Homage to Czerny: Studies in Virtuoso Technique

With a delightful combination of the ridiculous and the sublime, Jonke explores surreal dimensions of space and sound, always anchoring his flights of fancy in accessible imagery. More than any other author, Jonke, a pianist turned writer, avails himself of compositional techniques from classical music. Different characters sound their own themes in cleverly orchestrated conversations. Opening observations are restated at the end by another character instead of in another key. Not surprisingly, the first-person narrator is a composer, a young man who is all the more likable for his difficulties: his missing girlfriend and his withdrawal symptoms. The title is taken from a collection of studies by Carl Czerny; the content is a literary tour de force.

"Starred Review: Jonke addresses a host of existential questions through a cast of vaudevillian compatriots in this slim, beautifully written volume . . . As intricately structured as a musical composition, with recurring motifs, the narrative--powered by Snook's magnificent translation--moves smoothly and evocatively through fraught emotional terrain." Publishers Weekly

"An important voice in the contemporary German-language literary scene . . . Jonke has achieved what his American counterparts merely dream of: highly experimental fiction that is both entertaining and accessible." Kirkus Reviews

"The career of Austrian novelist and dramatist Gert Jonke presents a story of unclouded acclaim." Vincent Kling

Jonke derives a concatenation of the measured and the menacing. --M. Swales

Gert Jonke's prose ripples along like a piano tude, transcending its meticulously constructed sequences to transport the reader into an imaginary world. With a delightful combination of the ridiculous and the sublime, Jonke explores surreal dimensions of space and sound, always anchoring his flights of fancy in accessible imagery. More than any other author, Jonke, a pianist turned writer, avails himself of compositional techniques from classical music. Different characters sound their own themes in cleverly orchestrated conversations. Opening observations are restated at the end by another character instead of in another key. Not surprisingly, the first-person narrator is a composer, a young man who is all the more likeable for his difficulties: his missing girlfriend and his withdrawal symptoms. The title is taken from a collection of studies by Carl Czerny; the content is a literary tour de force.

Gert Jonke's prose ripples along like a piano étude, transcending its meticulously constructed sequences to transport the reader into an imaginary world.

Gert Jonke is counted among Austria's most important authors and dramatists. Among other prizes, he received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Erich Fried Prize, and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature. He died in 2009 at the age of 62.Jean M. Snook lives with her husband on the easternmost tip of North America, the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland, where she has taught German language and literature at Memorial University since 1984. She received the 2011 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for her translation of Gert Jonke’s The Distant Sound.