Publication
Suhrkamp (2001), 96 pages
Original publication date
1972
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Description
Peter Handke's mother was an invisible woman. Throughout her life--which spanned the Nazi era, the war, and the postwar consumer economy--she struggled to maintain appearances, only to arrive at a terrible recognition: "I'm not human any more." Not long after, she killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills. In A Sorrow Beyond Dreams her son sits down to record what he knows, or thinks he knows, about his mother's life and death before, in his words, "the dull speechlessness--the extreme speechlessness" of grief takes hold forever. And yet the experience of speechlessness, as it marks both suffering and love, lies at the heart of Handke's brief but unforgettable elegy. This austere, scrupulous, and deeply moving book is one of the finest achievements of a great contemporary writer.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member icolford
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams is a memoir that Peter Handke wrote following his mother's suicide in 1971. It is a brief gut-wrenching examination of a life that spanned the rise of Nazi Germany, the 2nd World War, and the years of national impoverishment, confusion and shame that followed. Handke's mother
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was an invisible woman. Her sporadic flirtations with self-assertion ended when necessity or illness dragged her back down to earth. She married a man she grew to loathe and worked her fingers to the bone. Readers of his early works know that Handke's style is normally restrained to the point of minimalism. In this instance he exerts such control over the emotional content of the story he is telling that, like some potion or elixir, its bitterness is concentrated and overpowering. This is an account of a life so desolate, so utterly lacking in hope, it seems narrated in shades of grey. One wonders how much is fact, how much fiction, and how much speculation. It is a difficult but necessary book-- more easily admired than enjoyed--that provides a glimpse into the life of one person who endured the austerity and bleakness of post-war Germany, but in the end succumbed to physical decline, personal despair and an overwhelming sense of worthlessness. Show Less
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
In 1972, the author's mother took her own life by overdosing on sleeping pills, after an unremarkable life of 51 years that was marred by poverty, depression, neurogenic pain, and especially the limited opportunities available to her. After the initial "dull speechlessness" he experienced after
The account of her life and demise is unique, in that he chooses to write about her in relation to other women of her era and socioeconomical status. She is born in a small Austrian village to a struggling family, and is described as a high-spirited child and a good student. She is taken out of school by her parents once her compulsory education ends, then runs away to Berlin as a teenager to pursue opportunities that her village and parents cannot offer her. After bearing a child out of wedlock to the love of her life, she agrees to marry a man whom she does not love or respect, in order to provide for herself and her child in post-war Germany. She sinks back into the life that she had sought escape, and ultimately moves back with her family to her home village. In her remaining days she is an embittered woman who frightens her children and is emotionally separated from her emasculated husband, yet she becomes more independent and full of life before developing the chronic pain and depression that ultimately led to her suicide.
I found "A Sorrow Beyond Dreams" somewhat difficult and less than enjoyable, primarily because of the author's use of abstraction to distance himself from and depersonalize his mother. We only get brief glimpses into her personality, and into what made her unique from other similar women, which would have made this a much more interesting book for me. The book is well written and brief (76 pages), and sufficiently unique that it may be of interest to a limited audience of readers.
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receiving the news of her death, Handke was proud that his mother had taken the affirmative step to end her suffering. Soon afterward, he decided to write about her life, before the need to do so faded away. The account of her life and demise is unique, in that he chooses to write about her in relation to other women of her era and socioeconomical status. She is born in a small Austrian village to a struggling family, and is described as a high-spirited child and a good student. She is taken out of school by her parents once her compulsory education ends, then runs away to Berlin as a teenager to pursue opportunities that her village and parents cannot offer her. After bearing a child out of wedlock to the love of her life, she agrees to marry a man whom she does not love or respect, in order to provide for herself and her child in post-war Germany. She sinks back into the life that she had sought escape, and ultimately moves back with her family to her home village. In her remaining days she is an embittered woman who frightens her children and is emotionally separated from her emasculated husband, yet she becomes more independent and full of life before developing the chronic pain and depression that ultimately led to her suicide.
I found "A Sorrow Beyond Dreams" somewhat difficult and less than enjoyable, primarily because of the author's use of abstraction to distance himself from and depersonalize his mother. We only get brief glimpses into her personality, and into what made her unique from other similar women, which would have made this a much more interesting book for me. The book is well written and brief (76 pages), and sufficiently unique that it may be of interest to a limited audience of readers.
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LibraryThing member elmyra
I possibly read this the wrong way - I should have taken the time to do it in one sitting, but instead I read it a couple of pages at a time over weeks. Ah well.
