Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

This is a very typical book on social issues. Actually in some ways it could have been written in the USSR, not that there would be some "politrucks" participating in it or anything like that - but it`s a very traditional style of book about the oppressed masses - although there`s no pathos about it (contrary to what you would expect from a soviet book). Karl Maiwald works at some sort of truck drivers factory (I didn`t really get what his work was all about - he was a truck driver at first but he wasn`t allowed to drive anymore for his health was already very poor) where he accidentally learns to know that the bosses are spying on the workers by placing microphones everywhere. So he informs the trade union and together with some pals breaks into the office and steals some of the materials on the workers so that they could present those to the people in order to believed by them. But everything doesn`t go well - the government simply sacks Karl and says - nothin happened, let`s get back to work. So the workers start a strike and eventually Karl gets his work back, yet the owners of the company still don`t apologize for what they`ve done.

A girl of 14 is found on the street with an empty bucket in her hand. She doesn`t know her name. The beginning reminded me of the life of Kaspar Hauser. But after that there`s not too much resemblence whatsover. Ok, this little girl was supposedly not little at all, she had some kind of a sickness, but I don`t really care. She goes to a boarding school, and doesn`t succeed to good at anything. She`s a bit like Ella Enchanted, for she always does what she`s told. Not a very interesting book, I don`t even wanna go into details about it.

This is the story of a fellow named Hubert. He was the son of a prominent German nazi, yet he himself wasn`t much of any person in deed. But he was quite good at inventing stories about his life. During the war where he participated as a volunteer he didn`t get to see the action much, spending most of the time as a war clerk (quite similar to Mr. Edmund Blackadder in WW1 by the way) but he was always willing to tell some untrue stories about his heroical deeds. And apart from that he was a huge fan of Humfrey Bogarte and loved all of his films and sometimes wanted to believe that he was in fact Bogarte`s character. Only in the end it went a bit wrong when he told some people the story of the film "Casablanca" as a part of his own life. Unexpectedly the truth behind this story was found out quite fast (yeah, he spent the war in Czechoslovakia and not in Casablanca by the way) and thus he transformed from a hero into a goofball.

It`s quite hard to imagine a novel least likely to be readable than "The Golden Fruit". Reasons for it being weird are quite plain - the novel doesn`t have anything remotely similar to a plot, nor does it have any heroes. Basically it`s a novel about a novel, depicting how a book lives it`s life from the moment of publication when no one knows about it to the highest popularity when everyone claims that it`s as good as Shakespeare to total slamming and calling it a worthless piece of thripe to being completely forgotten. Had Nathalie Sarraute bothered to add some hereos with "tags" aka names and some sort of personalities it could have been an awful lot of fun, but as it is - it`s just awfully difficult to read. The book consists of small separate pieces of dialogue and of some short inner monologues (about the latters I`m not sure whether they belong to one, two or twenty persons). Overall it`s a very, very, very strange book that does push the limits of a novel quite strongly, yet I have to admit that it`s a bit too experimental for me - sort of similar to Captain Beefheart`s music - I am aware that it is very daring and original, yet I just can`t enjoy it. Had I been using a system of ratings where I would differenciate between the overall quality of the book and my own feelings about it, it would become more clear what I want to say by this, but since that`s not my sort of attitude, I can`t do nothing but rate this book as average, although it`s very far from it.

Amazing isn`t it - to read a book that has been written buy a person only less than ten years older than you (if you`re 20 and not 65 that is). And Arjouni is just the guy. It seems that he`s mainly writting some detective crap, but this book can wisely balance on the right side of the mud puddle where such authors occasionally fall. The title story "A friend", for example, is a beautiful tale about a hitchhiker who gets a ride from a theatre director who needs a person to immitate being his friend for a weekend. It turns out that Archie (that`s his name) isn`t the only acting person at the party, and even when he believes that he actually has achieved some sort of friendship with his supposed friend (I don`t mean "friend" in the sexual way), it`s nothing but acting in the reality. The story "The inner" is a strange tale how a man is taken hostage at a bank robbery and he develops the so called Stockholm syndrom in him but still kills the bank robber in the end. And there`s another nice story about a family that illegally keeps an undertendant from abroad and gets awarded for it, despite how bad they treat him. And "In peace" tells the story of a rich city guy starting a country life. But the two other stories are not that good - "The Black series" is the usual gangster stuff we get in the second hand literature nowadays, while "Visit of the pope" makes no sense. If there had been only the four best stories it would have been a great book, but so it is just ok.

