Wie lebe ich richtig?
JOHN VON DÜFFEL
Das Wenige und das Wesentliche. Ein Stundenbuch / The Scarce and the Essential. A Book of Hours
120 pages
Autumn 2022
There is no right life in the wrong one. But there is a right direction.
A search for self-knowledge in the story of one’s own life: a short poetology of life
A modern book of hours about minimalism, mindfulness and clarity, a short account of the important questions in life
How Do I Live a Good Life?
New Year’s Day in the Ligurian back country. A room in a monastery. A landscape which is sparse and green at once. It is in these tranquil surroundings, on this day of beginnings and endings that the oldest question of all presents itself again: how do I live a good life?
It begins with a chain of thought that runs through the hours of the day from before sunrise until after sunset, from the beginnings of the contemplation of life, into the present and beyond, forever conscious of the fact that a life will not simply be lived, it will also be read about. This book acts as a companion, and also an invitation to come along on the search for the right direction: it contemplates the human and the monastic, rules for life regarding what matters, and the classical imperative of beauty, of degree and of self-knowledge.
In this guide, author and doctor of philosophy John von Düffel has not written a story for important days in the conventional sense; he has written a short chronicle about coming to a realisation about how a life should be relayed. Transparent and compact, his book of hours is a literary text that presents a philosophy of life. The answer to everything is in the societal and yet very personal question: what story am I living in? Which point in the story? And how do I proceed?
Das Wenige und das Wesentliche. Ein Stundenbuch / The Scarce and the Essential. A Book of Hours
120 pages
Autumn 2022
There is no right life in the wrong one. But there is a right direction.
A search for self-knowledge in the story of one’s own life: a short poetology of life
A modern book of hours about minimalism, mindfulness and clarity, a short account of the important questions in life
How Do I Live a Good Life?
New Year’s Day in the Ligurian back country. A room in a monastery. A landscape which is sparse and green at once. It is in these tranquil surroundings, on this day of beginnings and endings that the oldest question of all presents itself again: how do I live a good life?
It begins with a chain of thought that runs through the hours of the day from before sunrise until after sunset, from the beginnings of the contemplation of life, into the present and beyond, forever conscious of the fact that a life will not simply be lived, it will also be read about. This book acts as a companion, and also an invitation to come along on the search for the right direction: it contemplates the human and the monastic, rules for life regarding what matters, and the classical imperative of beauty, of degree and of self-knowledge.
In this guide, author and doctor of philosophy John von Düffel has not written a story for important days in the conventional sense; he has written a short chronicle about coming to a realisation about how a life should be relayed. Transparent and compact, his book of hours is a literary text that presents a philosophy of life. The answer to everything is in the societal and yet very personal question: what story am I living in? Which point in the story? And how do I proceed?
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John von Düffel
John von Düffel was born in Göttingen in 1966, he works as a dramaturg at Deutsches Theater Berlin and is professor for scenic writing at the Berlin...
John von Düffel was born in Göttingen in 1966, he works as a dramaturg at Deutsches Theater Berlin and is professor for scenic writing at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has published novels and story collections with DuMont since 1998, including 'Vom Wasser' (1998), 'Houwelandt' (2004), 'Wassererzählungen' (2014), 'Das Klassenbuch' (2017), 'Der brennende See' (2020) 'Wasser und andere Welten' (new edition 2021) and most recently ‘Die Wütenden und die Schuldigen’ (2021). His works have...