Narrative
The Goalkeeper's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter
Peter Handke · 1970
Synopsis
Josef Bloch, a well-known former goalkeeper turned fitter, thinks he understands from a look that he has been dismissed from his building site, and leaves. He wanders through Vienna, goes to the cinema, spends the night at the cashier's flat and strangles her in the morning, for no reason. He takes a coach to a village on the southern border, meets an old friend there, reads in the newspapers the description of someone who resembles him, and watches things come loose from their names.
Context
According to its author, the book started from a title, then from a stay in a border town in Burgenland to note down concrete details; it was then written sentence after sentence, without an overall plan. Wim Wenders, a friend of the author, read the manuscript before publication and made a film from it, with the author as screenwriter. The narrative appeared in March 1970, in a print run of twenty-five thousand copies, doubled six months later, and its title became an expression taken up by sports commentators.
Who it is for
A hundred and thirty pages, seemingly easy to read. One must accept that nothing is explained and that the murder has no cause.
Prizes and reception
Hailed on publication as one of the most striking texts written in German in ten years, and adapted for the cinema by Wim Wenders in 1972.
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