Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Once again I find that my factoid is far from complete - I`m absolutely sure that I`ve read another of Boyd`s novels - "The New Confessions" - when my factoid was already online, yet I can`t seem to find a trace of that book anywhere around here. Probably it was one of the books I read before my computer broke down and it somehow got lost when I tried to recapture everything that was missing. Anyhow now it`s too late... no, maybe not - I eventually will add that book to the factoid although I remember very little from it. But enough about Boyd, it`s time to talk about Boyd. There was one fellow named Boyd who played for the Scottish national football team, Tom Boyd, if I`m not mistaken, yet he has absolutely nothing to do with this book.

I bought "Daniel Martin" when I was in London something like one and a half years ago. My logic was the following - a huge book that`s written by the author of the masterful "The Collector" - how can I deny myself the pleasure of reading it? Yet upon my return I somehow just couldn`t force myself to start reading it - it is very thick after all and I usually prefer smaller books. Yeah, I know that it sucks judging a book by its size but I have been observing a tendency that big books tend to be interesting in less cases than smaller books - because it`s hard to maintain a high level of a tight story for something like 700 pages.

Do you believe that people are vain indeed or do they just pretend to be? On the trip through the most classical works of English literature we make our stop at the great novel "Vanity Fair", which the author himself called "novel without a hero". Is it true that there isn`t a hero? In the sense of a central male figure - yes, it is true, there isn`t a man whom you would call a hero, especially judging them by their behaviour - there`s Joseph Sedley - a naive and not particulary smart coward, there George Osbourne - a rich guy who doesn`t really know what to do about his own life and there`s William Dobbin who`s at least smart but who acts like a fool in love. And about the female stars - Becky Sharp who marries a possible heir of big bucks is an interesting character that`s able to use her female powers to gain control over men. But she`s considered to be the bad person, while Amelia Sedley - a whiny silly chick that loves her one and only George despite him being such a fool, is thought to be the true positive heroess a novel needs. Disgusting! And the novel is extremely long - there are many characters, every single one of them does lots of things (except for Amelia that keeps on crying the whole time thus making me want her death). The only reason to read this is to improve the overall level of education, but if you want to read an interesting it`s not the best choice. Oh, I forgot - the idea about the "vanity fair" of high society life is a good one, and the last sentence about the puppets being put back in their boxes is also good.

Martin Scorsese is a total loser. Even that guy in the film "Loser" was luckier than him. He at least got this hot chick that was featured in the video of the band`s Wheatus only hit. Of course, I don`t remember anything about this film, because I never watched it. But still - Scorsese has got so many Oscar nominations and not a single award. And even the films of his rarely receive many significant awards. So this year the Aviator had something like 11 nominations and got only 5 of them, the best one for a secondary female role. Still, this film isn`t that good so you need to start raving for it failing to impress the academy. The film is about Howard Hughes, a supposedly legendary person, I never bother to know about until this film came out. Apparantly this Hughes fellow was an amateur film director and an amateur plane builder, who succeeded much at that thing at the beginning. He was also quite good at screwing underage actresses. And he got made for hygiene and stopped washing and shaving because he thought that even in watter there were germs. Leonardo di Caprio of "the Titanic" plays him. I bet you hate if this fellow is considered a titanic-one-trick-pony, but I don`t care, `cos I`m listening to the White Stripes right now, and I don`t care. Oh, I already mentioned that once... This is probably not Scorsese at his best, so they say. The film is a movie for the oscars and not for the heart, at least I think like that. Actually his probably best movie - "Taxi driver" - didn`t impress me much as well. But Scorsese is a living legend, and he will never receive an Oscar, if only for being a legend...

I remember close to nothing about this book, only that it was written as a modernized version of the original "Confessions" (by J.J.Rosseau if I`m not wrong). I also seem to remember that it was a life story of a man, and that when he was little the woman who was paid for to nurse him used to put him to sleep by sucking on his tiny weenie (if I`m not going crazy and imaginating that). The man became a filmmaker supposedly, and I supposedly liked this book, but I didn`t like it more than words can say.

