Short Letter, Long Farewell

by Peter Handke

Book Overview

By Nobel Prize Winner Peter Handke

Short Letter, Long Farewell is one the most inventive and exhilarating of the great Peter Handke's novels. Full of seedy noir atmospherics and boasting an air of generalized delirium, the book starts by introducing us to a nameless young German who has just arrived in America, where he hopes to get over the collapse of his marriage. No sooner has he arrived, however,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590173066
• ISBN13: 9781590173060
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: New York Review of Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Handke

Sandwiched between 'Goalie's Anxiety...' and 'Sorrow Beyond Dreams,' you couldn't help but think the statute of limitations would make 'Short Letter...' into some kind of 'token disappointment,' added to assure readers that mediocrity wasn't an American patent. How can a writer hit the nail three times? Three varying works with very different and developed themes and separate styles...the more plot-driven 'Goalie,' the nameless (and deceptively endless) wandering narration of an ex-husband, hunted and letting himself be hunted by his ex-wife in 'Short Letter...,' and the almost unspeakable 'Sorrow Beyond Dreams.''Short Letter' is split in two. It contains some of the most stunning prose you will ever catch. Every line reads with revelation and almost escapes the previous build up, but never quite loses the focus of narration, as it seems to want to do. The threads tie themselves as the narrator constantly re-encounters, no matter how far or where he goes, some part of his past, whether its a receipt for money he sent his brother in Oregon, the agave plant which he first encounters in a bar early on on the label of a bottle of tequila, and then later in the desert of Arizona, or his ex-wife, who though in deadly pursuit of him, he at first leaves clues to make sure the pursuit is possible. John Ford movies and then later John Ford himself. Somebody who admits to being 'social' and who needs to be around people to make sure they aren't cutting him or somebody else down (as opposed to the narrator who even with people is more without (or within) than with. Nevertheless, the director is stunned to hear the story the reader has just gone through which involves two solitudes bordering on each other, bordering on disaster itself.Read with caution - you might forget that expectations don't have to be lowered...