8 November 2023, at 09:05
“Berta, the egg is hard.” One of Loriot’s most famous drawings begins with these fateful words. Hermann and Bertha, an ordinary German couple, sit down to breakfast and begin to argue more and more over a soft, hard-boiled egg.
Loriot’s drawing has long been used in schools and university seminars as an example of failed communication work. With Loriot, it is as is often the case in real life: while the man remains wedded to analytical thinking with a relative lack of empathy, Lady Bertha acts more and more on an emotional level, without explicitly formulating her feelings. Result: Neither of them feels understood.
The relationship between men and women is a recurring and varied motif in Loriot’s comic art. No wonder the great satirist eventually came to a resigned conclusion: “Men and women,” says Loriot, “simply do not fit together.”
service
“The Great Book of Loriot – Stories Collected in Words and Pictures”, Diogenes-Verlag, Zurich
Loriot: “People, Animals, Disasters”, Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart
Stefan Lucchi: “Lucky people don’t beat dogs”, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin
Anna Pierce and Claudia Heilbrandt: “Loriot”, ed. text + Kreitek, Munich
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