This is a short adventure novel, where the author employs a compilation method and combined texts with different styles and functions. 

Contact: info@akka-laa.lv 

The novel The Counterfeit Faust or a Corrected and Expanded Cookbook gained great popularity and almost cult status among Latvian intellectuals and artists at the time. In it, the author plays with literary traditions and possibilities to an extent not seen before in Latvian literature. As in most of Zariņš’s other literary works, this novel contains elements of Postmodernism, which was also extremely important in Western literature at that time. These elements include breaking down the divide between “high” and “low” culture, playing with cultural heritage, and undisguised quoting/rephrasing/parody. The novel takes place in the 1930s and during the Second World War in Rīga, mostly among a mix of artists and intellectuals. The central character is a young writer and composer named Kristofers Mārlovs who goes to meet Trampedahs, a chef who is past his prime, to secure publication rights for 
his new cookbook in exchange for the elixir of youth. As in Goethe’s story, 
the beautiful Margarēta also appears in the novel, though later the author switches the roles of the characters around, turning Trampedahs-Faust into the villain while Mārlovs-Mephistopheles becomes a fragile victim. The novel contains a great deal of parody and self-parody, as well as actual historical figures and places which are merged with fiction. Real recipes are given an important position in the text. These and other features make it possible to call Viltotais Fausts a genuine example of Postmodern literature, though it is not known whether the author knew about this artistic movement when he was writing his novel.

Contact: info@akka-laa.lv