Book Review: THE PRAISE SINGER by Mary Renault

The Praise Singer by Mary Renault
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"We look for music, first in the heavens, then on earth in the laws of its creatures, chiefly in man; in himself; in his dealings with his fellows, in his body politic."


Again I entered a time travel machine to Ancient Greece by cracking open a Mary Renault. While this stand-alone novel wasn't quite on the same plane as the incredible THE MASK OF APOLLO (about the actor Nikeratos and his firsthand account of how Plato tried to teach Dionysios how to rule Syracuse) nor THE LAST OF THE WINE (about Alcibiades, Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants), it still bears the Renault stamp of excellence. Renault is formidably gifted as both storyteller and scholar, and no one entertains and educates quite like her.​


To my mind, these three stand-alone novels form a separate trilogy, different from her Theseus novels, and her famous trilogy on Alexander the Great. I admire how she analyzes the push and pull between monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy in each of these three novels, while simultaneously immersing us in the daily life of different city states.


THE PRAISE SINGER was written last of these three, and features a similar frame narrative of rendering a specific generation's experiment that we continue today, 2500 years from the novel's setting. It's the grand experiment called politics, that mystery of which type of government would best allow men to live freely, as befits the dignity of free citizens.


In TPS, Renault chose Simonides as her protagonist, the poet best known for the epigram “Go tell the Spartans…”


The city in focus? Athens, the center of the world, she who attracted the best poets but was also home to the Peisistratids, a family of tyrants in a time when the word did not yet carry the negative connotation it does today.

"It seems to me there is law here, and justice too."
"Truly. While the Tyrant consents. He is still a man with a spear while we have none."

It’s so easy to label men as good or bad when reading a one-paragraph summary of their lives in encyclopedias. But what Renault does best is show how multifaceted we all are, shining her light on tyrants and thralls, kings and slaves alike.

In this book we see how a father brought justice to his land, and brought forth two similarly minded sons who ruled generously at first, but were corrupted over time, and ultimately laid low by lust run afoul.

The ending proved surprising, as her previous novels had me expecting a lengthy summary. “That’s it?” I shouted at the book, disappointed at having finished possibly the third to the last Renault. Two more to go. This is, then, the twin joy and pain of having sought out a favorite author's books.

Thank Zeus for rereading! Renault is top tier writing, regardless of genre, and the world is better for having her books in it.

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Musical Review: SILVER LINING

SILVER LINING is an ambitious and well-intentioned original Filipino musical that gave itself a tall order: present the political and personal struggles of two generations of Filipinos, highlighting their similarities to bring boomer parents closer to millennial offspring.

And while we can’t help but applaud the effort, there is a lot of polishing and work that the musical needs. One hopes that in future reruns of the show, the plot can be further revised.  

From the very start, the show was tainted with triviality. The very frame narrative was problematic. The limited nature of the stakes in “let’s put up a musical for our 50th school anniversary reunion” set the bar very low in terms of emotional investment from the audience. 

And this tendency to trivialize every meaningful sentence that even bordered on depth or gravitas was particularly evident in the script, not even allowing the audience a breath to appreciate the nuggets of intergenerational wisdom being exchanged, before a snarky comment would be uttered.

There was an attempt to present the sheer scale of the troubled decade that was the ‘70’s, as well as the painful tribulations of failed marriages, drug addiction, and the financial troubles that plague every family. But it seemed that SL focused more on the flirtations of boys chasing pretty girls engaged in political movements, and not so much on the human rights abuses that necessitated activism in the first place. 

SL also focused more on the play-within-the-play, using it as a metaphor for true-to-life historical revisionism (in the reunion’s play, an actor is determined to take out important scenes or rewrite endings). SL assumed everyone knew that Martial Law was bad, and didn’t bother spelling out why until the very end of the musical. By then, however, we had stopped caring about a central character, because her portrayal made her hardly sympathetic, no matter how pretty she looked, nor how prettily she sang.

