Desireless misfortune

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Desireless misfortune is a story by Peter Handke from 1972. In this semi-biographical book, the author describes the life of his mother Maria, who died on November 19, 1971 by suicide .

To the work

Seven weeks after his mother's suicide, Handke begins to write Desireless Unhappiness , and in February 1972 he finishes his work on the book. He describes his mother's life with all its ups and downs, but at the same time he brings in many autobiographical aspects or tells about his feelings while writing. Basically, the work describes the career of a woman from a poor milieu who tries to emancipate and realize herself.

Many critics refer to the narrative as the “turning point” of Handke's style, but he himself considers the piece separately from his other publications.

content

His mother Maria grows up with four siblings in a small town in Carinthia and is constantly oppressed by her father. She is very talented at school and is also otherwise a happy and helpful person. She wants to learn a trade, but her father forbids her, and so she leaves home at the age of 15.

She does her first job as a washing-up helper, housemaid and accountant. Eventually she finds a job in a hotel where she works as head cook. There she falls in love with a married German who is a member of the NSDAP and becomes pregnant by him. Before the birth, she marries a NCO of the German Wehrmacht , whom she does not love, but wants to give the unborn child a father. She moves with him and her child Peter (the author of this book) to Berlin, where her husband grew up. Maria only stays with her husband because it would have been too difficult to raise an illegitimate child on her own. During the war she lived alone in the country in order to avoid the war as much as possible.

After the war she returns to her husband. But he now lives with another woman. Maria pays him a sublet, and she and her husband go out regularly and everyday life comes back. It's kind of a love-hate relationship. Her husband has since become addicted to alcohol and is suppressed and beats Maria. She will soon have her second child, but because of her poor living conditions and the hatred of her alcoholic husband, she aborts the next two children.

After a while, Maria leaves Berlin with her husband and two children, although they have no papers. Once in Austria, they live with their family. Her husband is employed by the family. She had her third child at the age of forty, and she became more and more self-confident and loathed her husband more and more. She does her daily chores without enjoying life. At Christmas the family gives each other the bare minimums and pretends to have wished for exactly that. All families in the village are poor, yet they are ashamed. Modern household appliances are catching on, but no one can afford them, and it is hoped that others will too. Her husband beats her more and more now, but she just laughs at him. The mother is slowly getting better, and she reads books with Peter and talks to him about herself. She is more and more interested in politics. She has no hobbies and she becomes disturbed and depressed .

After a while, she becomes ill, has a headache and is so numb with medication that she can no longer think clearly. Finally she drives to a neurologist who diagnoses a nervous breakdown . He advises her to go on a trip. She is going to Yugoslavia. But the trip brings next to nothing, and Maria falls back on the medication. Maria often thinks of suicide. She withdraws more and more, and her longing for death grows day by day.

She tries to get in touch with her oldest child, Peter. She has correspondence with him. He tries to help her and stop her from thinking about suicide. But he cannot prevent his mother's fate from happening. One day Maria writes farewell letters to all relatives and then kills herself with the help of many sleeping pills and the rest of the antidepressants .

expenditure

  • Desireless misfortune. Narrative. Residence, Salzburg 1972 [first edition].
  • Desireless misfortune. Narrative. (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. Volume 146). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974.
  • Desireless misfortune. Narrative. With a comment by Hans Höller with the assistance of Franz Stadler. (= Suhrkamp Basic Library . Volume 38). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-18838-0 [with time table, interpretation, bibliography and explanations of words and subjects].

Film adaptations

Theater productions

  • 2014: Desperate misfortune. Based on motifs from the story by Peter Handke; Arrangement for the stage by Duncan MacMillan , Burgtheater Vienna in the casino on Schwarzenbergplatz.

Radio plays

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Timeline. In: peterhandke.at. Archived from the original on January 9, 2008 ; accessed on March 5, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Desireless misfortune. In: film.at. Retrieved March 5, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Teresa Präauer: The rule of things. Desperate misfortune - Katie Mitchell brings Peter Handke's story to the stage and screen in the casino of the Burgtheater Vienna. In: nachtkritik.de. February 9, 2014, accessed March 5, 2014 .
  4. ↑ Werner Rosenberger: There is almost no talking, everything is thinking. Peter Handke's “Desperate Unhappiness” in a fascinating theater / film / radio play format. In: kurier.at. February 10, 2014, accessed March 5, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Mark Ginzler: "Desireless Misfortune" by Peter Handke. In: srf.ch. March 5, 2017, accessed October 10, 2019 .