I love good short stories and these are great. Recurring themes include ordinary life in post-Communist Romania, US influence on the world, misogynistic behaviour, Greek philosophy and writer's block. James Joyce meets Ernest Hemingway to discuss Plato, with a wry humour all the author's own.
George Ristache made tea as it began to rain. He sat with the tea and watched television. He found it terribly depressing. When he was fifty years old, when Madalina was still alive, they had a couple of hours television per day, and it was awful stuff. Now he had fifteen or sixteen stations and it was awful, but in a new and sad way. All it showed was what people wanted, and did not get, that was what George understood. Beautiful women you could not sleep with, beautiful houses you could not afford to live in. Lives full of drama, excitemen, emotion. It was all canned, and processed and unreal.