It gave this audience member mental whiplash in some parts, as the script in Act II made illogical leaps as actors spoke lines jumping to conclusions, uttering emotionally-laden phrases seemingly out of nowhere, lacking context that would have grounded the lines and plot in real life.

The silver lining in the show can be found in the silver hair of the older veteran actors, whose joy in singing and dancing was so apparent, it filled the auditorium. There was wit to spare in Act I’s many humorous lines, and the soaring vocals of Raul Montesa, Krystal Brimner, and Jep Go infused the songs with more warmth and charm.

With the hodgepodge of good elements that lacked the cohesion of a watertight plot, and the script's confusing seesaw between comedy and gravitas (sometimes in the same breath), it seemed as if we were watching a golden anniversary reunion musical, except with a grander budget (evidenced by the number of talented singers and dancers in the cast). But audiences looking for a musical shedding light on a dark period of our country’s past (either in the ‘70’s and the more recent pink political movement) won’t find it here.

At least, in the show’s current form.

We look forward to a rerun that will correct the first iteration’s plot holes, that currently make it seem like one grand nostalgia trip. One of the joys of watching live theater is that it’s never the same, twice. 

I read a similarly themed play some years ago, and couldn’t help but compare SL to SOLOMON’S CHOICE by Azucena Grajo Uranza. 

Both plays had similar themes of families being torn apart by politics, and a missing girl during Martial Law.

It is not a theme to be taken lightly, and we hope that SL embraces the weight of the dark in its rerun. To borrow a line from SL, “kung nais mong makita ang ilaw, yakapin mo ang kadiliman.” Sometimes, the light of the dawn shines brightest after forcing the audience’s gaze on the dark of dusk.

Book Review: LIGHT BRINGER (Red Rising #6) by Pierce Brown

Light Bringer by Pierce Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Slag it but P.B. has gone and done it again. Our modern Homer writes of war, and of our favorite fallible hero, Darrow, he who fathered a revolution and was tainted by the corruption of absolute power, but is now fighting for peace within the solar system.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Life is just a series of years spent waiting for the next addition to the Red Rising saga.

Book 6 is obviously a post-pandemic book. I don't want to post anything, but there are parts that make you go, "P.B. has been touched by death."

As have we all.

We read P.B. because no one writes action like he does, no one mixes philosophy and political science with the intrigue of realpolitik versus classical ideals.

And far from escaping our modern world, P.B. does what the best scifi authors do: make visible the cracks in the real world by painting parallels in the world of his art. And shining a light on a possible path forward.

Forever and always a fan of this author, and this classic work.

Decades from now, the series will be hailed as a masterpiece.

One more book left?!?! I don't know how I'll wait that long, but I must. Reading this book over the course of two weeks remains a highlight in a lifetime spent with books.

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Book Review: TRUST by Hernan Diaz

Trust by Hernan Diaz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"History itself is just a fiction - a fiction with an army. And reality? Reality is a fiction with an unlimited budget... And how is reality funded? With yet another fiction: money... An illusion we've all agreed to support."

There's nothing quite like that sweet feeling, upon closing a book, when you loudly proclaim (to your book club, if you're lucky enough to belong in one; or to the air for an audience of one) "No wonder it won the Pulitzer!"

Hernan Diaz takes the unreliable narrator and gives you four of them, trusting the reader to form our own version of events from the four novellas in this single one.

Music plays an important role in the narrative. Imagine a fugue of four separate motifs, some interweaving with others, but ultimately, only the reader/listener can determine which notes ring true, and which are false.

What exactly is TRUST all about? It's a very original take on the power of narrative, simultaneously a story of a marriage, and of the American economy in the early 1900's. It's about money, and how powerful those with money are. Powerful enough to change reality itself, or at least, the prevailing narratives. A history rewritten, with people in power having undesirable events erased from all records, as if they had never taken place.

This book has special resonance for me, as our country is in the middle of a controversial educational overhaul, and one subject in particular seems to be affected. That's right. History.

