The Fruit Thief: Or, One-Way Journey Into the Interior: A Novel
Peter Handke, tr. Krishna Winston
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
The Fruit Thief: Or, One-Way Journey Into the Interior: A Novel
Peter Handke, tr. Krishna Winston
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
Rave
Positive
Mixed
Pan
A dozen pages into reading The Fruit Thief, I had the not unexciting realization that, if nothing else, for the next 300 pages I was in for an experience of unadulterated literature: that is, a work that would pay not the slightest heed to genre conventions, commercial imperatives or even — this I was less enthusiastic about — the reader’s timid expectation that he might be shown a good time. I was also reminded that I was dealing here with a very slippery fish.
Every experience here becomes part of Handke’s gorgeous, multilayered tapestry.
This is almost a prehistory of experience, a demanding, engrossing narrative tracking tiny moment-to-moment changes of mood and impression, the sort of interior detail most writers would consider insignificant. Indeed, this intense focus on interior minutia creates a sense of tedium as Handke avoids providing so much of what we expect from novels. Then again, life has a way of giving us too little of the kind of excitement we crave.
... glacially slow but erudite.
... wandering, seemingly plotless.