''A Moment of True Feeling'' () is a 1975 novel by the Austrian writer

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored t ...

Plot

Gregor Keuschnig works for the Embassy of Austria in Paris. One day he wakes up from a dream where he murdered a woman. From this moment his life seems pointless and the world around him distant. He goes through his daily routine and interacts with his colleagues, his mistress and his family, but feels lost and out of balance. He observes everything around him in search for a sensation that feels genuine.

Reception

'' Kirkus Reviews'' wrote: "There are indeed moments of true feeling and moments of fine, precise, ironic writing here, but this ultimately seems a slim exercise, with personal commitment (a quality so evident in Handke's memoir, ''

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams ''A Sorrow Beyond Dreams'' (german: Wunschloses Unglück) is a 1972 semi-autobiographical novella by the Austrian writer Peter Handke. It describes the life of Handke's mother Maria, who committed suicide on 19th November 1971. Reception Thomas Cu ...

'') painstakingly filtered through a familiar experimental literary convention."

Stanley Kauffmann Stanley Kauffmann (April 24, 1916 – October 9, 2013) was an American writer, editor, and critic of film and theater. Career Kauffmann started with ''The New Republic'' in 1958 and contributed film criticism to that magazine for the next fifty ...

wrote in the '' Saturday Review'': "What Handke is moving toward, I think, moving toward stunningly and courageously, is the novel as poem." Kauffmann distinguished this from "a poetic novel", which he described Handke's '' The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick'' as, and argued that ''A Moment of True Feeling'' is closer to being a long

prose poem Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...

References

External links

Publicity page
at the German publisher's website
Publicity page
at the American publisher's website {{DEFAULTSORT:Moment of True Feeling 1975 Austrian novels Novels by Peter Handke Novels set in Paris Suhrkamp Verlag books