I always know I’m in trouble with a book when I have to frantically read the reviews because I have no idea what’s going on and why exactly I should bother trying to find out. Thankfully enough of the reviews justified me giving up and not wasting any more time ploughing ahead with this pretentious, pointless, meandering and ultimately completely tedious novel.

From my old car trips across America, I remember that when we were driving, for example, across Utah or Montana, there was a period, shortly before sunset, when the landscape was becoming indescribably beautiful. In the golden light, the mountains and the road were bathed in the softness. I felt the uniqueness of that moment: so elusive yet permanent.

I experienced a similar feeling of "golden hour" reading "The Fruit Thief" by Peter Handke. A young woman sets off from a town near Paris towards the north to meet her parents and brother. She is initially followed by a narrator. He gets ejected from his stationary lifestyle as a writer after being bitten on a foot by a bee and watches her first walking along a dirt road and casually picking a fruit from a tree, then boarding a train to Paris. But at one point, the fruit thief, whose name is Alexia, somehow manages to leave the narrator's watchful eye and continues her journey alone, or rather, we, the readers, are following her now. She is well prepared for the trip and has everything in her bag that can be of use to her. Alexia walks alone but meets others. One day, her companion is a delivery boy who leaves his scooter and walks with her, silently but as if bound by a secret agreement. There are other people and places she comes across on her journey - an old innkeeper, a woman friend from the past, and someone looking for a lost cat. As the cards in the deck, these people take the top spot for the moment, but they disappear, allowing the fruit thief to be on her way.

This is a beautiful novel, one of the best I have ever read: a poetic, imaginary book that can be compared to a painting, and I just wanted to continue reading it, day after day. And the language: the way Peter Handke constructs pictures and sentences made me walk with the fruit thief, and not merely walk with her but feel submerged in her world, full of scents and colors.

The words ending the novel summarize it best: "Just think of what she had experienced in the three days of her journey into the interior of the country, and how every hour had been dramatic, even if nothing happened, and how every moment something had been at stake, and after barely three days one bright summery strand in her dark hair: strange. Or not strange after all? No, strange. Still strange. Extremely strange."

This reminded me of the introspective behemoths of Karl Knausgaard, which held my interest, unlike this one.

Yes, well, I tried, I honestly tried but he lost me in the minutia in this story of a man who is following a young woman he calls The Fruit Thief on a winding trip through northern France, I wasn't sure what the point of this was but I will admit to enjoying some of the scenery along the way. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Wasn't for me but he did win the Nobel Prize,, making this worth at least a look from fans of literary fiction.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read and review this book. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

Yes and no. I would have preferred this book in poetry form. I enjoyed the premise, the simple act of a bee sting and the repercussions, a single act magnified 1000 times in detail. It does read like a surreal exploration of a blade of grass to existentialism. But, reads like an exhaustive translation
"Only I, or so I imagined, had left the soil, the garden plot, alone, thanks to my lethargy or something else. And behold: in these few decades the ground had been pancake-flat when I took ownership of it, had been reshaped, thanks to the effects of water and weather."
The point being, that he is one with the earth. Initially, i enjoyed the ramblings but, they did get tedious.
Had the author not provided such exhaustive detail, I would have enjoyed the book much more.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read and review this book.
jb
https://seniorbooklounge.blogspot.com/

First, some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. Secondly, if you're looking to get lost in words and savor each sentence like a treat, then this book is for you. The way Handke explains something as simple as looking for keys or remembering an interaction with someone is purely poetic.