The final part of the Matrix trilogy. It`s something more than a year since this film came out, and only now I finally watched it. Was it good? Was it stunning? Was it so-so? Actually it was better than I suspected it to be, but not nearly as good as it gets. The machines are attacing Zion and only Neo once again can stop the war. He has to fight the evil Elrond from the Lord of the Rings a.k.a. agent Smith and his gazillion of replicants. And he has to lose his girlfriend Trinity, and his vision as well, becoming some sort of Hulk. Not Hogan, of course. And he kicks some ass, and he makes peace with the machines, and some of the heroes live happily ever after. Oh, and Morpheus looks like a pimp. So, I don`t get what`s the philosophy in all this, but it`s no bad action film for sure.

An ossie (east german) writer! And funny too! No full sentences! Stories about school in DDR. Being cool for having a guitar. Being uncool at school. Being emo. Being goth. Being a talent of the future. No shops. No capitalism. No war. Yeah!

Once in a while I want to watch a film that wouldn`t require too many brain cells of me. Well, actually, I want to watch such a film most of the time for after a long day at work or at the university I`m usually not in the mood for Ingmar Bergman or something like that. One of the least demanding genres of cinematography is historical films. This sort of films mostly revolves around fancy dresses, pretty palaces and sexy women, thus leaving the brain problems behind. "Poor, poor Pavel" is a prime example for such a film. Well, maybe not for this film isn`t really about fancy dresses but about sick Russian minds. You see, the Russian emperor Pavel the First wasn`t really in his right mind, he had some visions about the way his country should be led yet being a bit childish and brutal at some moments he couldn`t really be loved by his people which led to him being murdered in a very broad conspiracy which was led by a certain count Palen (who happens to be a Baltic German, if I got that right). No one would expect such a film to be something staggering but it`s quite a good way to spend an evening with a visual form of history (since I had seen a documentary about Pavel the First, I knew the story pretty well and watched the film much more as a documentary film than as a dramatic piece).

Now, if there ever was a classical melodrama, this is the one. Ingrid Bergman, Humfrey Boghard and that other fellow form a love triangle of some stature. Casablanca is a French colony in WW2 that hasn`t yet been taken by the Germans, but its not really free as well. Rick (Boghard) runs a bar in Casablanca and he doesn`t do anything with politics until Ilse, his former girlfriend, and her husband - a famous revolutionaire - Laszlo come along. Rick has the power to help them escape from Casablanca, but because of his problems in personal life with Ilse he can`t do that. And it`s a fact that he and Ilse are still in love, but she can`t leave Laszlo either - so this is a very complicated triangle. There`s also the chef of the local police involved, who doesn`t know which way to go - to be with the Germans or with the French. Anyhow, I found this to be a great film, probably one of the best moments of black-and-white cinematography with brilliant acting, fresh dialogue and a good message.

This is one of the books that I have bound myself. No, I haven`t started a new career in book binding but when I persuaded my mother to throw out some of the junk lying in the pantry next to my room (mostly that concerned old literary magazines from the soviet years) she wanted to cut out some of the contents and then have it bound in the form of books. Probably it wasn``t exactly the brightest idea for having a book bound costs more than simply buying a book. Anyhow, I decided to spare some costs and do a little binding of my own. First I tried it on Boris Pasternak`s "Doctor Zhivago" (which I intend to read at some time in the near future), and after that proved to be quite a success I bound some other stuff as well (and that was less of a success, of course). So what is a "widows` steam botat"? It`s a novel/long story written by a Soviet writer/mathematician who used a pseudonim that could be translated into English as "Miss Y". The story revolves mostly around several women living in a communal flat (a very typical case for the USSR). The main hero is a woman that has lost her entire family in WW2 and is now partly crippled herself. Then there`s four other women - a religous one, a physically advanced and rude one, a romantic one and one that had participated in the war herself and returned with a child who`s father wasn`t her husband who returned from the war quite late himself but he didn`t have the strength to start a new relationship with his wife, so he started drinking heavily until he got run over and killed by a tram (just like Berlioz in Bulgakov`s "Master and Margarita"). The story itself is nothing special - a typical everyday life of typical everyday persons, struggling to remain alive. There`s nothing particulary Soviet about it - there`s no communist pathos anywhere in sight, it`s just the life of the little people. I`m not sure whether I`m one of the little people myself, but the book comes off as a very sincere piece of literature, far from earth shattering, of course, but just as it`s the case with "Bednyy, bednyy Pavel" that I wrote about earlier - not the worst possible way to spend your time.