Slow Return by Peter Handke. A journey with the History of the Pencil

Peter Handke’s novel Langsame Heimkehr (translated as Slow Homecoming) and its companion notebook Die Geschichte des Bleistifts (The History of the Pencil) reflect upon the creative process through the story of the wanderings of a geologist named Sorger, who is seeking the depth of time (vertical) and the vastness of space (horizontal), and the places where they may intersect. From Indian reservations in the United States to post-1945 Europe, Sorger’s journey and spatial quest are a metaphor for the search for an identity ; from the archaic roots to the historical ego, measuring with the dreaming consciousness perceptions of the relationship to the world, which navigate between formless places (regression) and brief moments when form emerges (creation), in search of a meaning, law, and place in the world.