Taking the strained relationship between philosophy and fiction seriously, [Handke] has with single-minded stubbornness developed his own artistic form at the core of which lies the effort to reconstruct the truth of fiction. Description of reality becomes the creation of meaning. For Handke, the truth of fiction does not lie in a realm of imagination where symbols and metaphors are artistically combined to achieve the reality of literature. He does not intend to reveal the previously unknown. Instead, Handke is preoccupied with the world of conventionalized knowledge. His critical intention is to expose everyday reality as one that is known by heart, so to speak, a lost reality that has become a predictable succession of petrified experiences. Meaningful experiences are not to be found beyond the surface of common life but have to be wrested from it: Handke, therefore, is obsessed with realistic details of stale knowledge. Writing...