Peter Handke Critical Essay | Critical Review by J. J. White

Critical Review by J. J. White

SOURCE: “The Elusive Perfect Day,” in Times Literary Supplement, October 4, 1991, p. 34.

In the following review, White offers an unfavorable assessment of Versuch über den geglückten Tag.

Peter Handke's new prose-work is the third in a series of “Versuche”, essays-cum-experimental stylistic explorations of a theme, which have recently become his preferred mode. Versuch über die Müdigkeit (1989), on “tiredness”, marked a first flirtation with the form. An amalgam of snatches of recollected experience, reflective passages, random aperçus and tentative jottings about the nature and functions of tiredness, it involved both a new concentration on a circumscribed subject and a tendency to backwoods philosophizing. Addressing a less intractable subject than its predecessor, Versuch über die Jukebox (1990) registered the object’s importance for the central figure in a more controlled blend of narration and rumination. However, with his new book, Versuch über den geglückten Tag, Handke has taken on a...
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