45. The Interpretation of Murder – Jed Rubenfeld

This book belongs to a subgenre of historical fiction that I have taken a fancy to: Take any historical person you want and let him stumble upon a murder which makes him take on the role of a sleuth. In the case of Rubenfeld’s novel this historical person happens to be, the title gives it away, Siegmund Freud. Shortly after the famous psychoanalyst arrives in America in order to give a couple of lectures at an University, he is asked by the New York mayor for assistance in the case of the beautiful Nora Acton who has been wounded and left tied-up and half-naked by an unknown assaulter. Traumatized by this experience, she has now lost her speech as well as her memory, and that is were Freud joins the game. ( Mild Spoilers ahead. )

46. Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran - Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Eleven year old Momo suffers from the coldness of his distant father. His mother has left them when he was an infant, together with his elder brother Popol, a boy in every way more perfect than Momo (as his father assures him in every possible situation). That would be pretty worse if it wasn't for Monsieur Ibrahim, the only Muslim grocer in a Jewish street. Having stolen from him for quite some time, Momo must realize that Monsieur Ibrahim has seen through it all. The two of them become friends, and when his father too leaves one day, Monsieur Ibrahim is the only one who cares about Momo.

A cute, but somewhat disappointing book. Which doesn't mean that it is bad in that case, just that I think the story works better performed on stage or in the theatres. It's more about gestures and facial expressions, about watching, listening, smelling, than about words. I wanted to see Momo's father lonely hunched over his books, the hookers on the street, Monsieur Ibrahim's little shop, smell the various food crammed into it, watch the changing, colourful landscape on their way from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea or the dervishes dancing. Reading Monsique Ibrahim I felt there was a whole world of visual experiences lacking, something that a small narrative or this narrative can never cover. I know that there is a movie adaption, and I hope I will get around to watching it someday.

47.-49. His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass – Philip Pullman

As I already said, I like books that work on many levels; that entertains you and yet stimulate you on an intellectual level. A book that keeps my eyes glued to the pages until the very end, that makes me love its characters and suffer with them, that is rich in language, visuality, originality and fantasy, that toys with ideas and thoughts, that's full of hidden references to literature, philosophy and science - that is the perfect book for me. Now I wouldn't say that His Dark Materials is the perfect book, but it was pretty damn good. References? Check. Ideas and thoughts? Check. Originality and fantasy? Check, to the point where I found it bizarrely abstract. ( And yet, ... )

Aww, one of the Croatians just wrote me. ♥ She sent me a couple of pictures.



Me being the most awesome tourist guide that Ulm has ever seen.

This is not the last Paris entry. But the second to last entry. And it's not even complete, because the batteries of my cam where running out of energy. In St Germain I did take almost no pictures, because I wanted to save the last seconds of the batteries for the Hôtel d'Alsace. Hn, yeah, you know. *sweatdrop* Besides, we went back to our apartment early because we were exhausted from the frantic search for a cheap tie for Sina's boyfriend. In Paris. No comment on that, please. But we were lucky, it started raining cats and dogs the moment we arrived at the apartment.

Paris 2008, Day Three

( +47 )

Up next: Jardin du Luxembourgh! And then you'll have survived the Paris spam! Yay! ;D

Three things happened that somehow cheered me up. First, my father randomly bought me a 500GB hard drive for 68€. On sale because of the Euro 2008. However hard drives and soccer are linked to each other I do not know, though. But yeah. And I met my old Latin teacher who promised to come to the graduation ceremony on Friday. He's one of the three or so teachers I genuinely liked and missed when they were gone. I will never forget him playing the airguitar or how he'd climb on the table when the grammar we learned was very important. :D The third thing was my father telling me that he might take me to London in November and that he's thinking of going to South Tyrol in summer. Which means Tite Street. And perhaps Venice again? On a completely unrelated note, I am starting to regret that I haven't watched much soccer so far. Russia and Turkey? Awesome. Reminds me of the Euro 2004. Those were the days when Germany was still always eliminated in the preliminary round!

