Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

With this we end our introduction into the mysterious world of Franz Kafka. K. is a land surveyor that was asked to work in a castle. Because of some strange reasons he isn`t let into the territory of the castle, for there`s burrecracy surrounding it. And you can`t even be sure that K. really is a surveyor, for there`s no proof in the book that he is indeed planning to get on with his work and his whole purpose seems kinda strange. A woman named Frieda who was the lover of an important clerk changes the clerk for K. But it only leads to bigger problems for K., who doesn`t really know what he wants, if there even is such a thing. He sinks lower and lower in the society around the castle, but it doesn`t really bother him, all he wants is to talk to some highly positioned clerks, but he doesn`t have much success at that. He has a strange friend who`s family is treated like unhuman in the village for the guys sister refused to go and become a fuck buddy for some important guy. And in the end nothing comes out of all K. troubles, everything ends like nothing had ever started. The book is similar to the "Process" and not definetely worse than the most highly acclaimed Kafkas novel.

Am I turning Japanese or is this the second film with Paul Giamati I`ve seen over the last couple of days? I guess the last option could be true. My first experience with this film wasn`t a positive one - upon watching the trailer to this film at a cinema I expected it to be a boring mediocre piece of crap. You know, something like "Road Trip" for middle-aged people. That does seem a bit disturbing, don`t it? There`s those two fellows - one of them is a teacher at school and a wanna-be writer, while the other one is a TV commercials actor, who is going to get married in just one week, and his pal organizes a bachelors party for him. The party isn`t that much of a party - Giamati`s character has planned a week of wine and golf, but it happens that his pal wants some real action, and they hook up with some girls (ok, none of them are boys or girls by my standards - the youngest of chicks is 33 by now, the older one is in her 40s already). But nobody tells the women that one of the party-goers is getting married in just a couple of days. Giamati`s character is quite similar to the one he played in "American Splendor" but the film is much better constructed, and less of a comedy and more of a drama. This ain`t surely a mainstream Hollywood film - it has very few "for your consideration scenes", not too much pretty faces, and a realistic view of life. Probably, there`s a bit too much information about wine for me but this still is the best candidate for Oscar as the film of the year I`ve seen so far (beating out "Neverland" and "Ray").

I`d love to know why this film isn`t on the factoid yet. That`s very strange and I`d love to know why it isn`t there. I only remember that the beginning of the film was brilliant but I don`t really know why. If I remember correctly it was about the little things in life that change everything. Now some of the things are coming back to me - for instance the story of a man who wanted to commit suicide and jumped off a building but he would have been saved by a net if his father hadn`t shot at the moment at his mother missing the mother and shooting through the window. Yet it was only the introduction to the film stating how much coincidences mean. Later on we have some info on a TV show for whiz kids and a fellow who had much luck at the game but isn`t too lucky now. Then there`s another man who wants his son to be a hero at the game right now but he doesn`t care for his son only for the win. Then there`s Tom Cruise as a complete jerk who`s lying about his past all the time and whos father to whom he hasn`t spoken in ages is dying. Then there`s a fat guy working for the dying father who`s looking for this fellow. So in the end we know that there are just coincidences in this world that change everything. It would be a good point proving how all the different stories fit in together, yet there`s a problem that if you made a film about all the people I know and never showed them together before the end you`d probably get a similar effect. Still this is a very good film.

The problem with German literature lies mostly in the fact that it`s rarely readable. And unknown German writers tend to be less readable than prominent authors. Take this Albig fellow, for instance. What is this book supposed to be? I read it and I can`t even say that I`ve already forgotten it. It just made absolutely no sense. Was there a story line? I`m not sure. There were two characters - Enzberg and Lolli who were sorta living together. Enzberg was a bicycle courier and he was a sicko. Lolli was a woman. That`s probably the best information about this book you can get from me. Most of the time nothing happens in this book and the only at leastly partly readable episode was a story about a man who killed a woman he loved and ate her and when she was half eaten used her for some necrophilic games. Yet even from that part the only thing that has stayed in my memory was the fact the woman`s anus didn`t taste good and the cannibal threw it away. If you ask me - I`d throw this book in an anus if I were able to find an anus big enough.

Probably you have never heard the name of this writer. Neither had I. But now I know that Erwin Grosche is one fellow with a strange taste for humour. What`s good is that his taste is good. If it weren`t I`d probably never read a book like this. As a matter of fact under any circumstances I wouldn`t be a likely person to read a book like this. "Praise of the province"? You gotta be kidding me, why I never! I don`t find too much interest in local things, I`m a global person that wants blood of the nation on my hands etc. I`m not really sure what the genre for this book could be. It`s not a novel, probably. Or is it? It`s got something similar to a storyline, but no, not really. There is some weird diary that somehow ties the book together, although most of the texts in the diary don`t make very much sense. For example, what do you think about something like this one: "Today I slept so long, that this writing is the only thing I can note."? Then there are stories about some people that are all probably the same person. There`s one guy who likes to dress-up as a cowboy, and there`s one who stands at a bus stop and wins the world championship for people waiting at bus stops. Mostly harmless - that`s what you can say about the people of this book. It`s probably really a praise of the countryside or of the little towns, but I don`t care. To me it`s just a collection of funny episodes.

