Sweet Days of Discipline

I knew just a few pages in that I was going to love this book. I read it slowly and savored every page. I was about to finish it last night, when I came across a hyphenated word that appeared to span two pages “dis-wrote” — I was so confused because this is not a word... then I realized that my copy of the book is MISSING TWO PAGES immediately preceding the final page (page 101) of the book! Pages 99 and 100 are just NOT INCLUDED IN MY COPY. What the HECK!! I’m very disappointed because I get very attached to copies of books; I had underlined and made marks throughout the whole thing.

Not the best by Jaeggy I have read but the writing is, as typical for her, compressed, hallucinatory and compelling. Like most writers who favor a terse style, her work is best suited for the short story. But anything by her to appear in translation is precious.

Wonderful.Fleur Jaeggy gives you just enough for a restrained imagination; and, impassioned literary appreciation. You fill in the blanks. I shall now read everything she has written.

It is a terrible thing that only two of Jaeggy's odd, spare, and brilliant works are presently available in English. This novella is striking in its stylistic genius and restrained but intense emotional world. I eagerly await the translation of more of Jaeggy's work.

Sweet Days of Discipline is narrated by a boarding school student who has attended several such schools, who has been defiant, who is a disinterested student, who becomes nearly obsessed with a new student - disciplined, independent, nihilistic. The tension in the narrative derives from emotional states rather than plot events - yet the tension builds as clearly as in a thriller. This is achieved by the author's excellent understanding of her narrator's point of view and the use of landscape, daily events and memories to express that view. Examples: the description of the landscape on the narrator's early morning walk; the destruction of letters from her mother; the memory of her roommate's dance dress but not her name ...Not a perfect book but well worth the two or three hours it takes to read.

I honestly don’t know what all the fuss is about. It was all right. I’m glad it was a quick read. Maybe her other books are better.

An unusual little novel which focuses on Eva, a young girl who is sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, where she meets the beautiful and elusive Frederique, with whom she becomes almost obsessed. Absorbed in her efforts to capture the attention and affection of Frederique, Eva overlooks certain aspects of Frederique's personality, and it is not until later that she, and the reader, learns of the extent of Frederique's fragile mental and emotional state...As already commented, this is an unusual and unsettling story which is first-person narrated by Eva and one that seems preoccupied with death - both literally and metaphorically - and, as such, is a rather brooding and inward-looking little novel, however it is certainly an interesting one and one that is written with a terse, but psychologically acute voice. There is more that I would like to discuss about this book and its writer, but to do so would most probably involve revealing too much about the story and its conclusion (or, at least, its ending) so I will just finish by mentioning that I am now interested in looking at more by this author.4 Stars

Sweet Days Of Discipline is a strange novella with a distinctive cold style that, for me, took a bit of getting into, but was worth the effort. I am not sure how long after her boarding school years our narrator is meant to have told her story as at times she is breathtakingly insightful, but can also be spectacularly naive. Abrupt changes of subject are evocatively childish yet I could also see the young woman that our narrator will become. Her repressed obsession with Frederique is brilliantly portrayed and I loved how she tries to put herself across to readers as a girl who doesn't really care much for anything when the glimpses we get of her behind-the-scenes, so to speak, show a very different scenario unfolding. Her perpetually absent mother, for example, is only spoken of in the context of Instructions From Brasil, instructions such as only to have German-speaking friends being wilfully ignored by both daughter and school.Frederique is an enigma to our narrator. New to boarding school life, she makes a virtue of her obedience and respectful behaviour, and her neat elegance sets her almost out of our narrator's league. Seen by the headmistress as an excellent social influence, Frederique is, of course, our narrator's first intense crush, but their awakening sexuality is rarely openly alluded to, despite the novella's suggestive title (perhaps deliberate, perhaps simply an awkward translation). Instead a simmering desire for varying degrees of affection and power makes Sweet Days Of Discipline a very tense story even though nothing particularly dramatic actually happens. Jaeggy's writing is all about atmosphere and attitude.

The novel that made be a Jaeggy devotee; poetic and sinister and unlike anything else on the market.

Good service Book as described

Couldn't get into it though had high hopes.