1300KS
319
same con fli cted postwa r ge nerati on. " I have no desire to persuade, not
eve n w ith images. I onl y want to remind each o ne of you of his very
own narrati ve tiredn ess," the narrato r tells hi s readers in
Tiredness.
T iredn ess is reca ll ed as a paralyzin g experi en ce o f excl usio n and
separati o n , such as th e child 's experi ence at C hri stmas mass, o f being
loc ked in sid e, cut o ff from th e silent openn ess o f th e snow- cove red
w in te r landscape; later o n th at o f the student , be it in a lecture hall o r in
the iso lati o n o f a rented room ; o r th e love rs' tiredness of each o th er,
sudde nly rea li zed in a mov ie th eater. But tiredn ess can also lI1du ce a state
of heightened alertn ess reinfo rcin g th e experi ence of communi ty, such as
th e exhausti o n o f (Handke's) ex tended rural f:l mily after the thrashing of
the harves ted grain in th e ho me barn w ith th e parti cipati o n o f all
ge neratio ns. T he depi cti o n of thi s event is o ne of the mos t mov in g
"pictures" of a rural Austri an community, stripped o f all nos talgia and
sentimentality.
It
may be Handke's single most impo rtant servi ce to th e
Ge rma n language and aes theti cs, in th e wa ke o f its nati vist vul gari zati on
by th e N az is and , now adays, th e to uri st industry. In ev itabl y, th e
remembrance of o ri gin and belo nging - to th e Carinthi an community of
Austri an and Sloven ian descent in So uthern Austri a - lead towards o ther
haunting images of a people incapable of a shared tiredness:
T hen , in o ur shared midst of something resembling a " people ," such
as I later looked fo r time and time aga in in my nati ve Austria, and
time and time and time aga in fa iled to fi nd . I am refe rrin g, not to th e
" tiredn ess of w ho le peoples," not to the tiredn ess th at we ights on
eye li ds of one late-bo rn indi vidu al, but
to
th e idea l tiredness th at I
wo uld like
to
see desce nding on o ne parti cul ar sma ll segment of th e
second postwar Austrian R epubli c, in th e hope that all its gro ups,
classes, assoc iation , corps, and ca th edral chapters may at last sit there as
ho nestly tired as w e vill age rs were then , all equ als in our shared
tiredn ess, united and above all purifi ed by it.
G raduall y, Handk e's calm , co ntempl ati ve to n e builds to a bibli cal
wrath akin to ano ther Austrian writer, th e late Thomas Bernhard (whi ch
comes somewhat as a surprise, considering that the two writers were very
distant from eac h o th er, bo th artisti cally and personall y).
A crimin al who has escaped scot-free may often manage to doze ofT,
w heth er in a sitting or standin g positi on . His sleep , lik e that of many
a fu gitive, may be prolonged, deep and sterterous, but tiredn ess, not
to
menti on the tiredn ess th at knits peopl e togeth er, is unkn own to him ;
