Monday, December 14, 2009

OBOC - Austria


This was one of the most difficult reads for me. I picked Peter Handke as opposed to the obvious choice of Elfriede Jelinek, one of the few women Noble Prize winners, and i went with "The Goalie's anxiety....". So why did a 133 page book took me forever to finish?

A well-known goalie, who has lost his construction job, wanders around aimlessly,picks up a movie cashier and murders her for absolutely no reason at all, and all this happens in the first 20 odd pages.. How his life disintegrates from that point on fills the remaining 100+ pages.

Bloch who is the protagonist is not a man of words, so the author employs language to describe the most mundane everyday happenings. In some pages there were nothing but ramblings.

I didn't enjoy the book as much as I had hoped to. I think i made a couple of mistakes when reading the book - 1) i expected a story, maybe even a mystery 2) i was reading too much between the lines trying to figure out what the author could possibly mean. I should've viewed the book as an experimental piece of fiction based on existentialism.

Apparently the book was made into a movie in the early 70s. Now i am curious to see the movie.

Anyways, done with Austria but i dont think i got any insight into Austria or Austrians :( Trying to wrap up Argentina now.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. SUMMA POLITICODecember 15, 2009 at 2:10 PM

    well if you knew handke and how easily irritated he is just about anything can tick him into a murderous state of mind. but the little book which i translated around 1970 is really an illustration of how your mind is at the mercy of language. here some handke links:


    LINK OF LYNXES TO MOST HANDKE MATERIAL
    AND BLOGS ON THE WEB:

    - Hide quoted text -
    http://www.handke.scriptmania.com/favorite_links_1.html
    - Hide quoted text -

    HANDKE LINKS + BLOGS SCRIPTMANIA PROJECT MAIN SITE:

    http://www.handke.scriptmania.com
    and 13 sub-sites
    e.g.

    http://www.handkeromance.scriptmania.com/index.html

    http://www.handkelectures.freeservers.com/

    http://www.handkedrama.scriptmania.com/

    http://www.handkescholar.scriptmania.com/

    http://www.handkebild.scriptmania.com/

    http://handke-photo.scriptmania.com/

    http://www.handke-nobel.scriptmania.com/

    http://www.handkeprose.scriptmania.com/

    http://www.handkefilm.scriptmania.com/


    http://handke-watch.blogspot.com/
    [moravian nights discussion]

    the newest:
    http://handke-photo.scriptmania.com/

    contains the psychoanalytic monograph


    http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/

    The Morawian Night Essay + Handke trivia

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

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


    [dem handke auf die schliche/besuch auf dem moenchsberg, 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/ a note on Velica Hoca/ ]
    with three photo albums, to wit:

    http://picasaweb.google.com/mikerol

    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!" + MAY THE FIREPLUG OF FILIALITY REINSURE YOUR BUNGHOLE!"" {J. Joyce}

    "Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde" [von Alvensleben]

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)