IRA HAUPTMAN
425
1977 ), the ges tures are even more so. A famil y and even the persons in it
di sintegra te under the mindl ess pressure of a bl and phrase, " my idt:a of
a beller life," whi ch begins as a gradeschool copybook exercise for the
eight- yea r- old son , proceeds
to
the husband 's pass ing whimsy for a
ni ght a t a luxury hotel, and ends with the wife's breakup of the who le
famil y. T he tho ught , however, is pervas ive, to the exclusion of all else.
It
becomes the o bsessi o n of herself, of her fri ends and assoc ia tes, and
even the theme of a French novel she transla tes in her res umed career.
All routin e behavior is reduced to meaningless ness - sLockin g provi–
sions in freezers, cl ose ts, and basement; walking endl ess ly thro ugh the
ni ght; ma king fri ends simpl y so that one's dea th won 't leave one an
undi scovered corpse for too long.
Phil osophi cal change inev ita bl y outstrips mere techni cal deve lop–
ment. H andke's achi evement is to write fi cti on whi ch acknow ledges it,
and uses its sa li ent fea tures in the ma kin g of his literary a rt. Fictions
such as
Th e Goalie's Anx iety, S hort L ett er,
and
A Scrrow Beyond
Dreams
are poss ibl y the best indi cati on of how " rea listi c" fi cti on may
su rv ive in the new ly conscious world. Ana is Nin compl ained in 1968
tha t " we li sten to jazz, we look a t modern paintings, we live in modern
ho uses o f modern des ign, we travel in jeLpl anes, yet we continue to
read novels written in a tempo and style whi ch is not of our time and
not rela ted
to
a ny of these influences." Peter H andke's novels are the
first ma ture product of the future Anais Nin describes.
Jerome Klinkowitz
A PLAY
When Peter H andke's
Th e R ide Across L ake Constance
was
performed a t Linco ln Center several years ago, John Simon dismi ssed
it as surrea li st nonsense-the son of nihilistic indul gence tha t had
helped libera te a rt in the nin eteen-twenti es but was of no value today.
Apparentl y Simon chose the wrong brand o f nonsense from hi s giant
ca ta log. Wh a t he pres umabl y meant
to
in voke was the Dada ist variety.