And this is the beautiful thing about literary fiction, of which TRUST is one of the best exemplars. They're like whetstones for the mind, training us to sift through the daily barrage of mediated news and content, teaching us how to piece together a cohesive truth from the bits and pieces of crumbs we get.

History, after all, is a kind of a story. And we need to study it, if there's any hope for future generations to avoid repeating mistakes of elections past.



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Book Review: THE GO-BETWEEN by L. P. Hartley

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"What did we talk about that has left me with an impression of wings and flashes, as of air displaced by the flight of a bird? Of swooping and soaring, of a faint iridescence subdued to the enfolding brightness of the day?"

I was twelve years old. It was my second year of journal writing. I remember waking up every day, feeling like each one was one grand adventure. I'd see my crush in school and invent all sorts of reasons to "accidentally" pass by his classroom. I'd prop up a fiction book behind my textbook in class and read it (and get sent to the Principal's Office later for my bad behavior, tsk tsk!). I'd bring my wooden top (we called it "turumpo") and decorate it with pretty dots using a marker, that turned into beautiful wavy lines when spun.

All these memories came back in full force, thanks to this beautifully moving tale of a child turning into a man, caught in a tangled web woven by manipulative adults he falls in love with.

"In most people's lives tragedy has been the rule, not the exception."

Remembrance is a funny thing. The child is the mother of the woman/ father of the man, after all. I look back and remember a stream of halcyon days of industry and learning, naughtiness caught out, the penitent sinner straightened out, and am grateful that my parents sheltered me from the harsher realities of life because I never had a problem bigger than studying for that exam, or preparing for that swimming competition.

L.P. Hartley's fatherless protagonist, however, wasn't as lucky. And though he spent a summer in the estate of a rich classmate, his innocence wasn't as well preserved as mine.

The teacher/protector in me is saddened and infuriated by the callousness with which he was treated by those who were old enough to know better than to manipulate guilelessness. Since they didn't have telephones at the turn of the century, two lovers from different social classes asked a poor child to ferry love letters to and fro (hence the title, "The Go-Between."). I have nothing but pure admiration for the way Hartley structured his novel, which crescendoes to a climax memorable in its intensity and poetic brevity.

"I was no longer satisfied with the small change of experience, which had hitherto contented me. I wanted to deal in larger sums... I must act on a grander scale."

Despite the scandalous set up, Hartley was able to write something sensual yet not salacious, elevating what could have been a tawdry tale into a haunting meditation on meanings we create out of social contexts, and how a childhood trauma can close an open heart to future love.

I particularly appreciated the ending, set several decades after the tumultuous summer. It comes with a call to action for readers of this book. Live each day, yes, but be careful. For a life can be unmade or made within seconds, a heart destroyed by a letter.

What we do matters. Every day. 


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Book Review: THE SHEPHERD'S LIFE by James Rebanks

The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District by James Rebanks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"This is my life. I want for no other."

If you had told me that I would love this autobiography by a sheep farmer in England, I would have scoffed.

But the magic of books is that, if you give them a chance, they just might suckerpunch you in the gut.

I loved this simple story. I can't possibly tell you how much.

It's the sort of book one reads with the heart, not the mind. It won't win any prizes, but to read it is like putting a soothing balm on a soul one barely registers as wounded by the little cuts and bruises we get in modern society.

It is the anti fad book.

It speaks of unfashionable things.

Family. Duty. Honor. The importance of loving where you are planted. The blessing of waking up every day, needed by many. The sweetness of resting only when deserved, after a long day of physical labor.

"A person’s life was not a thing of his own invention, a new thing on a blank slate. We are bound by our landscape. Shaped by it. Defined by it... We are, I guess, all of us, built out of stories."

This is a deeply moving book, a rare jewel to be held close inside my heart.

"In that moment I’m not just a grandson. I am the one who carries on his life’s work, I am the thread that goes to the future. He lives in me. His voice. His values. His stories. His farm. These things are carried forwards. I hear his voice in my head... Everyone knows he was a major ingredient in the making of me, and that I am the going on of him. It was ever thus."

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