Still Storm

looking toward Nevada last night: before the storm

A quiet evening. Gathering clouds.


During the night, well after midnight, lightning flashes. Long seconds later, thunder more magnificent than the lightning, long rolling deep sonorous bass grumblings.


Toward morning rain, precious desert rain.


Lightning flashes and quickly now, thunder again, glorious Wagnerian booming (made me, to quote Woody Allen, want to invade Poland).

looking toward Nevada this morning: still storm

And this morning, still storm.


The discussion of Peter Handke's play Still Storm / Immer noch Sturm is ongoing here:


http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/


Join us!

All the World's a Stage: Prelude to a Discussion

Tomorrow the discussion of Peter Handke's "Immer noch Sturm" (Still Storm), for which Michael Roloff has set a lavish and thoughtful stage

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2011/08/handke-immmer-noch-sturm-still-storm.html

will begin.

The blog address, beyond that first post, is

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/

It promises to be an innovative form of literary analysis, a back-and-forth dialogue that may produce sparks. That the play is working in me as I prepare for the discussion is evident in the captions below:

Lyn's dill drying reminds me of the apples and goats' milk in Still Storm

young buck on stage but thinking he won't be seen when he browses on the penstemons

the curtain falls, gloriously

Peter Handke's "Immer noch Sturm"

This morning I finished reading Peter Handke's "Immer noch Sturm" (Still Storm), a play that premiered last night in Salzburg.

Three young bucks browsed through the yard as I read, feeling like players in the play that left me shaking my head:

What is this about? I can scarcely think the words I read in the same context as this photo from the performance. Long paragraphs and long sentences that never evoked this scene in my unimaginative brain.

How could what I read possibly be played on stage? I'm too much a reader of prose and too little of plays.

I need to reread and think this through. And that's exactly what I'm planning, with Handke translator Michael Roloff. The discussion will take place here:

http://handke-drama.blogspot.com/2011/08/handke-immmer-noch-sturm-still-storm.html

Wish us luck. Join in the discussion.

New Book by Peter Handke

There is a story to be told here. But I don't know to whom.


Es ist hier eine Geschichte zu erzählen. Nur weiß ich nicht, wem.


These are the first two sentences of Die Geschichte von Dragoljub Milanovi (The Story of Dragoljub Milanovi). They remind me of the carefully uncertain first sentence of Immer noch Sturm, the play Michael Roloff and I will be reading and discussing after the middle of August: 


Eine Heide, eine Steppe, eine Heidesteppe, oder wo.

A heath, a steppe, a heathensteppe, or where.

. . . a heathsteppe

A moor, a steppe, a moorsteppe. . .

In American English we don't have heaths or moors unless they are in England. And this book is supposed to have an Austrian flavor, not English.

Trouble from the getgo.

Sweet trouble.

To appear at the end of August, the new 40-page story is said to be about the Director of Radio-Television Serbia who is in prison for not having the building evacuated during a NATO attack on Belgrade. 16 people died when the tower was hit with guided bombs. A Serbian court condemned Milanovi to 10 years in prison.


The text describing the book says further that Handke is writing because obvious injustice empties him of language.




Dies ist die Geschichte eines Vergessenen, der auf Grund eines absurden Urteils eines serbischen Gerichts nahe Belgrad in einem Gefängnis sitzt. Ein Fall, der jeden Gerechtigkeitssinn herausfordert.Es geschah am 23. April 1999 gegen zwei Uhr nachts, als Kampfflugzeuge der NATO das Gebäude des RTS, des Radio-Televizija Srbije, des serbischen Radio und Fernsehens, mit gezielten Bomben zerstörten und 16 Mitarbeiter den Tod fanden. Nicht unter den Toten war der Direktor des RTS, Dragoljub Milanovic. Er hatte das Haus nach einem arbeitsreichen Tag eine halbe Stunde vorher verlassen, um sich schlafen zu legen. Er wäre nicht auf den Gedanken gekommen, dass der Sender mitten in Belgrad ein Angriffsziel sein könnte; blauäugig oder nicht, aber so war es. Die spätere serbische Regierung sah das unter veränderten politischen Zielsetzungen anders und verurteilte Milanovic mit der Begründung, er hätte das gesamte Personal rechtzeitig evakuieren müssen, zu einer zehnjährigen Haft-strafe, die er seither in dem Gefängnis von Pozarevac absitzt. Peter Handke erzählt diese Geschichte aus der Sicht eines Beobachters, der sich dagegen zur Wehr setzt, dass offenkundiges Unrecht ihm die Sprache verschlägt. So erzählt er, was war und was ist, zur Kenntnisnahme und mit Anteilnahme, vielstimmig und geradlinig zugleich.