Literature

Peter Handke's sad «Children's Story

4 reading minutes

written by Ivan Garcia · January 7, 2020 · 0 comment

Tuesday's books - Ivan Garcia

Peter Handke, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature literature in 2019, provoked strong political and media reactions the Swedish prize for his stance on the Yugoslav conflict. Yugoslav conflict. It is against this backdrop that Le Regard Libre offers you a first foray into lands with A child's story. In this book, the Austrian writer delivers an intimate and touching account about childhood and fatherhood. This is not his best novel, but it is a beautiful, saddening fable, read for its supple not for its content.

For some, Peter Handke is not a political writer; for others, one must separate the work from the author; for still others, the recent controversy—which seems to be taking on disproportionate proportions—should be put into perspective. It’s not an easy matter. On December 10, the Austrian writer received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature from the prestigious Swedish Academy. And yet, the laureate has been strongly criticized and contested because of some of his pro-Serbian stances regarding the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In this regard, the next print edition of our magazine will feature an in-depth article on the recent controversy surrounding Peter Handke.

To begin our exploration of the work of Handke, one of the leading contemporary German-language writers, I have chosen A child's story, translated and published in May 2019 by Editions Gallimard. The story explores the relationship between a father and his daughter, known as «the child,» particularly their numerous moves between Germany and France, their interactions, their learning of a new language, their struggles with integration, and their daily routines. As the story unfolds, the two protagonists try to build a daily life for themselves.

Exercise in Handke-style writing

As you’ve probably guessed, the book doesn’t feature any outlandish plot or one worthy of the most thrilling thriller. The book's appeal lies in its form. A child's story contains no dialogue; the author entrusts the narration to an omniscient narrator who, interspersed with occasional commentary, describes the lives of the two protagonists, their successes and their failures. At most, the narrator allows himself to use a few brief snippets of direct reported speech to incorporate the characters’ words into his lengthy commentary.

«At first, students from the class would still often come to see him at his home; the next day at school, however, they would literally avoid him. The child—who wasn’t even eight years old yet—knew exactly why and put it this way: “They don’t like me because I’m German.”»

In just under a hundred pages, the author has embarked on a curious stylistic exercise: philosophizing about the vagaries of everyday life. The fable is thus told through a narrative voice that digresses into reflections on homes, ponders childhood and fatherhood, offers ironic commentary on the behavior of certain characters, or comments on the actions of the protagonist. The use of third-person narration creates a distance between the narrator and the protagonist; it is as if the latter were the subject of a strange experiment. Moreover, regarding the protagonist, the reader will never learn his name or occupation, and upon close reading of the work, he is a character of remarkable psychological emptiness.

«It was as natural to think of this child as it was to look forward to two other important things: the woman whom he was convinced was meant for him and who, from the very beginning, had been secretly drawing closer to him in concentric circles, and the professional life in which only he could find the freedom befitting a man—without these three expectations ever, even once, merging into a single image.»

O sadness

A Children's Story also addresses other themes that are sure to evoke more emotional reactions in the reader. The difficulties of living in a foreign country or adjusting to a culture that is not one’s own are very much present in the novel, particularly through the character of the child. Shuttled from school to school, the little girl struggles to make friends, and, being close to her father— sometimes too close—she suffers regularly; she even ends up falling in with the wrong crowd.

Far from being a bestseller Whether a novel with a central thesis or not, the work by the winner, Peter Handke, inspires a quiet sense of admiration—the very same feeling we might experience while watching the clouds drift by. As we read it, we sometimes pause to reflect on the narrator’s words and the characters. Very often, we feel a deep sadness for this poor child who is trying to do the right thing, as if a childlike perspective still lingered within us.

Photo credit: © Ivan Garcia

Write to the author: ivan.garcia@leregardlibre.com