Not one word on the dust jacket, not the merest hint tells the prospective reader what kind of book Versuch über den geglückten Tag is. There is no need, since Peter Handke presents us with his third Versuch. His two previous books, Versuch über die Müdigkeit and Versuch über die Jukebox (see WLT 64:3, p. 460, and 65:2, p. 301 respectively), have established a new dimension of literature’s realistic claim not just to describe but to change our world through the right word. In my earlier review of Versuch über die Müdigkeit I praised Handke's realization that there is no such thing as “everyday life” or “being tired” in favor of elevating fatigue to a universe in itself. Now that Handke has written his third Versuch on as elusive a theme as the title suggests, we are faced with a triptych on the unspeakable made language, the invisible made form. It is as if all the author’s prior writing were done to culminate in this trinity of texts, and we might worry how Handke can possibly continue from his current pinnacle, if we did not know that his strongest claim to eminence has always been his unmatched capability of change of existential venue as expressed through his writings.

Handke, after some years of wandering, has settled on the outskirts of Paris once again, but this time, as we can sense in his new book, in order to put down roots and to live with the soil. A quiet certainty of being in the right place flows through the prose here. Yes, of course the essay’s role is to raise questions, and Handke's Versuch asks some which defy answer. Still, we clearly feel the paradoxical: that answers, deeply formulated within ourselves, may well lead to the questions. Deadly serious matter presented as a game of suggestions, exclusions, insights—such is Handke's text. The author tries to define “den geglückten Tag,” untranslatable as the very term may be. Definition is a narrowing and a streamlining of the word. Geglückt does not mean “lucky” or “successful,” “happy,” “beautiful,” “worry-free,” “perfect.” Other languages may not even have a corresponding word.

The author remembers his (lifelong, so we learn) yearning for this special day when confronted with the “Line of Beauty and Grace” on a self-portrait of the eighteenth-century painter William Hogarth; this line then extends into a pebble once taken from Lake Constance and onward to the curvature of the River Seine in the west of Paris. We understand that the “method” of this highly metaphysical as well as poetically simplifying text is the fabric of loose associations while concentrating deeply. No logical thrust, no analytic advance is Handke's domain in this book, but a new and—I dare say—previously unattained virtuosity of controlled yet freely associative playfulness. Hence perhaps the subtitle “Ein Wintertagtraum,” as if this were a literary genre well known to anyone.

Handke, after much probing toward a definition, calls himself to order: “Wie stellst du dir einen solchen Tag vor?—Erzähl den geglückten Tag.” To narrate, we assume, is the narrator’s purpose, but Handke's narrative art has long since left (as well as rejoined) the traditional perception of how it is done. This may explain the frustration of certain readers with their formerly admired author; it also explains the constant source of wonderment, of miraculous surprise Handke instills in others, myself included. As it is, the third wing—or is it the central one?—of the triptych of Versuche speaks a hitherto unknown language in German letters, thus creating a new level against which future writing will have to be measured, like it or not.

There is no prescription for this geglückten Tag; however, there is enough menace and danger. A few cues may be derived: don’t hurry, make time, realize that “gerade ein Nichts an Tag” may promise fulfillment, don’t seek the evening in the morning, check whether you don’t live with the wrong inner order. I had better stop here, since Handke of course is not giving advice, has not written a how-to manual, and suggests nothing to the reader. The aforementioned ideas may be found or not in a poetic prose of haunting beauty. “Der geglückte Tag,” as Handke muses, may just be the search itself for such a day. He admits of having no idea except for the yearning. Thus we, the readers, have no precise idea except for the yearning. Thus we, the readers, come away “knowing.”