paste up #005 – widower with sons, cologne, before 1914

(doorway in lygon st, brunswick east)

Cover photo of the Sun & Moon Classics 1994 edition of Heimito von Doderer's novel Every Man a Murderer (1938).

The wonderful opening paragraph of the novel reveals just how apt this photo is:

"Everyone’s childhood is plumped down over his head like a bucket. The contents of this bucket are at first unknown. But throughout life, the stuff drips down on him slowly – and there’s no sense changing clothes or costume, for the dripping will continue."

zweite Wirklichkeit
Apperzeptionsverweigerung
Menschwerdung

Von Doderer is concerned with the way individuals perceive—or refuse to perceive—reality, and many of his stories are thematically connected by the pattern of conflict and resolution . . . typically, the central character, emotionally crippled, often by a childhood trauma, starts off trapped in a zweite Wirklichkeit (secondary reality or false reality), which is maintained by the exercise of Apperzeptionsverweigerung (a refusal to apperceive reality). The individual can only break out of this secondary reality and liberate themselves by undergoing Menschwerdung, a sudden shock of recognition or self-discovery. Often Menschwerdung is triggered by a word, an image or a smell which unravels past experience. By shedding false perceptions and facing life as it is, that person becomes (painfully) human.