Peter Handke - A kapus félelme tizenegyesnél

The goalkeeper's fear at the penalty spot (1970) Handke's early, one of his best-known writings: crime narrative. The story is simple and, in fact, secondary to the work: Josef Bloch, a former famous soccer goalkeeper and mechanic, quits his job on a construction site one autumn Friday, believing he has been fired. During the weekend, he wanders through Vienna, making the acquaintance of a cinema cashier, Gerda, whom he strangles after their first night together - apparently for no particular reason. He then visits a former acquaintance, Hertha, who rents an inn in a small deserted village. He goes to a football match, where he strikes up a conversation with a stranger, telling him how hopeless the goalkeeper's situation is at penalty kicks. The narrative ends with the striker shooting the ball into the hands of the goalkeeper, who is waiting motionless.
Would the penalty kick be the moment of truth? Can only the goalkeeper who waits for the shot with perfect calmness save the penalty?
Behind the description following in the footsteps of classic criminal writings and realist prose, Josef Bloch's story is a psychological portrait of the crisis of a man who has fallen out of ordinary and "normal" social life, lost his identity, and suffers from psychosis, which is best expressed by Bloch's relationship to language - his language crisis. The narrative reports on the events and Bloch's condition in the third person singular, with distance, but always from Bloch's perspective. Bloch is mostly disturbed by his perceptions, in which case he tries to explain and interpret his actions and reactions.

Author: Peter Handke