{{short description|2004 novel by Juli Zeh}} {{Infobox book | name = Gaming Instinct | image = Gaming Instinct.jpg | border = yes | caption = First edition | author = Juli Zeh | title_orig = Spieltrieb | translator = | country = Germany | language = German | publisher = Schöffling & Co. | pub_date = 30 September 2004 | english_pub_date = | pages = 565 | isbn = 3-89561-056-9 }} '''''Gaming Instinct''''' ({{langx|de|'''Spieltrieb'''}}) is a 2004 novel by the German writer Juli Zeh. The story is set in a private high school in Bonn. Intellectually precocious girl Ada and new classmate Alef band together through their mutual interest in Game theory and apply it by blackmailing a teacher into a sexual relationship with her.
==Reception== ''Die Zeit'''s reviewer placed the novel in a tradition of "German student tragedies" such as Frank Wedekind's ''Spring Awakening'' and Hermann Hesse's ''Beneath the Wheel''. The critic compared the language to Robert Musil, and wrote: "It is astonishing, it is admirable, how the only 30-year-old writer, with a well-trained language for all horses and a highly educated ingenuity, races her story through more than 500 pages across the finish line, a story, which couldn't have been more uneasy.<ref>{{Cite news|author=Staff writer|date=2004|url=http://www.zeit.de/2004/44/L-Zeh/seite-1|title=Das Zeitalter der Fische|language=German|work=Die Zeit|accessdate=2012-01-17|quote=Juli Zehs Buch steht in der Tradition deutscher Schülertragödien"; "Es ist erstaunlich, es ist bewundernswert, wie die gerade mal dreißig Jahre alte Schriftstellerin auf sämtlichen Pferden einer durchtrainierten Sprache und eines hoch gebildeten Scharfsinns ihre Geschichte über 500 Seiten durchs Ziel jagt, eine Geschichte, wie sie ungemütlicher nicht sein kann.}}</ref> Uwe Wittstock of ''Die Welt'' found the novel tiresome and unoriginal. He compared its ideas to "commercial reports about the 'youth of today'", and wrote that "at the same time the novel's motif of 'blackmail with compromising photos' strikes me as about as corny as that of the forged letters in novels and plays from the 18th century."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Wittstock|first=Uwe|date=2004-10-02|url=https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article343855/Adas_Verwirrungen.html|title=Adas Verwirrungen|language=German|work=Die Welt|accessdate=2012-01-17|quote=handelsüblichen Reportagen über die 'Jugend von heute'"; "das Romanmotiv 'Erpressung wegen kompromittierenden Fotos' erscheint mir inzwischen ungefähr so abgedroschen wie das der gefälschten Briefe in den Romanen und Theaterstücken des 18. Jahrhunderts.}}</ref> The novel received the Per Olov Enquist Award and the Prix Cévennes for Best European Novel.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.schoeffling.de/content/foreignrights/273.html |title=Juli Zeh – Gaming Instinct |work=schoeffling.de |publisher=Schöffling & Co |accessdate=2012-01-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224005245/http://www.schoeffling.de/content/foreignrights/273.html |archive-date=2012-02-24 }}</ref>
==Adaptations== The book was adapted into a Brazilian miniseries titled A Menina Sem Qualidades, by MTV Brasil.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Telas Literárias: “Menina sem qualidades”, de Juli Zeh {{!}} DWIH Sao Paulo |url=https://www.dwih-saopaulo.org/pt/event/telas-literarias-menina-sem-qualidades-de-juli-zeh/ |access-date=2026-05-02 |language=pt-BR}}</ref> The miniseries premiered on May 27th, 2013.
==See also== * 2004 in literature * German literature
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [http://www.schoeffling.de/buecher/juli-zeh/spieltrieb-b%C3%BChnenfassung ''Gaming Instinct''] at the publisher's website
{{Juli Zeh}} {{Authority control}}
Category:2004 German novels Category:German-language novels Category:Novels by Juli Zeh Category:Novels set in Bonn Category:Novels set in secondary schools