Karlo i XX. stoljeće

Vienna, 1893: Karl Lakner sees the light of day. Mother is a maid, father is a mason's helper, the world is once again on the brink of an abyss. But Karl fights back, wants to do something with his life, studies hard and actually gets to teacher training college - life seems to be getting better. Then the First World War breaks out. Karl Lakner - a person like thousands of other people, a life chosen at random among millions of others, subject to the same limitations and conditions: wars, inflation, economic crisis, unemployment, poverty and hunger.

The young worker writer and vagabond Rudolf Brunngraber was inspired to write this novel by the Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath, who for the first time focused on the importance of statistical material with regard to social issues, mass misery and the working class. The result is not only enormous in content and thematic aspect, but also conquers the formal terrain that no other works of the so-called New objectivities have never conquered with such consistency.

A novel depicting global technical and economic limitations and obstacles intertwined with the life of one person from ancient times. Almost every category in the novel is radically exploded here, but the connection with reality remains intact.