I somehow always thought that Primal Scream was a heavy metal band - something similar to "Slayer" or "Pantera". When I saw this band compared to "The Stone Roses" this morning, it got me quite surprised. So I decided to give a try to the band`s most famous album - "Screamadelica". The first song seemed to introduce me to a Britpop band that I had somehow never heard. "Movin` on up" may not be the most catchy song I`ve ever heard and it sounds as it was taken from the B side of a "Rolling Stones" record. As a matter of fact, I would have nothing against it. But when I came to the second song on the album - "Slip Inside This House" it made me regret deciding to listen to this band. What is this shit supposed to mean? Is this some of the stuff you listen to at the Hacienda while consuming purple pills? I definetely think so - this is the case of britpop meeting house music. And you know what? I don`t like house music at all! "Don`t Fight it, feel it" as you can probably guess from the title, is worse. The Beatles influence isn`t there anymore and all there is is some ugly synth patterns - a mix of house and trance I presume (for I don`t know much about either). Most of the following tracks aren`t decent rock music either - it`s just some crap for potheads of the 90s. When I hear songs like "Come Together" on the radio I usually change channels. Although "Screamadelica" is considered to be one of the most important records of 1991 (alongside "Nevermind") in its unique mix rock and dance, I can only find something for me in songs like "Damaged" or the already mentioned "Movin` on Up" where the dance influence can`t be felt at all. On other songs, for example "Higher than the sun (A dub Symphony in two parts)" I feel that I`m listening to an ugly version of "Depeche Mode" and not being a fan of the real DM I have nothing to find in a band like this one. Especially when it is performing "dub symphonies". I guess it could have been better had I listened to the metal outfit that I had mixed up with this band - "Primal Fear".

Them French never change. It`s been 50 years since "400 blows" came out but they still do films about the cruelty of school. Of course, this film has nothing to do with "400 blows", but I still thought it a good situation for me to shine with my exceptional high IQ level. A middle aged unsuccessful composer ends up being a prefect in a school for children with problems - not mental or physical, but in terms of behaviour. Being a good fellow he doesn`t try to help them by hitting them with a big mallot on the head but making them sing in a choir. And there`s one child who`s exceptionally hard to handle but who happens to have a voice an angel. But the director of the school doesn`t support anything like this, because he`s an old fox and an old fart. This film doesn`t try to go particulary deep, there even ain`t no sexual abuse of the angelic singer in the film, which seemed to be a coming up thing. But someone this director ain`t no Pedro Almadovar (I don`t really know what`s the name of the director). It`s a nice French film, with some good choir singing, if you want to go psychological you`re knocking at the wrong door, but it doesn`t mean that the film is half bad.

I`m the kind of person that`s perfectly capable of falling in love with something just because of the name. For instance, if I`d ever meet a girl named Fedora Redhat I wouldn`t be likely to lose my mind because of her, but were she named Penny Lane - who knows.

The thing I love about read is that you never know when you are going to discover a hidden gem you somehow never heard about. Take this Per Ulov Enquist for instance - I had never heard much about him and now I`ve totally fallen in love. So, maybe I don`t fall in love with 70 year old Swedes in the carnal meaning of the word but this story about the magnetist clearly ranks among the best I`ve read in quite a long time. It is a partly true story about a man travelling around and practicing so called "magnetism medicine" - a somewhat mystical treatment of patients that sometimes tends to work miracuosly. What is good about the book is that despite the reader being aware the this Meissner is not a good man and that he is partly a fraud one can not wish him not to succeed - for after all his treatment is usually much more humane (and reasonable for that matter) than that used by the so called professional doctors. In terms of style it reminds me of Patrick Sueskinds "Perfume" - it takes part in the 18th century, it has its share of mysticism and unexplainable content, and the hero himself is also similar to the perfumer (he is also a bit crazy for sex, just like that other fellow). What surprises me the most is how could this book be published in the Soviet Latvia in 1980 - it`s a bit dirty, it doesn`t have no social moralizing whatsoever, it`s mystical and it does`t mention Carl Marx even once. Strange, isn`t it? Now the only thing I know is that I`m going to be looking for other books by Enquist in order to be dissapointed most likely. Yet "The Magnetist`s fifth winter" will surely find its place among my all time favourite books.

The first few stories had a really good impression on me - a fresh language and quite interesting characters can be a sign of interesting things to come. However every next story tends to repeat the previous ones and pretty soon the book gets overwhelmingly boring. As a mater of fact, I didn`t make it past one third of the book. It seems that Mr. Maurois was an author for wide masses that wrote about the dull and boring problems in the love life of the bourgeoisie. I admit that having not read the complete book I am not able to judge it in an adequate way but I don`t care about that because more of the same bore cannot change the impression in the positive direction. It`s just no good literature by any means.