Germany is the second most turkish country in the world following Turkey itself. Therefore there`s no wonder that some sort of German-Turkish art has been becoming more and more known lately. "Hurriyet Love Express" is a book of stories about Turks in Germany. You probably know the song "Young Turks". In fact I`m not 100% sure that I do myself, but it`s just one more proof how the Turks are taking over the world. Just like the Chinese are. But enough of that. What is so special about this book that I decided to read it? Nothing really, just another case of taking a book by an unknown author from the library. Some of the stories are at least worth reading - the first one about a gambler who goes to Germany from Turkey in order to do his trade but when he arrives he sees that the gambling place isn`t built yet and that he`s come there as a construction worker. Then there was a story about a taxi driver picking up a Latino woman from a S&M club - the woman has come to Germany thinking that she`ll be working in a restaurant, just as she was in Columbia. To make it three stories mentioned in this memo factoid I want to tell myself a story about a young but poor guy who falls in love with a girl (quoting the White Stripes) and buys her 800 roses but doesn`t impress her with that. Oh, no, I don`t want to stop. Then there`s a story where a man steals expensive sunglasses from a store just because he doesn`t have cash and creditcards aren`t accepted, and when the glasses break he manages to get a new pair from the factory. In another story two guys desperate for sex start a lot of relationships through telephone ads and in the end each of them falls in love with a girl, only they don`t know that it`s the same girl but with different names. I guess that will do it - stories are good, not breaktaking, not bed shaking but a solid 7 is the right mark for a book like this one.

When I finished reading "Velo" by J-E Albig I thought: "this is the worst book I`ve read in quite a long time. I hope the next book I`ll read will help me forget it." Sadly Juergen Becker`s novel (if it is a novel) "Raender" was worse than I could have possibly imagined. You see, this is experimental literature. John Cage among writers. A book not only without a story but quite often - even without sentences. It reminds me of a time when I made a program that collected random words from a story I had written and said that the result was a story itself. Today I`m ready to admit that it was a pretentious piece of shit. Worse than dadaist experimentation - mainly because it came after the last true dadaist had died. Becker wrote his book something like 38 years ago yet I can imagine that it sounded very dated even when it was still fresh. A book where several pages are just empty, others have nonsense texts without any reason to exist - to me it`s the worst kind of crap possible. It may be some sort of high art but I can`t like a book if I`m unable to read it. Just to show how interesting this book is I`ll give here a short quote (in my own very crappy translation): "wants someone there to go once again to steal wood just as once in the golden age of wood stealing not true a swallowed hurrah with tears in the mouth formed once again something like a prayer deep from the start". Is that enough for you? It is for me for sure.

Jan Svankmajer`s latest flick tells me a fairytale about a man who because of not being able to have children of his own gives to his wife a childlike treeroot, she madly starts to love. What makes a problem is the `childs` turning alive and eventually becoming quite a big eater. Other characters in the film are Alzbetka and her parents who live next to Bozenka and Karel (and their Otesanek). Alzbetka wants to protect Otesanek but it ain`t that easy for she is aware of an old woman growing cabbages that according to the fairytale shoud kill Otesanek. Some parts of the film are quite scary although many elements have already appeared in Svankmajer`s previouds works. What`s nice is the scene where Alzbetka is peeking through Karel`s door and the old pedophile of the house comes by and as she sees him Alzbetka says to him: "Stop now or you`ll have another heart attack!" Interesting idea, interesting realisation and what says the most is the fact that I was able to watch it until something like 2AM which I`m rarely capable of.

First thing to mention - it`s one novel and not two novels, although it may seem that they are completely different. Every second chapter in the book comes from the first novel and every other - from the second. Wait, I said that there was only one novel. It`s not that easy to tell not only because of the structure but much more because of the content. On the first glance they seem to have nothing in commong - Wonderland is about a dude who works for the government in the area of untraditional cryptography while the other one tells about a man who arrives in a city that can`t be left. Lots of stuff happens in Wonderland while nothing happens at the end of the world. Unicorns, jazz and rock`n`roll, sex with a librarian and no sex with a granddaughter of a scientist, strange creatures living in the underground, old dreams, a man separated from his shadow, more unicorns, an old colonel who plays chess, crackers and much more can be found in the book. Not to be read by a person that has no interest in music, classics of the cinema and mysterical nonsense. Very good, Simon says. Not for everybody though.

Let`s analyse each story separately (although they are quite close to each other in terms of style). The Sentence - a mystery about a man, who has a friend in Russia, and his half-crazed father. I didn`t really understand what it was supposed to mean. The Transformation - one morning a guy named Gregor awakes as a giant bug. Very dark and depressive. In der Strafkolnie - a devil-posessed officer shows to a traveler the meanest device for death penalty ever seen that is used for no apparent reason. Dreadful images appear in front of my eyes. A Starvation Artist - about man who`s starvation is a form of art. Disgusting at times, thrilling all the time. That Kafka was not a very happy person indeed. All those stories are quite amazing (although I didn`t get the meaning of the first one). An all time classic.