Book Review: THE PALACE OF ILLUSIONS by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"You will be remembered for causing the greatest war of your time.
You will bring about the deaths of evil kings ... A million women will become widows because of you."

And no, we are not speaking of Helen of Troy.

I've always heard of the Mahabharata but never had the opportunity to read even an abridged edition... which is why I'm so thankful for this book! Divakaruni presents, in a most accessible form, the re-telling of this great Indian epic from the point of view of Draupadi (also known as Panchaali).

A most beautiful woman for whom the greatest war of the age was fought, pitting demi-gods and gods against each other, as well as brother against brother.

A great hero who knows not who his parents are.

A defeated king who approaches his enemy and asks to be the one to bury his dead son.

A forbidden love.

A war to end all wars. "It was the end of the world -- the world as I knew it. Now the meaning of everything is different -- our lives, our deaths, what we do in between."

Talk about an EPIC epic! The parallelisms between it and the Iliad are too numerous to count, but the Mahabharata is set apart with culture-specific reactions from its protagonists. And also, I found the descriptions of astras (supernatural weapons with unique names) exceedingly fascinating!!

Upon finishing it, I am left in this queer existential reverie. Isn't this what the epics do best? They make us ponder about our place in the universe. They make us re-examine laws both mortal and divine, and make us see that even the best of humans fall prey to weaknesses. They make us realize that we are not alone in our struggles for validation, and warn us of what comes from pursuing righteousness above humanity, vengeance over peace.

I'm so excited to hear from a certain webpage (https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/...) that the author's next book features the Ramayana, retold from Sita's POV! Will surely look for her other works, which seem to feature ancient Hindu heroines. Any book that makes a non-Hindu reader appreciate the oldest and third-largest world religion better... in a very fun way... is a book well worth reading!



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Book Review: INSURRECTO by Gina Apostol

Insurrecto by Gina Apostol

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Maybe it is enough to know it, the past. Maybe change lies outside the story, in the countries we are still making up. I mean, can the exchange of our stories be a way of redemption?"

FINALLY got around to reading "Insurrecto," the novel with BenCab's "Woman with Fan" on the cover that everyone's been talking about!

It does, indeed, tell a story worth re-telling, and despite the return of the Balangiga bells only this past December, we still need to tell the story of the titular character, Casiana Nacionales. Samar's Gabriela Silang, the true-to-life heroine who was one of the leaders of the uprising against American conquerors.

It is NOT an easy read. And it is the difficulty of the prose that made me subtract a star. I'm someone who believes the best stories are the ones told simply. Although whether this is the author's unique voice or a style especially chosen to tell this particularly complex narrative is a mystery to me, as it is my first Apostol novel. It won't be the last.

What fascinates me the most about the book is Casiana Nacionales, whom I wouldn't have heard of had it not been for this novel. Her name was not written in history books, she was discovered only through the oral histories!! This fact highlights the importance of story-telling, in all its forms.

I won't go into the whole literariness of the novel, but suffice it to say that if you should undertake reading this, you better have access to a dictionary. Ahaha.

I do have so much awe for the sheer skill, the craftsmanship it took, to weave together three? four? different timelines, to skillfully portray the interweaving of past and present, to highlight the importance of keeping history and memory alive in today's age of fake news and historical revisionism, throwing in quotes from Shakespeare and Walter Scott and Chekhov along the way.

The passage that struck me the most was this:

"The pictures have no captions. Women cradling their naked babies at their breasts... A dead child sprawled in the middle of a road. A naked girl running toward the viewer in a field, her arms outstretched, as if waving. A beheaded, naked body splayed against a bamboo fence. A child's arms spread out on the ground, in the shape of a cross. A woman holding the body of her dead husband, in the pose of the Pieta."

Whether we are in Trang Bang in 1972, or Balangiga in 1901, or modern-day Manila, Apostol's message of keeping history alive reverberates urgently.



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Book Review: SENLIN ASCENDS (THE BOOKS OF BABEL # 1) by Josiah Bancroft

Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"She had to leave and go someplace where she did not know every chasm and every foothold and leap. She had to rediscover fear and, tucked somewhere inside that fear, life."

I'd like to think that I don't judge a book ENTIRELY by its cover, but when the cover is THIS interesting and when it has a quote by Mark Lawrence saying that it is "One of my favorite books of all time," then I'd like to think I wouldn't be the only one buying it on the spot!

What a happy surprise to find out that it is the first in a series of four books, and that books 2 and 3 are available on the market!

Tom Senlin, idealist and teacher, loses his wife on their honeymoon trip to the Tower of Babel, and must find her, though he must scour the bottom of Hell itself as he faces the grime and dirt of real life away from his idyllic classroom.

The basic plot is simple enough. But the Tower and its inhabitants are described so well, it's almost like being there yourself!

Usually, in other epic fantasy works, a list of characters is needed, helpfully put at the beginning or the end of the book. But Bancroft's characters come alive, there is absolutely no need for additional aid in remembering them because they're like flesh and blood to me. That alone is a sign of a good author!

And what a tale he tells, I don't think I've ever read anything like it! It's about the everyman who starts off as a naive idealist, who meets with misfortune but chooses to press on out of love. By the end of the book he has become someone else, and changes his name accordingly. I can't wait to get to the next books, to see how his story unfolds, to see how much more he will change.


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