The Weight of the World

Rating:
Summary: Optimal Handke
Review: Ostensibly a year's worth of notes from the writer's journal, consisting of personal reflections and diurnal observations of the author's life and environment, this book can also be construed as a novel in the form of a journal, and as such, a work of genuine innovation. Handke's miniaturist style lends itself perfectly to these discrete entries, each a completed essay or prose poem; the book is a perfect match of temperament and form, and arguably Handke's finest work to date. Some entries speak to the power of language--even in translation--to evince startlingly fresh images of time-worn subjects, e.g., trees in wind; others transform the banalities of contemporary experience, e.g., the sound of the television from a neighboring house, suburban detritus, etc., into indelible literary images. These are not rough notes but polished paragraphs in Handke's finest style. Though this book is a gift to readers with small amounts of free time or short attention spans, it has a de facto dramatic structure, central to which is the author's confinement in a hospital and relationship as a single father to his son. The work is, finally, moving as well as eloquent.

This book made Harold Bloom's Western Canon as one of the achievements of the century; it's one of the few I have read twice. Except for his controversial politics, Handke has tended to be overlooked in this country, but he deserves the attention of everyone who considers him/herself a serious reader. I consider Weight of the World optimal Handke.