Heiter.Bedeckt

Cheerful. Overcast. Perceptions through the wide-angle lens. As is typical for the genre, Ludwig Laher's personal approach characterizes the content of his literary essays. He allows himself an unusually large space as a person and repeatedly brings biographical fragments to the fore for this purpose. In fact, one should speak of a strong interaction between the flashes from Laher's life and the subject being discussed. However, nothing is further from the author than introspection for the sake of introspection, which is why he automatically presents a wide-angle lens to his inner eye. This doesn't cost much, Laher believes, just alertness and a curiosity that exceeds the ordinary. A significant trip to the cinema in New York's Greenwich Village, complete with accompanying music, a burial pleasure thanks to the police in western Vienna, a child's fall from a horse, Laher's limited field of vision due to a defective eye since birth, or his purchase of a self-portrait by the Austrian painter Ella Iranyi, who was murdered by the Nazis, are just a few of the starting points for fundamental reflections and more or less obvious connections to current societal issues. The author must bid farewell to some familiar things—opinions, attitudes, classifications of the past.