tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post3484956245259499541..comments2023-10-21T07:44:20.549-04:00Comments on The Existence Machine: "May his embrace carry me through this story"Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-85692057372377743092010-01-16T01:27:12.418-05:002010-01-16T01:27:12.418-05:00There's a quotation somewhere from Handke - I ...There's a quotation somewhere from Handke - I read it either here or This Space, I don't remember - where he talks about how the tranquility of his writing is deceptive, how he agonized over the process of it at every step. I always keep that in mind when reading his stuff - the concept that the appearance of extreme calm and exactitude comes at the price of the kind of difficult he describes.Jordanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06551917130628283978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-82539580222406894722010-01-15T19:42:12.884-05:002010-01-15T19:42:12.884-05:00What is interesting about the quote you have from ...What is interesting about the quote you have from REPETITION is that it's a near word for word rewrite of a passage from the Adalbert Stifer story that Handke has a long quote from in the play THEY ARE DYING OUT. There factotum Hans reads it to his boss, the monopolist Hermann Quitt. It's a wonderful moment in the play and an announcement of the route into a classical direction that Handke will take. Aside being a re-creation repetition of the walking trip Handke took after graduating from High School [Gymnasium which may at least make you into a mental gymnast] is that its rhythm, at least in German, induce the kind of slow walking [Handke had become the "king of slowness"] or the syntax, at least it did in my case when I read it in the original in the late 80s in the St. Monica Mts. near LA, adjacent to the preserve where I was living, with time and patience on my hands and feet to walk the dusty paths in the Chapparel. <br />AFTERNOON OF A WRITER is not such a happy book! Salzburg had definitely gotten to Handke and he was about to flee to Paris.<br />michael roloff<br /><br />http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.htmlSUMMA POLITICOhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11214697505465094305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-73839652907792409212010-01-15T10:35:33.212-05:002010-01-15T10:35:33.212-05:00I was coincidentally just reading Afternoon of a W...I was coincidentally just reading Afternoon of a Writer today. I hope to have some reflections up soon, although I imagine I will only be able to recapitulate what you say here--my reading experience seems to resemble yours very closely, and you express it very well.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10819056627072965519noreply@blogger.com