Paris 2008, Day Two: Montmartre

( +52 )

Up next: Ile de la Cité, Notre Dame and a bit of Quartier Latin and St-Germain-de-Près

I know that I said I'd go on with the Paris pictures, but it's just too hot at the moment to spent as long in front of the computer as it takes me to choose, resize, upload and post the pictures here. Even now I can think of nothing but to escape in one of the house's cooler rooms. Anyway, here are some book reviews I have written two weeks ago or so.

42. La Douceur assassine – Françoise Dorner

English translation not available. Armand Leclair is an old man who is done with life. His wife died, his relationship to his children is distant if not tense, and there is really no one else who might have a bit of an interest in him. But one day he meets Pauline to whose genuine, inartificial kindness he feels immediately drawn. Together they rediscover the joie de vivre and both learn something important about life, love and friendship. La Douceur assassine is a cute book, but not overly breath-taking. That might be due to the concept, which is quite old and mostly written by male authors in the middle of a life crisis: Old man meets young woman, falls in love with her and finds new hope in life. Yay, eh, yawn. Steppenwolf anyone? And to outwrite Hermann Hesse you have to be really good.

( The author however is not a man but a woman. )

43. Oscar Wilde. A Certain Genius – Barbara Belford

Ever since I read this biography it is my new Wilde bible. If you’re in the least interested in the person Wilde and enjoy reading biographies, grab that book. And if not, do so nevertheless. I’m actually not the non fiction type, but I was practically glued to this book until the very last page. Of course this is partly due to Oscar Wilde being a dear though distant friend for me, if that makes any sense. My grandma read The Selfish Giant to me when I was a child, with ten I encountered The Canterville Ghost in our school library, with fourteen I finally read The Picture of Dorian Gray and instantly fell in love with it. And you know, as I've told it to you again and again, how much he has influenced me and my reading habit since then and how intrigued I am by his person and his work.

( I invariably had to like Belfords biography. )

44. Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones

A really and truly adorable book. Sophie is the eldest of three sisters and has already resigned to the fact that she therefore will invariably fail to make her fortune, as the fairy tale rule says. So she leads a rather uneventful life, helping her stepmother to take care of her father’s hat shop, until the day the dreaded Witch of the Waste pays her a visit and turns her into an old woman. At the same evening she hits the road and finally takes shelter at the moving Castle of the equally dreaded wizard Howl. But it turns out that Howl is in fact not really that evil as everyone says. Sophie gets to stay with him, his apprentice Michael and the fire demon Calzifer, and in the course of the story there are lots of curses and enchanted princes and transformations and unwelcome cleaning.

( I was looking for a cute, entertaining read and I got one. )

I'd like to point out that implying I have an obsession for Oscar Wilde would be an absolutely wrong presumption. I am not obsessed. Like, totally. I've just took so many pictures of his tomb because it's so incredibly pretty. Yeah. Ahem ... anyway. Montmartre will have to wait till tomorrow, because I just struggled through more than 60 Père Lachaise pictures and my hand hurts. I hope it doesn't bother you too much that I will spam your flist with my picture on a daily basis for the next days. I promise it will get better after you've survived the second day, because my cam's batteries were getting low. Next time I think of bringing some with me. But I'm rambling. Have lots of cemetery pictures. I hope you enjoy them. ;)

Paris 2008, Day Two: Père Lachaise

( +55 )

Up next: Montmartre (Moulin Rouge, Place de Tertre, Sacre Coeur). This time really.

I'm splitting this entry up --I'm still tired and not in the mood to look through all of the approximately 460 pictures I took. Paris was great, though I'm not so sure if Sina and Domi share this opinion. I'm really annoying to go on holiday with, I have way to much energy and have to be out visiting sights or walking through the city all the day. Otherwise I get a tad edgy. All in all it went really well, no serious incidents, we didn't even get lost. Given that I'm prone to metro/tram accidents that was astonishing. Paris is a beautiful city, but I guess that is common knowledge. I didn't think I'd like it that much, but I felt at ease --and not out of place like in Vienna or generally a bit uncomfortable like in Prague, though both cities are lovely and I'd revisit them if I got the opportunity.

Paris 2008, Day One

( +59 )

Up next: Père Lachaise - guess from whose grave I've got the most pictures - and Montmartre.

Meme from misoka_mine.

1. One book that changed your life: The Picture of Dorian Gray. Though I cannot quite put my finger on a specific reason why. It just --accompanied me for the past years, those years essential to the person I am now, whom it, in a way, helped to create; so many memories are linked to it.

