Post a Comment. ELMORE LEONARD SECTION Interviews, audioclips, original e-books, and more. FREE CHAPTER ONES Thousands of noteworthy books. The complete review s Review :. He d always been drawn most powerfully to observation when he witnessed the simplest, most undramatic occurrences and processes, for instance rain coming down heavier or tapering off, or simply continuing; snow melting; a puddle slowly drying up.
This reflects Handke s own interests and strengths. Few writers are able to make as much from such a focus. On a Dark Night I Left my Silent House begins with a description of Taxham, a small and easily overlooked town near Salzburg, in Austria.
Handke s description centers only partially on the physical; instead, he situates the town. He conveys, with deceptive ease, exactly what it means to live in Taxham -- and only then moves on to the local pharmacist, the central figure of the novel. Despite being near the Salzburg airport Taxham seems at the edge of the world: the narrator and a friend of his, a teacher of classical languages named Andreas Loser, are perhaps the only strangers who went there more than once.
The two form a friendship of sorts with the unnamed Taxham pharmacist, and it is, eventually, the pharmacist s story that gets told. Before getting to the actual story Handke describes the pharamacist s life, an essential aspect of the story itself. The teller is more than just part of the tale, and understanding of who he is is essential to understanding of the episode he relates. The pharmacist had traveled a great deal when he was younger, almost all over the world.
He is still restless, but travel seems to offer nothing any longer: By now nothing tempted him anymore, not a single place. He has some interests he is particularly knowledgeable and passionate about mushrooms , but few friends. He is not the sort of person people greet or often even just recognize on the street. His family life is also far from satisfactory -- he is separated from his wife uneasily still sharing his house with her , his son is unaccounted for, and even his daughter is far away.
