Book Review: THE BOOKS OF JACOB by Olga Tokarczuk

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"For is it not so that our stories are told to us by others? We can know ourselves to the extent that others tell us who we are and what it is we're struggling to do."

Tokarczuk set out to tell the story of a failed Messiah (the historical figure Jacob Frank), whose radical view of Judaism made him undergo multiple conversions (as a Muslim, then as a Catholic) to pursue a greater truth, and who managed to amass an army of converts along the way. Jacob Frank may very well have started out being a pioneer in syncretism, or the combining of different paths to God, before being overcome by success and ordering his followers to do acts not fit for social media (but are written of as sins in our very own Old Testament).

The story is simple enough. The story behind the book's creation, and the continuing story of the immense backlash against its author, shows how its theme of truth-telling versus accepted prepackaged history still speaks intimately to Catholic Poland.

One comes away with the book greatly impressed by the author's act of Tikkun: any act for "the repair of the world, mending the holes in its fabric."

Reading this book made me reflect on the disorganized state of organized religion in my own country, where more than one person claims to be the son or prophet of God. This book makes its readers reflect: how can a messiah be considered "false?" Why do people long for a savior, be it in the religious or political sphere? It also suggests how ridiculous all religious conflicts can be, when analyzed in full light: wars fought over matters of semantics or poor translations. The peace and glory of God overshadowed by the petty pride of man.

"The Messiah is something more than a figure and a person -- it is the dearest and most precious human thought: that salvation exists."

The book's length may have been "necessary" in order to drive home the point that, like any other great faith's Great Book, organized religion is historically a group of texts carefully selected by men to promote their vision of what brings light to the world. But as a reader... I have to say, the length sucked. Haha!

It was just sooooooo loooooooong, around 900 pages! Also, the pages are numbered backwards. The numbered pages start at page 892 and end on page 27. The author said this is to emphasize how "every order, every system, is simply a matter of what you've got used to." It's also a tribute to how Hebrew is written.

To be brutally honest... had circumstances not forced me to be imprisoned in one room for the week it took to get through this mountain of a book, this would probably have suffered the fate of other DNF books (Don't worry, the quarantine wasn't due to COVID! But workers came to the house for badly-needed renovations).

But now that I'VE SURVIVED... I'm glad. This book is an unforgettable experience.

"The world itself demands to be narrated, and only then does it truly exist, only then can it flourish fully. But also that by telling the story of the world, we are changing the world."

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Book Review: THE ARCHITECT'S APPRENTICE by Elif Shafak

The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"You think God is similar to you. Angry, rigid, eager for revenge... whereas I say: instead of believing that the worst in humans can be found in God, believe that the best in God can be found in humans."

Part love story, part mystery, this historical reimagining of the Ottoman empire at its height under Suleiman the Magnificent was a queer but apt choice for December 24 reading. I never would have thought, from the blurb, that this book was appropriate for our family's situation on Christmas eve, but it really was! Proof that sometimes books find us when we need them most.

A dear friend has been reading almost all of Elif Shafak's books and posting about them nonstop. Now that I've read my first Shafak, I think I begin to see why.

This novel was about one of the great architect Mimar Sinan's apprentices, who enters Istanbul as a boy and spends his long life at the mercy of Fate, with his trusty white elephant at his side.

(In a thrilling case of literary intersections with real life, Mimar Siman was also the architect who built the Bridge on the Drina, which is also the title of a book I loved, by Ivo Andrić!! And of that book, Elif Shafak said that when she finished, something inside her had shifted forever.)

What is the point of working so hard, when one can be imprisoned or killed, or one's life's work destroyed, at the mere whim of men? What is the point of loving completely, when the beloved is doomed to die anyway?

The answer, perhaps, lies in this: "Love reflected in heartbreak. Truth reflected in stories."

Shafak's truth is this: "I cannot prevent people from destroying. All I can do is keep building."

We are all architects of the great domes of our lives. Shafak made sixteenth-century Istanbul her venue but the characters' stories ring with the truth of universality. We cannot escape the slings and arrows of misfortune, but Shafak's book encourages us to try and build a life of beauty and purpose anyway.

"Life was the sum of choices one did not make; the paths yearned for but not taken." I'm glad my friends chose to share Shafak with me, I shall continue to look for her other books!

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Book Review: THE PROVENSEN BOOK OF FAIRY TALES by Alice and Martin Provensen

The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales by Alice Provensen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are some books that are guaranteed to make lifelong readers out of children, when put into their hands during their precious, impressionable period. It's not enough that these books feature colorful illustrations. They need to have magical words inside as well, that lend themselves well to read-alouds with Mommy dearest before bedtime. This beautiful book is one of them!

