Why finish a book if you can start a new one? I do not remember which was the latest book I finished. Was it Richard Brautigan's phantastic tragic story from a child's perspective So the Wind Won't Blow It all Away? back in spring? Was it Günter Ohnemus (German translator of Brautigan who writes in a similar vein as Brautigan) latest brilliant novel Der Tiger auf deiner Schulter (The tiger on your shoulder) also narrated by a teen? So light, rarely has a book made me smile so often during reading. By the way I really love books written from a non-adult angle. The profane world becomes a mysterious strange place full of surprises again. It rejuvenates me. Almost like having kids myself which is said to make you younger and less serious as well.

Back to the topic. In the past months I started at least four books of which I have not finished one yet. The first one was Klaus Kinski's autobiography Ich brauche Liebe (I need love). I liked it in the beginning. Kinski describes a poor and half-criminal youth and many physical encounters with the opposite sex. But suddenly I had enough. It was always the same story. Having sex with every second woman he met in any place imaginable. Too much showing off for my likes. Last Sunday we saw the Kinski exhibition in the Frankfurt Filmmuseum. And it turned out that his autobiography is fictional in places. He grew up in a middle-class family. Kinski's main strategies were imposture and provocation. You could see interviews with him on German television where Kinski only insulted the interviewer. Most films he played in were absolute rubbish like all these Italian Spaghetti Western in the 70s. Kinski would have sold his soul on the screen for a couple of dollars. At the exit there was a small video where Kinski was playing with a butterfly during the shooting of Cobra Verde (without Werner Herzog Kinski would have been nobody). His best role. I will never go on with his autobiography I think.

A couple of months ago I started Michel Houellebecq's new novel Plateforme which is still only available in French I suppose. The story of a guy traveling to Bangkok for sex. I read almost 50 pages and was amazed how easy the French was. Ok i must admit that I have some practice in colloquial French due to Catherine. But the book did not grip me. Usually I hate books and authors which are in, which everyone is reading. Therefore I did not read Les Particules élémentaires which was the French literary sensation in 1998. Somehow it is like with Kinski. Houellebecq is a little bit of a lady-killer. Like a rock star he has got many groupies who adore him and of course he takes profit of the situation. Who could blame him? Especially as he probably did not have a lot of sex in his youth. Look at his photos, he has the sex-appeal of a giant toad. His trick is provocation as well. He says that islam is a dumb religion and another 100,000 people buy his book. The themes of his books are contemporary: alienation, genetics and sex. Interesting and important subjects. So maybe I will continue his book soon.

The third book I started reading was the first volume of Bernard Ollivier's Longue Marche (Long hike). Ollivier is a retired French journalist who began a long walk following the historical silk road from Istanbul to Xian in China in 1999. The march is divided into four stages which he aims to accomplish in the summers from 1999-2002. The first two stages are finished. I do not know if he made the third stage. His destination was Turfan in Western China. And he did not plan to pass via Afghanistan. Walking is the best way to come to know landscapes and people. The most authentic way of traveling. It is not only extremely strenuous but also quite courageous to walk in the mid of Asia. You are at the mercy of the people you encounter. You do not look at the local population from behind a tourist bus window but you are in the middle of the action. You cannot escape. And therefore the locals do not receive you as a tourist who is usually just a cash cow for them. Hospitality is not only a word in the countries Ollivier traverses as we all know by now: just think of the Afghans who did not hand over their guest bin Laden. The book is nevertheless a bit tiring to read. The main themes are hurting feet, Turkish drivers wanting to give Ollivier a lift who always refuses and earns disbelief in return, people thinking that he is crazy to walk all the way, the difficulty and often impossibility of finding a hiking path when there is only a stinking motorway etc. I guess the idea of such a trip is probably more appealing than reading about it or even doing it. Nevertheless a very good read for the many long winter evenings to come.

The last book I started yesterday. Sorry folks but like all others it is not in English. The author is Eva-Maria Hagen, an East German actress who lived with Wolf Biermann (THEE German political songwriter who was expatriated from East Germany in 1976) for many years and is the mother of Nina Hagen who is known as THEE German punk girl back in the late 70s. The book is called Eva und der Wolf (Eva and the wolf) and is a collection of letters by Eva and Wolf. Those letters are very personal and Hagen is snotty and extremely tender at the same time. Somehow it really makes me wonder that these letters passed the censorship of the East German secret service the Stasi (Staatssicherheitsdienst) who must have monitored the correspondence. The letters which are from the period 1965-76 obviously also contain a lot of information about the political situation in East Germany. Biermann was something like the enemy of the state and Hagen was the national actress (resembling Romy Schneider a little) who met all the political elite including Honecker, Mielke, Mittag, Stoph, Ulbricht etc. She really fell between two stools and was expatriated in 1977 one year after Biermann. I saw her at this year's Osterspaziergang (easter promenade, a part of Goethe's Faust) in Frankfurt performing with Nina. They were singing "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama" and similar stuff. But it was quite funny and it was nice to see how well Eva and her enfant terrible get on. I hope this is the book I will finish before starting a new one. Chances are quite good. Anyways the next book I start will be in English. I promise.

Circulus vitiosus I am still fighting with nicotine. For the time being it is a lost battle but somehow I enjoy it. Last time I posted on this (three entries down) I had not yet started smoking before 12 o'clock. Today I started at 10 am. The first cigarette of the day really cuts the day in two. Up to the first cigarette I feel like a virgin. The world is an extremely slowly moving place before the first dose of nicotine hits my brain. The first cig is like a second wake-up. Before I feel like in a world of dreams. I am very relaxed and the time passes very slowly. The later I smoke my first cigarette the lesser I enjoy it and the more it makes my head spin. Almost every night after having smoked my last cig of the day I swear to myself that I will stop tomorrow. And the next morning I really hate the smell of the smoke in my room and my clothes. I usually change clothes completely as the stench of cold stale smoke really disgusts me in the morning. There are places where I do not smoke like my car or all rooms at home except two. The last bastions which have not fallen yet. My relation to smoking is really bizarre. I think I smoke only to stop smoking later on. When I have stopped smoking I do not really miss something. I enjoy stopping smoking. It is like a challenge. My sense of smell comes back slowly. I can suddenly smell the damp leaves in the road, the bouquet of a red Bordeaux wine, the smell of cigarettes other people smoke etc. But after a while I am bored. I restart smoking which is a challenge again as the first cigarettes (maybe even hundred) are so disappointing and disgusting. But then the floodgates open wide. And I am back to my 20 or more cigarettes by day. That is when it is about time to stop again. When will it end?