Slow Homecoming

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Slow Homecoming
Slow Homecoming.jpg
Author Peter Handke
Original titleLangsame Heimkehr
LanguageGerman
Publisher Suhrkamp Verlag
Publication date
1979
Publication placeGermany
Published in English
1 June 1985
Pages199
ISBN 3518030213

Slow Homecoming (German : Langsame Heimkehr) is a 1979 collection of three novellas by the Austrian writer Peter Handke.

Contents

Plot

"The Long Way Around" is about a European scientist who relocates from Alaska to California, which disrupts his sense of space.

"The Lesson of Mont Sainte-Victoire" is about a trip to Paul Cézanne's Provence in search of renewed vitality.

"Child Story" is about a father who feels isolated but loves his young daughter.

Reception

The book has been named as a turning point in Handke's writing, when he became increasingly subjective and his expression became more solemn, which led to some negative reactions when the book first was published. [1] Cecile Cazort Zorach of Monatshefte called it a "difficult and irritating book", more complex than Handke's earlier portrayal of the United States in Short Letter, Long Farewell (1972). Cazort Zorach wrote that it has traits of Bildungsroman along with "brief excursions into surrealistic metamorphoses, grotesque humor, veiled literary allusions, ponderous (but also parodistic) Heideggerian prose, and, finally, a shift from third-person narration to an 'ich'," the latter revealing that the book is as much about its narrator as its characters. [2] Publishers Weekly wrote that the book is powerful in its reflections but suffers from its lack of storytelling and characterisation. [3]

References

  1. Caviola, Hugo (1990). ""Ding-Bild-Schrift": Peter Handke's Slow Homecoming to a "Chinese" Austria". Modern Fiction Studies . 36 (3): 381–394. JSTOR   26282969.
  2. Cazort Zorach, Cecile (1985). "The Artist as Joker in Peter Handke's "Langsame Heimkehr"". Monatshefte . 77 (2): 181. JSTOR   30161571.
  3. "Slow Homecoming". Publishers Weekly . 3 June 1988. Retrieved 5 November 2023.