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Being obsessed with an idea is perhaps a problem in real life but it does make for good literature. Viktor Frankenstein is obsessed with bringing a dead back to life. Jay Gatsby with the American Dream. And Captain Ahab with hunting the white whale.

The “Knigge” has suffered the same fate as many other famous books: It says something completely different than what we think it says. The real Knigge, after all, was not interested in prescribing stiff rules of behavior but in creating respectful interpersonal relations.

Do you know psycho thrillers which feature uncanny children or children possessed by demons as protagonists? The innocence we associate with the child in combination with its apparent corruption always makes for a particularly spine-chilling experience. Henry James wrote an early precursor of such modern thrillers.

In the 19th came the industrialization, and with it the pauperization of workers everywhere. Victor Hugo wrote so heart-wrenchingly about their misery in his social novel Les Misérables that the story still lures millions of musical-goers to the theaters today.

A society which knows no god is a brutal society. At least that is what von Horváth’s novel claims. Alluding to Nazi Germany, it shows how one’s own survival trumps humanity, and cowardice wins against civic courage.