Amazingly despite being written by a German playwright that I haven`t even heard of "Closed because of richness" proved to be quite a nice little comedy. Max and Rosa, his wife, suddenly win a lot of money (it`s not mentioned how they win it) - 11 millions in total. After that they close their little shop and start having fun from life. Since neither of them is prepared for that sort of situation what they do is simply buying junk and throwing money away as if it was won in a lottery (and it probably was). They encounter a lot of people that want to benefit from their stupidity and they allow those people to achieve their goals. Max and Rosa are basically good-for-nothings that could have done fairly well when they were normal people but money spoils them instantly. I doubt that this play has any lasting value but I can imagine fairly well to see this performed on stage and I suppose I would like it there as well.

A whole lotta Faulkner indeed! Although Mr. W.F. hasn`t really stunned me with any of his works this is the fourth of his novels I`ve read. The action takes place in the most typical place which Faulkner has ever written about - the American South. The heroes are typical Faulkner`s material as well - John Sartoris is the main hero of the book (or was it Bayard Sartoris, I`m not really sure), and there is even a man named Snopes involved in the story. The novel consists of several episodes from the American Civil war. Those episodes are only loosely connected and a tight structure is surely not the the purpose of the book. There`s a young Sartoris kid and his black friend that took on adventures a bit similar to that of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer - this whole thing is quite similar to the kids in "Intruders in the dust" which I also found to be a bit influenced by Mark Twain. Probably the main difference between Faulkner and Twain is the time when their books were written. Faulkner provided an updated for the 20th century requirements version of Mark Twain. Although this "update" provides several advantages in terms of literary qualities and depth it also has a few drawbacks. Whilest Mark Twain is easy to ready and understandable Faulkner is terribly complicated. I already fealt it in "Sartoris", but after having read "The Unvanquished" in the original and not in a Latvian translation I have to repeat my sentence once again - it`s hard to read Faulkner, and not always you`ll be rewarded for your devoted and hard work.

A good play is as good on paper as it is on a stage. Having hever read anything by Arthur Miller before I was prepared for everything - from a new "Hamlet" to "Dukes of Hazzard" in written form. The whole situation is quite simple - there`s Victor (age circa 50), his wife Esther (the same age), Walther (Victor`s younger brother) and Solomon - and old Jewish antiques dealer. Victor never finished his studies because he had to support his father that became some sort of a living vegetable after his business collapsed. Now, some 15 years after the father`s death Victor and Esther have finally decided to sell all the stuff his father owned. Walther who`s a successful doctor (and not a retiring policeman like Victor) comes to meet his brother and to settle the differences between them that the brothers couldn`t overcome for many long years. Solomon is nearly ninety years old and he`s not willing to give a high price for the deceased fathers posessions. But what will be the price for Victor and Walther becoming friends once again? The whole thing isn`t the best thing I`ve ever read but it`s been long since I read a play this consistently interesting.

If you don`t live and die for Depeche Mode you`re worth nothing. If you haven`t gone through a stage of your life when Depeche Mode was a symbol for everything you stood for you`re either a retard or you`re still pre-teen. If you don`t know by heart the names of the band members you don`t deserve a name yourself at all. The only excuse for not worshiping Depeche Mode is having switched to "The Cure" instead.

The book is supposedly a detective. I`m not really sure that it is. Jacob Vogelwart is a fellow who was a writer once but has become a thief later on. He mostly looks in his neighbours windows and spies upon them. Then there`s a woman named Nicole that`s looking for her sister that is lost somewhere in the town. In reality she knows perfectly well where the sister is but she doesn`t want the others to know (she`s not dead and buried and not even held captive if you ask me). Then there`s a strange fellow who owns several bars in the town and who likes to pretend that he`s dying. What does it make as a sum? Not too much, the book is readable but not worth being read.

This starts of as a romantic comedy with a clerk and a wannabe lawyer Norman falling in love with a girl he meets in an art gallery. After spending too much time with her he gets fired from his work and ends up living with his aunt in a small town called Selchester. His love life doesn`t go particulary well, especially after he sees the woman of his dreams performing oral sex with her sisters boyfriend. So Norman goes home very sad and falls into the hands of a weird lodger of her aunties - a bishop with a lot of titles but without a church, without a religion. Yet this strange fellow ordinates Norman as a bishop as well and so Norman decides to give it a shot and become a clergyman. He goes to a thelogical college where everyone turns out to be gay and everyone has a female nickname and sodomy is practiced everywhere. Meanwhile Norman has a relationship with his first girlfriends sister, named Cleo, she`s in love with him therefore he obviously isn`t. The father of both of the girls is a dean who doesn`t believe in god and has made a lot of money from his God-mocking books. Norman dies in the end jumping from the top of a cathedral. This clearly ain`t the funniest book I`ve read in my entire life and some of it`s parts may a bit too obscene for my taste but easy to read and a bit funny it is, why shouldn`t one like that kind of books?

I have absolutely no idea why this isn`t in the factoid already. Weird, I was sure it was here. The film has a script written by Rainer Fassbinder and it ain`t no surprise to a person who know who Fassbinder was and what this film is about. First, burning rocks are represented by a young lad that`s invited to visit a man who ain`t that young anymore. So they start talking and the older man seduces the younger one and they become lovers. The young guy had a girl he wanted to marry but it doesn`t work out because of the older man. So they live together and the young dude gets more feminine day by day. But then the old man`s ex arrives - a transsexual person that was a man once but changed sex so the man would want him/her again. The young mans girlfriend comes to visit him to free him from the Water drops. But she also gets seduced by the Man. And in the end the young guy commits suicide, but the old man has sex with the young girl and the transvestite. Happy end, indeed. I don`t really know if saying "i kinda liked this film" would be a good thing in the exact case, but it`s true. The film may be a bit too perverse for my taste but it doesn`t necessarily make it worse. Or does it?

Did you get the title? I did not. Who cares anyhow? The whole thing is a collection of 5 stories that are somehow connected by a goddess bringing death. The characters include a man working in a museum who`s being turned into a sculpture after he`s seen the goddess with the head of the legendary Meduse in her hands, his wife and some other people.

Pēc tam, kad biju izlasījis otro Grošeka romānu - to, kas par pusdienām, no šī biju gaidījis vairāk.

The book contains three dramatic works by the famous German writer Herman Broch (ok, I`m not so sure that he was that famous indeed but his name seems familiar to me - and that`s something). Note: after consulting Wikipedia (I`ve been mentioning this source of information quite often lately but only because it`s very informative and not because They would pay me for it, although I`d feel happy if they would) I know that Broch comes from a Jewish family and that he`s considered an Austrian writer. He`s mostly known for his novel "The Death of Virgil" which I`ll probably read later to be more educated than I am now. Yet I can`t say that after reading some of his plays I`ve become particulary interested in Broch`s writing. Out of the three plays published in the book I got from my library - "Die Entsuehnung", "Aus der Luft gegriffen oder Die Geschaefte des Baron Laborde" and "Es bleibt alles by Alten" I found only one that really worked for me. The first play - a tragical piece about a factory is - is too sad, boring and has too many characters for me to really get it on paper (rating 4.0). The second is a comedy and it`s fine - I always like to read something about con-artists and villains (8.0). The last play is also a comedy and it`s nothing really - nor good, nor bad, passable and not more (5.5). Maybe it wasn`t the best start of learning to know Hermann Broch.