Walk about the Villages

Book excerpt: Peter Handke's dramatic poem Walk about the Villages is the fourth part of Handke's "homecoming cycle", whose other three parts (A Slow Homecoming, The Lesson of St. Victoire, and A Child Story) can be found under the American title A Slow Homecoming. The underlying story line of Walk about the Villages could not be simpler. The "prodigal" writer Gregor returns to his home village. He and his brother Hans, a construction worker, and his shopkeeper sister have a dispute over the disposition of the house which the parents had built and the land which they had cleared with their own hands many years before. Within this straightforward conflict, Handke touches upon almost every aspect of our existence. It is a lyrical play, a poetic drama on the order of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood. It is an "Everyman and Everywoman" dramatic poem for our time.