Screeds

Written during each of Trump’s presidencies, Elfriede Jelinek’s pillory an asinine leader with too much power and not enough brains or compassion From the author of The Piano Teacher, this timely pair of scorching texts against idiocy, corruption, and political insanity fully display the adamantine, acerbic wit that won Jelinek the Nobel Prize in Literature. On the Royal Road, written three weeks after Trump’s first election, is “a screed of outrage at the political, economic, and cultural forces that have brought us to an unprecedented—and for many, unimaginable—moment of crisis for modern democracy. Mr. Trump is never mentioned by name, but the narration sketches an undisciplined, uncouth monarch who has been propped up by obscene wealth, a nonstop media circus, and a remarkable talent for self-aggrandizing” (The New York Times). Endsieg: The Second Coming opens with the setting of a scene: “Piggy as Polyhymnia, Kermit also as somebody, behind them an alpine wayside shrine.” And although he remains nameless, there’s no mistaking him: “He is old, but all others he still can beat, hole in one!” Suffering no fools, and especially not our Fool in Chief, Screeds singe off your eyebrows.