the imagery. I would like to reiterate, in this context, how the reader is held in thrall to a quotational narrative voice that at the same time
A lly so n Fiddler, ‘P rob lem s w ith Porn; Situating E lfried e Jelin ek ’s L u s f , G e rm a n L ife a n d L etters, 44 (1 9 9 0 -1 ), 4 0 4 -1 5 (p. 4 1 3 ).
U lrich Struve, “ ‘D en o u n cin g the Pornographic Su bject” : T he A m erican and G erm an Pornography D eb ate in E lfriede J elin ek ’s L u s t \ in E lfried e Jelin ek: F ra m e d b y L a n g u a g e, ed. b y Jorun B. Johns and K atherine A rens (R iversid e: A riadne, 1994), pp. 8 9 -1 0 6 (p. 101).