Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
by Peter Handke
|
by Peter Handke
|
by Peter Handke
|
by Peter Handke
|
by Peter Handke
|
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
History is not all battles and great leaders, nor huge social forces and turbulent change. Instead, the Austrian novelist Peter Handke suggests in this set of prose-poem-like essays, it embodies small moments, tiny fragments of landscape and memory. Set mostly in post-World War II Western Europe and the Balkans, his vignettes center on history's forgotten people and places: a young girl in Yugoslavia "wearing a bright frayed bandage on her knee," an ash tree in Munich near a triumphal arch "with its peculiar inscription, 'Dedicated to victory--destroyed by war--admonishing peace.'" Perhaps the most effective essay is a small narrative of the different hats one encounters in a Balkan city: kepis, berets, helmets, ski caps, fezzes, and all the other gear that separates one tribe from another. --Gregory MacNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Like his recent novel, My Year in the No-Man's-Bay, this series of intimately described observations certainly doesn't qualify as fiction by most standards of measure. In neither work is Handke very concerned with character or plot in the usual sense. Each of these simple, elegant pieces very specifically identifies date and place, as in a travelogue, with the first-person narrator (often referring to himself in detached third-person terms such as "the observer") journeying to locations as distant as the Balkans or Japan. In keeping with Handke's ethic of clean, scrupulous description, "The Shoeshine Man of Split" celebrates the "saint of small measures" who performs perfectly the small act of shining a pair of shoes. The stories grow increasingly personal as the collection progresses, as in the strongest piece, "The Short Fable of the Ash Tree in Munich," which is the narrator's minute diary of a tree's transformation; even here, however, a recognizably fictional narrator never emerges. Handke's observations are well served by the supple English prose of translator Lewis. Although this small book's avoidance of conventional drama makes it clear that its intended audience is a small one, Handke offers quiet pleasures, delivered in precise, carefully honed language that eschews metaphor in favor of detailed acts of perception.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
History is not all battles and great leaders, nor huge social forces and turbulent change. Instead, the Austrian novelist Peter Handke suggests in this set of prose-poem-like essays, it embodies small moments, tiny fragments of landscape and memory. Set mostly in post-World War II Western Europe and the Balkans, his vignettes center on history's forgotten people and places: a young girl in Yugoslavia "wearing a bright frayed bandage on her knee," an ash tree in Munich near a triumphal arch "with its peculiar inscription, 'Dedicated to victory--destroyed by war--admonishing peace.'" Perhaps the most effective essay is a small narrative of the different hats one encounters in a Balkan city: kepis, berets, helmets, ski caps, fezzes, and all the other gear that separates one tribe from another. --Gregory MacNamee
From Publishers Weekly
Like his recent novel, My Year in the No-Man's-Bay, this series of intimately described observations certainly doesn't qualify as fiction by most standards of measure. In neither work is Handke very concerned with character or plot in the usual sense. Each of these simple, elegant pieces very specifically identifies date and place, as in a travelogue, with the first-person narrator (often referring to himself in detached third-person terms such as "the observer") journeying to locations as distant as the Balkans or Japan. In keeping with Handke's ethic of clean, scrupulous description, "The Shoeshine Man of Split" celebrates the "saint of small measures" who performs perfectly the small act of shining a pair of shoes. The stories grow increasingly personal as the collection progresses, as in the strongest piece, "The Short Fable of the Ash Tree in Munich," which is the narrator's minute diary of a tree's transformation; even here, however, a recognizably fictional narrator never emerges. Handke's observations are well served by the supple English prose of translator Lewis. Although this small book's avoidance of conventional drama makes it clear that its intended audience is a small one, Handke offers quiet pleasures, delivered in precise, carefully honed language that eschews metaphor in favor of detailed acts of perception.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
Citations (learn more)
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
55% buy the item featured on this page: Once Again for Thucydides $22.95 |
 |
45% buy The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick: A Novel $11.05 |
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Help others find this product — tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)
New! See all customer communities, and bookmark your communities to keep track of them.
|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Information from the Amapedia Community
Beta (What's this?)Be the first person to add an article about this item at Amapedia.com.
› See featured Amapedia.com articles
So You'd Like to...
Look for Similar Items by Category
Shop Tool Storage in Home Improvement |
Buy Three Books, Get a Fourth Free |
|||||||||
|
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
| ||