It's a sad and tragic story, sligtly fictionalised but mostly not, of the life and death of the author's mother. It gives us an insight
I've got worse at reading German over the last few years :-(, and Handke's long, complex sentence structure (something more typical of Austrian than German literature anyway) was a bit of a struggle. That quite possibly added to my feeling that the work is ever-so-slightly pretentious. I guess the other question I have is who this book is *actually* about: Handke's mother or Handke himself?
The editor has done a pretty good job on the book, if you happen to be learning German. There's an extensive introduction giving context to the text (I must admit, I only skimmed part of it), as well as additional material and discussion questions in German. I find it difficult to judge how good the explanatory notes are - there were notes for some phrases which I thought obvious but others which I thought someone learning German might struggle with were note-less. Then again, I suspect I'm not the right person to judge these things.
Bechdel: This is really difficult. There is no dialogue in the book. There are practically no characters, except the main character, the mother. Having said that, the book *revolves* around the life of a woman, a "common" woman no less, and highlights a number of important issues, from abortion to domestic violence, to lack of choices and options, to poverty. Pass, I think.
It's a sad and tragic story, sligtly fictionalised but mostly not, of the life and death of the author's mother. It gives us an insight
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into the social and economic circumstances of Austrian women in the years before, during and following the Second World War. It doesn't make for pretty or cheerful reading. I've got worse at reading German over the last few years :-(, and Handke's long, complex sentence structure (something more typical of Austrian than German literature anyway) was a bit of a struggle. That quite possibly added to my feeling that the work is ever-so-slightly pretentious. I guess the other question I have is who this book is *actually* about: Handke's mother or Handke himself?
The editor has done a pretty good job on the book, if you happen to be learning German. There's an extensive introduction giving context to the text (I must admit, I only skimmed part of it), as well as additional material and discussion questions in German. I find it difficult to judge how good the explanatory notes are - there were notes for some phrases which I thought obvious but others which I thought someone learning German might struggle with were note-less. Then again, I suspect I'm not the right person to judge these things.
Bechdel: This is really difficult. There is no dialogue in the book. There are practically no characters, except the main character, the mother. Having said that, the book *revolves* around the life of a woman, a "common" woman no less, and highlights a number of important issues, from abortion to domestic violence, to lack of choices and options, to poverty. Pass, I think.
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LibraryThing member JimmyChanga
This book really didn't work beyond the beginning pages. And yet it wasn't bad. The writing was not engaging enough, the biographical style he chose ("after that, she did this..." etc.) is hard to stomach for too long. You can tell that Handke was conscious of this too, putting in things that broke
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from the pattern, even a whole page meta-talking about why he decided to write it in this boring style! The book fails in some interesting ways. I feel like Handke never had a good sense of what he wanted to do with the subject matter. As for the story itself, it was okay; I was especially struck by some of the insights about about her mother growing up towards the beginning. I also admire his sincerity. Show Less
LibraryThing member hbergander
"Later on, I shall write about all this more details." (Last sentence of the book in my own translation.) I would have wished that Handke would have done it. Very little of his oeuvre reaches the quality of this relatively early text.
LibraryThing member greeniezona
This slim volume (76 pages) is an author's attempt to process his mother's suicide. It ends up being both the story of his mother's life, and more generally, about what it was like to be a poor woman in Germany, living through World War II and its aftermath. About a woman's sense of identity or
But mostly it is a book about grief. The reader is constantly reminded that this is not so much a biography of his mother as it is a way to deal with his loss, to try to gain perspective and distance from his pain and from the memory of his mother. Of course it doesn't work as he hopes that it would. But that's what makes it moving. That's what saves the book from his attempted detachment from the specifics of his mother.
I wonder if he ever wrote or ever will write the more thorough story of his mother promised in the last line of the book...
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lack thereof in a pre-feminist society. But mostly it is a book about grief. The reader is constantly reminded that this is not so much a biography of his mother as it is a way to deal with his loss, to try to gain perspective and distance from his pain and from the memory of his mother. Of course it doesn't work as he hopes that it would. But that's what makes it moving. That's what saves the book from his attempted detachment from the specifics of his mother.
I wonder if he ever wrote or ever will write the more thorough story of his mother promised in the last line of the book...
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LibraryThing member jon1lambert
A frank and open account of a son's reaction to the death of a mother by suicide. Swept up with excitement of the 1930s followed by making ends meet, crushed, nervous breakdowns after the war and coming to terms with one's feelings, some of them unexpected, after the death. Fascinating.
LibraryThing member iffland
Powerful and emotionally thrilling!
Language
Original language
German
ISBN
9783518397879
Physical description
96 p.; 4.17 inches
Pages
96