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I haven't read anything by Tokarczuk. Handke I have tried several times over the years (I'm German, so can read him in the original.) A very weird author, but also interesting. His early stuff I found harder to relate to than his later (beginning some time in the 1980s) work. There is never much plot in his novels and short novels. What plot there is is usually an excuse for an author proxy character's ruminations and meditations, which range from the enthralling and fascinating to the obnoxious. But trust in him to come up with amazingly beautiful descriptive passages every few pages.
I last tried his latest one, Die Obstdiebin, which hasn't been translated into English yet, it seems. It has passages of great beauty, and is even very funny in places, but I ran out of steam after a third of the book anyway. He is a Romantic, who always misses some kind of wonder in the modern world (which I can relate to), and he is also a very angry man, and his anger can get on one's nerves. Especially when it seems to be just a pose, as in the case of the Nobel. Just a few years ago he said how ridiculous and useless the Nobel Prize was, and that it should be abolished; but as soon as they offer it to him, it doesn't take him a minute's thought to accept.
And then there's the whole Milosevic business, which has come back to haunt him since the announcement. But that would have to go into the politics forum.
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