2. One book that you've read more than once: Emil i Lönneberga by Astrid Lindgren. My grandma read it to me a couple of times, and later when I was able to read I did it myself. It's the first real book I remember being read to me, and probably the book I read most.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: I refuse to answer any desert island questions.

4. One book that made you laugh: Anything Terry Pratchett? I can't decide which, there are so many good ones that made me laugh.

5. One book that made you cry: Uh, I can't remember any book that really made me cry right now, with tears running down my cheeks and such things. But the last book where I had tears in my eyes at the end was At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill. Such a beautiful and sad book.

6. One book that you wish had been written: The novel I attempted to write when I was fourteen years old.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Story of the Last Thought by Edgar Hilsenrath. I tried to read it three years ago and since then it stands on my not-yet-read bookshelf. I usually don't mind disgusting books, but this one crosses the border of what I can take so thoroughly that I don't dare touching it again.

8. One book you're currently reading: The Wishing Game by Patrick Redmond. I really like it so far, but it might take a while to finish it. Something in this book disturbs me. (I realize that those two statements are kind of contradictory.)

9. One book you've been meaning to read: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Bonus question: What book scared you the most? Oh, there are a LOT. I'm a bit of a coward. But the first thing that comes to my mind is a short story by Graham Greene, The End of the Party. It didn't give me nightmares, but its subtle horror effectively afflicted my mood for several days.

I had really hoped my I'm done with school euphoria would last at least a month. But, damnit, I'm bored out of my wits. Hence I'm doing something very masochistic: I dug up a Wagner CD in my father's endless classical music depot and am listening to it right now. Which is really not fun, although it helds a certain fascination. I feel inclined to quote Oscar Wilde, but it doesn't really fit because Parsifal is rather tame compared to the Nibelungs. On a bright note, I discovered some Paganini recordings as well, and I love them. ♥

I am so bored that I socialized the entire week. That is, if you know me, very uncharacteristic. And still I'm bored. *sighs*

38. Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett

I didn’t like Hogfather as much as other Discworld books. I don’t really know why. I just didn’t make me laugh as much as the others. That’s why I concentrated more on the City Watch books, which seemed to get better from book to book. Now, having read all of them, I decided to give Death a second chance. I didn’t regret it. I really liked Reaper Man, it was all what I look for in a book at the moment. It was funny, entertaining and yet comforting in a very pratchettesque way. I don’t know, just reading Pratchett lifts my spirits a great deal.

( Reaper Man confronts Death with a new, surprising situation. )

39. The Pyramid – Henning Mankell

A collection of short stories set before the Wallander novels, showing Kurt Wallander at different periods of his work life. This book left me unsatisfied, mainly because you probably should have read the novels to be able to appreciate the character development depicted here. Which is the reason why I’m so short here. I don’t want to be too rash.

40. Amadeus – Peter Shaffer

A play about the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from the perspective of the then star of music, Antonio Salieri. Mozart is depicted as a rather infantile young men who enjoys insinuating jokes and seducing his pretty female students. Despite his initial success, nobody really realizes his huge talent. Nobody, except Antonio Salieri, who cannot for the life of him understand why this obscene and crude boy writes with ease divine music he will never be capable to compose. Unable to deal with his own mediocrity, he decides to go at war with God, whom he makes responsible for this injustice. Hence, he will destroy Mozart, God’s tool, at all costs, prevent a career at court, worsen his financial situation, scheme against his operas, and even make an attempt at his fragile mental health.



( I had a wonderful evening reading this. )

41. Deadly Décisions – Kathy Reichs

I got this book from the library, hoping to be entertained by a solid, though not very remarkable thriller. Emphasis on entertained. Well, I was certainly not. I knew I’d probably get shallow characterisations, but I hadn’t bargained for exceedingly obnoxious boredom. Obnoxious, because the first person narrator and his constant punchlines annoyed the hell out of me, let alone some character's habit to refer to others as 'subhuman', which really made me want to vomit. Boring, because I didn’t care at all for any of the characters and could see all of the plot twists coming from several miles away. And I’m too lazy to sum up the plot right now. It’s not that breath-taking anyway.