The Logbook contains selected essays and reports by Thomas Hettche, written between 1993 and 2007. It presents an author who sets out to see the world with great curiosity and a keen eye. Explorations of Germany since the beginning of the Nineties are followed by texts on literature in the era of fundamental changes in media technology and on the politicalization of a basically non-political generation in the wake of 9/11. Travel reports, e. g. from St. Moritz, Venice and Kraków, occupy the author as well as Bram Stoker’s »Dracula«, Lieutenant Ripley and Piero della Francesca.
Hettche surprises us with subjects he considers to be interesting, but he also shows us the areas he travels and covers essayistically before he rearranges his impressions with the skills of a story-teller, e.g. a description of his visit to Marfa, Texas, one of the locations where his latest novel, »Woraus wir gemacht sind«, takes place.
Despite the variety, there are still clear guidelines: a very distinct awareness of today´s historical dependence, a theoretical permeation of the tendency which, under the term of »modernity«, lasts until today, a sensitivity for the aura of things and places, and a pronounced aesthetical sensorium. And above all: a clear, precise, and sensual language that makes experience visible and thoughts understandable.
