The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter) is a 1970 novel by the Austrian writer Peter Handke. It was adapted into a 1972 film with the same title, directed by Wim Wenders.
Plot
Handke tells the story of Josef Bloch, a fitter and well-known former soccer goalkeeper, who quits his job on a building site on a Friday morning after he is under the impression that he has been made redundant. He wanders through the city of Vienna over the weekend and makes contact with the cinema cashier Gerda, whom he strangles after their first night together.
Bloch then takes a bus to a "southern border town", where he visits a former acquaintance without finding peace. Here, too, he is constantly on the move, while at the same time he follows as if uninvolved, noticing rather by chance that the police are on his trail and that the net is tightening around him - Bloch is trying to convict himself. The story ends before he is arrested.
See also
