Tuesday, July 07, 2009

NYRB reprints Handke classic 'Short Letter, Long Farewell'

Browsing on the New York Review website, I was pleased to see that they have reprinted Peter Handke's classic road novel Short Letter, Long Farewell.

This 1972 book -- which became widely available to American readers in the 1985 Avon release (seen at left) of three Handke novels in one paperback volume entitled Three by Peter Handke -- is about the aftermath of a breakup, as the male narrator flees what seems to be a quest for revenge by his erstwhile lover (or wife, it's unclear). This was one of my favorite books when I was in my late 20s; it combines the outlines of a chase thriller with slow conversations about books and films, including a conversation with the director John Ford. I gave a hardback edition of the novel to a friend, who then wrote about it.

Handke became a pariah in the 1990s when he wrote a book defending the claims of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, and in 2006 outraged people when he spoke at the funeral of Slobodan Milošević. He remains a figure of great controversy. But there was no hint of this moral defection -- which I blame on his simply being an Austrian, because it seems all Austrians are perverse and nihilistic -- in the 70s, when he worked closely with German director Wim Wenders, who filmed his novels "Wrong Movement" and "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick" and several Handke screenplays, most famously "Wings of Desire."

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1 comment:

SUMMA POLITICO said...

LINK OF LYNXES TO MOST HANDKE MATERIAL ON THE WEB:

http://www.handke.scriptmania.com/favorite_links_1.html

HANDKE LINKS + BLOGS
SCRIPTMANIA PROJECT MAIN SITE: http://www.handke.scriptmania.com
and 13 sub-sites

the newest:
http://handke-photo.scriptmania.com/
contains the psychoanalytic monograph


http://www.handkelectures.freeservers.com [the drama lecture]


http://www.van.at/see/mike/index.htm


[dem handke auf die schliche/ prosa, a book of mine about Handke]

http://begleitschreiben.twoday.net/topics/Peter+Handke/


http://handke-discussion.blogspot.com/
[the American Scholar caused controversy about Handke, reviews, detailed of Coury/ Pilipp's THE WORKS OF PETER HANDKE, the psycho-biological monograph]
with three photo albums, to wit:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mikerol/HANDKE3ONLINE#


>
http://picasaweb.google.com/mikerol/HANDKE2ONLINE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/mikerol/POSTED?authkey=YeKkFSE3-Js#

http://www.handke-trivia.blogspot.com

http://www.artscritic.blogspot.com

[some handke material, too, the Milosevic controversy summarized]

MICHAEL ROLOFF
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
this LYNX will LEAP you to all my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS:

http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html

"MAY THE FOGGY DEW BEDIAMONDIZE YOUR HOOSPRINGS!" {J. Joyce}
"Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde" [von Alvensleben]