On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House
Book formats
-
Paperback No offers
Book short specifications
- Author
- Peter Handke
- Pages
- 192
- Publisher
- Picador
- Language
- english
- Release date
- April 7, 2020
- ISBN
- 978-1-250-76722-6
- GTIN
- 9781250767226
About
A short, powerful new novel by one of the greatest writers in the German language.
On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House is Nobel Prize-winning author Peter Handke's evocative, moving, often fantastic, novel about one man's conflict with himself and his journey toward resolution.
During one night shift, an unnamed, middle-aged pharmacist in Taxham, an isolated suburb of Salzburg, tells his story to a narrator. The pharmacist is known and well-respected, but lonely and estranged from his wife. He feels most comfortable wandering about in nature, collecting and eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.
One day he receives a blow to the head that leaves him unable to speak, and the narrative is transformed from ironic description into a collection of sensual impressions, observations and reflections. The pharmacist, who is now called the driver, sets out on a quest, travelling into the Alps with two companions — a former Olympic skiing champion and a formerly famous poet — where he is beaten and later stalked by a woman. He drives through a tunnel and has a premonition of death, then finds himself in a surreal, foreign land. In a final series of bizarre, cathartic events, the driver regains his speech and is taken back to his pharmacy — back to his former life, but forever changed.
A powerful, poetic exploration of language, longing and dislocation in the human experience, On a Dark Night I Left My Silent House reveals Handke at his magical best.