Alice in the Cities

 

• Inspiration: The film was inspired in part by Handke's own experiences with single fatherhood.
• Collaboration: Handke was a frequent collaborator of Wenders, having written the screenplay for Wenders' earlier film, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.
• Thematic Connection: Alice in the Cities shares themes with Handke's 1972 novel, Short Letter, Long Farewell.
• Has a happy ending in the sense that the mother returns and reunites with here daughter. 
• Have to re-post the erotic view passage.  Just posted the clip on Instagram.  So important.  Will it show up again in Handke's narrative texts?  So far I haven't noticed it.   
• "I don't have the power of observation.  But I believe I have the gift of a sort of erotic view.  Suddenly I notice something that I have always missed, and not only do I see it, but I get a feeling for it.  That is what I call an erotic view.  Then I write not just an observation but an experience.  That's why I must go on being a writer.   at 1:13:37 in the film  

Just realized I got my books confused.  I am into "On a Dark Night I left My Silent House" a little bit.  The pharmacist in the nowhere land to Taxham.  But it was published in 1997 and before it comes "My Year in The No-Man's Bay," Mein Jahr en der Neimandsbucht" in 1994.  That's the big one about being blocked and lost, so perhaps I will keep on with both or stay with that one and go back to "On a Dark Night" after I finish Mein Jahr.  

Ten or nine years between The Afternoon of a Writer in 1989 and My Year in the No-Man's Bay in 1998.  

One more of the movie trilogy to watch--Kings of the Road.  

Monday of the last week in February.  Handke's sense of getting a feeling for seeing something he has always missed---the erotic view, an experience not just an observation, he writes then.  So important.  Key to the whole dissertation!  Will a

simple google about it reveal who has already written five books about it?  

rather frutiful results!!  --

Scholarly and critical writing regarding 

Peter Handke's

 "erotic view" often focuses on his exploration of erotic weariness and the aestheticization of the gaze.

Several authors and critics have analyzed these themes:

• Peter Handke himself: In his work Essay on Tiredness (Versuch über die Müdigkeit), Handke explores the concept of "erotic weariness," where fatigue can serve as a rejuvenating force that brings lonely individuals together. He famously modifies the idea of a "good couple" to "a tired man and a tired woman make the most beautiful couple".
• Peter Strasser
  : In his introduction to a collection of essays on the author, Strasser describes a "sexually charged" fascination with Handke's work, detailing his experience of "falling in love" with the texts as a form of critical engagement.
• Jeffrey Eugenides
  : In an introduction to Handke's A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Eugenides discusses Handke's "disciplined detachment" and "dispassionate" reporting on personal experiences, including his mother's affair, which highlights Handke's unique, often detached perspective on erotic subjects.
• Nina Pops
   and 
  Žarko Radaković
  : The artist 
  Nina Pops
   was inspired by Handke's book Pogled (The View), translating his obsessive, detailed descriptions of views (often from high vantage points) into visual art. This collaboration highlights the "obsessiveness" and "devotion" present in Handke’s particular way of looking at the world, which some critics link to a "geometrism" of the gaze.
• Gitta Honegger
  : In her criticism, she examines Handke's work through the lens of "Seeing Through the Eyes of the Word," focusing on how his perception of reality is mediated by linguistic forms.
• R.G. Renner
  : His research explores how narration and language in Handke's later works, such as Crossing the Sierra de Gredos, establish a physical and almost tactile relationship between the narrator and the characters.
• AI Overview
  Based on analyses of Peter Handke’s work, several critics, scholars, and commentators have explored his unique, often detached, and aestheticized "view" of the world, which includes erotic, sensory, and "slow" perspectives.

   

  Key figures who have analyzed or written about this aspect of Handke’s work include:

  • Gitta Honegger: Wrote "Peter Handke: Seeing Through the Eyes of the Word," which discusses Handke's emphasis on a specific mode of perception, referencing the Greek leuketin (a luminous, intense form of seeing) that blends perception with imagination.
  • Suhrkamp Verlag (Publishing House): In summaries of Handke’s Essay on Tiredness (or Essay on Wattling), they highlight how Handke analyzes everyday experience to explore the "erotic, cultural, and political implications" of slow motion and weariness.
  • Duncan McColl Chesney: Authored "Slow Down and Look: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Slowness in Handke," which examines the "long 1980s" and Handke's developed aesthetics/ethics of slowness.
  • Jeffrey Eugenides: In his introduction to a 2006 reissue of Handke’s work, he described Handke’s "disciplined detachment" in observing life, a key component of his "view".
  • Wim Wenders: As a close collaborator, Wenders worked with Handke to develop the "eye of the angel" perspective in Wings of Desire, which focuses on sensory pleasure and the "erotic" experience of being human.
  • Critics of "A Moment of True Feeling": Reviews in The New York Times have noted Handke’s shift towards a "Romantic affirmation" and a "stubborn uneasiness of his quest" in his narratives, which often focus on the sensory and existential. 

  Handke's "erotic view" is often described in these works as a form of "slow" observation—where the act of looking, resting, or experiencing fatigue becomes a way to, as the Suhrkamp summary puts it, "rejuvenate". This is often contrasted with a "cold" or "detached" narrative voice, such as in A Sorrow Beyond Dreams or The Left-Handed Woman.