Jocelyn Smith

Peter Handke, Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied

In �The Myth of America in Peter Handke’s ‘Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied’”, Kurt Fickert portrays Handke’s narrator’s journey across America as a journey through literature. Fickert begins by drawing parallels between the autobiographical nature of the novel and Handke’s choice to include several sources of literature which also bear strong autobiographical ties to their authors. First, the title of Handke’s novel is an obvious homage to Raymond Chandler’s detective novel, The Long Goodbye. In that novel, several characters are infused with various aspects of Chandler’s own personality, thereby creating a set of alter egos who represent varied shades of the author. Second, Handke’s narrator’s reading of The Great Gatsby in his hotel in Rhode Island calls attention to another example of literature in which several characters correspond to multiple facets of the author: first is Gatsby, the ultimate self-made man, then the narrator Nick Carraway, and finally Tom Buchanan, whose mocking attitude stands in stark contrast to Gatsby. As the article emphasizes, although the characters bear strong autobiographical ties to the author, they are nonetheless one-dimensional copies: they do not represent the complete author, but rather just a sliver of him. At the same time, characters like Gatsby give credence to the idea that identity can be molded and created - a theme that resonates deeply with Handke’s narrator. As he makes his way across America with Claire, the narrator explains to her how his “morbidly introspective nature (Fickert, 33)” developed: “Ich hatte nie etwas, womit ich das, was ich täglich sah, vergleichen konnte” (Handke, 79). In other words, the task of creating an identity relies upon some example that can be imitated. The narrator describes his childhood wish to imitate everything from gestures to handwriting, and as an adult, he wonders if people notice “daß ich unter vielen Gebärden immer erst eine auswählen muߔ (Handke, 60). The act of imitation, as well as the narrator’s tendency to play-act his life, leads to a discussion of the various images found throughout the text, including movies (especially westerns), plays, Polaroid photographs, the “living pictures” created by the German-Americans in St. Louis, and the artwork created by the “Liebespaar” depicting scenes for movie posters. Claire’s explanation of why the audience appreciates the tableau vivant more than a rendition of Don Carlos touches upon a major argument in the article, namely that images say nothing as to the deeper individuality of the object. Rather, they produce a kind of anonymity: “Wir sind hier gewohnt, die historischen Einzelfiguren nur in stehenden Bildern zu sehen . . . sie sind nur Zeichen für das, was sie getan haben oder was zumindest zu ihrer Zeit geschehen ist” (Handke, 155). In this vein, the rather generic template of the western showdown gives the narrator and Judith a framework through which to confront one another. The two meet at dusk, and Judith approaches the narrator from the opposite side of an empty street, her revolver pointing directly at him. Fickert argues here that “the legends portrayed in American films are devices . . . which enable [the characters]to change their egocentric lives” (Fickert, 37). Just as “the American dream provided Jay Gatsby with a grammar by which he could . . . create himself, as does the contemporary American reality – based as it is on self-apparent signs – allow Handke’s narrator to construct a system of relationships by which he can realize his own identity” (Fickert, 37).

In “ ‘Lebendigkeit: ein Blick genügt’. Zur Phänomenologie des Schauens bei Peter Handke”, Gerhard Melzer concerns himself not with the images Handke’s narrator imitates, but with those formed in his own consciousness during his moments of epiphany. It is argued that Handke is striving to describe a totality of seeing that can only be achieved by entering into a state in which ordinary perception is rejected in favor of the “static moment”, or Nunc stans. In a radio interview, Handke describes his own experience with the static moment as seeing everything in one thing: “Ein Ding ist dann alles. . . . Wenn Sie ein Ding sehen, sind Sie losgebunden von sich und sind noch mehr Sie selber” (Melzer, 133). Schopenhauer uses the term Nunc stans in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung to describe the how “das eigentlich Wesentliche der Dinge, des Menschen, der Welt, bleibend und beharrend im Nunc stans liegt, fest und unbeweglich.” The static moment can even be linked to Kant’s Ding an sich: it is an essential, unchanging element that lies beyond the realm of the ordinary mode of perception. Handke’s narrator encounters several moments in which his perception penetrates so completely that the world stands still for a moment. For example, when the narrator gambles in a bar, he sees the dice produce the number he needs, but only for a moment before rolling over to a different final outcome. The narrator’s experience of glimpsing the right number makes him feel as if “die Zahl auch wirklich gekommen wäre, aber nicht jetzt, sondern zu EINER ANDEREN ZEIT” (Handke, 27). Another example comes at the end of the novel, as Judith and the narrator sit outdoors with John Ford: “Alles war dann ruhig, ohne Bewegung . . . Auf meinem Handrücken kitzelte es. Ich schaute hin und sah einen Schmetterling, der gerade die Flügel zusammenfaltete; zugleich senkte Judith die Wimpern” (Handke, 204). As Melzer notes, a distinction can be drawn between this mode of perception and the rationalistic-scientific mode that is ordinary perception. Essentially, the Nunc stans can be glimpsed in Handke’s novel in the form of these camera-like moments of seeing during which the narrator experience a more “real” reality layered with detail and meaning. Rather than distancing himself from the thing, the narrator sees himself into it.

Questions: The act of seeing is a central theme in the novel, but what role does language play? Judith’s last line (“Ja, das ist alles passiert” p. 205) echoes Barthes’ “that has been” moment, yet in Judith’s case, the proof is in the words (the couple have been telling their story, not showing it) and not in the image. What is the relation between language and seeing in the text?

Fickert, Kurt. “The Myth of America in Peter Handke’s “Der kurze Brief zum langen

Abschied”. German Studies Review 21.1 (1998): 27 – 40.

Melzer, Gerhard. “ ‘Lebendigkeit: ein Blick genügt.’ Zur Phänomenologie des

Schauens bei Peter Handke.” Peter Handke, Die Arbeit am Glück. Ed.

Gerhard Melzer. Königstein: Athenäum, 1985. 126 – 152.