View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Open Access Institutional Repository at Robert Gordon University OpenAIR@RGU The Open Access Institutional Repository at The Robert Gordon University http://openair.rgu.ac.uk This is an author produced version of a paper published in The Works of Peter Handke (ISBN 9781572411395) This version may not include final proof corrections and does not include published layout or pagination. Citation Details Citation for the version of the work held in ‘OpenAIR@RGU’: HALSALL, R., 2005. Place, autonomy and the individual: Short Letter, Long Farewell, and A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. Available from OpenAIR@RGU. [online]. Available from: http://openair.rgu.ac.uk Citation for the publisher’s version: HALSALL, R., 2005. Place, autonomy and the individual: Short Letter, Long Farewell, and A Sorrow Beyond Dreams. In: F. PILIPP and D. COURY, eds. The Works of Peter Handke. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press. Pp. 46-79. Copyright Items in ‘OpenAIR@RGU’, The Robert Gordon University Open Access Institutional Repository, are protected by copyright and intellectual property law. If you believe that any material held in ‘OpenAIR@RGU’ infringes copyright, please contact
[email protected] with details. The item will be removed from the repository while the claim is investigated. Place, Autonomy and the Individual: Short Letter, Long Farewell and A Sorrow Beyond Dreams Robert Halsall THE TWO NOVELS by Peter Handke which were published in Ger- many in 1972, Der kurze Brief zum langen Abschied (Short Letter, Long Farewell, 1977) and Wunschloses Unglück (A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, 1976), illustrate the importance of place in Handke’s work from two very different perspectives: the former ends in an exalta- tion of America as the realization of the utopian dreams of its European narrator, the latter in a dystopian condemnation of the ne- gative influence of his Austrian homeland on the life of the narra- tor’s mother and its contribution to the events leading to her suicide.