It's pure gorgeousness, from cover to back. The table of contents alone is a work of art unto itself! Featuring 12 literary fairy tales ("consciously created works of literature" as opposed to folk fairy tales) compiled and illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen, it is a feast for the senses that I drew out for as long as possible.

I found it interesting that I only knew 2 of the dozen fairy tales (The Happy Prince and Beauty and the Beast). Adults will enjoy this as well!

The illustrations by the Provensens are unique. While not beautiful in the traditional sense, they do have a strange magic about them, managing that strange mix of interesting and child-like. They remind me somewhat of the approach of Roald Dahl's illustrator, Quentin Blake. I think that, when children see these imperfect drawings, they are inspired in turn to draw scenes from the books, and are filled with confidence in their own nascent artistic skills instead of being overcome by doubt after seeing immaculate, perfect drawings in their story book.

It's interesting to read these fairy tales as an adult, because we get to see what values previous generations thought worthy of immortalizing in literature. Honesty, self-sacrifice, integrity... it would do the adult population of the world good to go back to our literary roots and be reminded that once upon a time, we believed that good would triumph over evil. May we never stop believing, still.

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Book Review: ON MOZART by Anthony Burgess

On Mozart by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The complete title reveals everything you need to know: "On Mozart: A Paean for Wolfgang being a celestial colloquy, an opera libretto, a film script, a schizophrenic dialogue, a bewildered rumination, a Stendhalian transcription, and a heartfelt homage upon the bicentenary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."

It's like something from Dexter's Lab! A literary experiment, something put in words by a fan who wanted to offer tribute, but one whose vanity only permitted him to write a mishmash of pages, with a very small target audience: musicians. (Specifically, those who prefer tonal to atonal music, hehe.)

It's quite novel, of course. I do not deny Burgess' brilliance as a writer. But being a teacher, I wish Burgess had written this in a more simple style, so the book could find a wider audience. (Then again... Burgess and simplicity?! Never the twain shall meet!)

But for those with the requisite music history and theory background, this slim book offers very interesting views on Mozart's greatness, the changing role of music and the artist from Mozart's time to present day, and the importance of Music itself.

Burgess says Mozart's supremacy arises from perfection of Form, the absence of vulgarity, and the absence of sentimentality. I found his analysis of tonality vs. atonality very insightful:

"(Sonata form is...) The composer's complete submission to a prescribed pattern. That pattern was the sonic equivalent of the society which music served... No matter how rigorous the fundamental structure of an atonal serial work, the ear and the brain have the impression that this is the music, of, yes, social breakdown."

Burgess' Mozart was a supreme artist who soared above petty workmanship from rehashed formulas. To those who would deny that Mozart's work was art, Burgess wrote: "Art is a trade that ennobles itself, and the consumer, by giving more than what is paid for. The market is served, but also God."

Yes, the man who seemed to take dictation from God wrote music to pay bills. But what he wrote transcended mere commerce.

At the end, Burgess himself acknowledges that "the symphonization of fiction is shown to be an implausible undertaking, but things have occasionally to be done to show that they cannot be done... The celebration of Mozart cannot be accomplished in words."

Why does Mozart continue speak to all of us today?

"It is not Mozart's function to soothe: he is not a tranquilizer to be taken out of the cupboard. He purveys an image of a possible future rather than of an irrecoverable past... Mozart reminds us of human possibilities. He presents the whole compass of life and intimates that noble visions exist only because they can be realized."

Burgess cries out, in short, for harmony and order in an increasingly dissonant world. And that is something we can all relate to.

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Book Review: THE OVERSTORY by Richard Powers

The Overstory by Richard Powers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story."

This was my first book for the Christmas break, and I'm nervous for the succeeding ones in my TBR pile. How can they measure up to this worldview-altering, potentially life-changing book?!

I first heard of OVERSTORY a few years ago as "that book about trees that won the Pulitzer." They were right. But also, wrong. It's not just about trees. As Powers said, "the word TREE and the word TRUTH come from the same root."

"Cut it like it's a gift, not like you've earned it... When you cut down a tree, what you make from it should be at least as miraculous as what you cut down."

There are books that are worth their cost in terms of trees cut, paper wrought from mashed up bits of eternity. This is definitely one of them. (It's also the first time a book ever made me conscious/guilty of buying an actual physical volume, instead of purchasing a soft copy for my Kindle!)

This book was meant to plant seeds of discontent, to provoke a reaction in its readers. Powers, a physicist/programmer/musician/writer, is able to blend so many tales in one epic, like many different rings that tell the tale of one mother tree. The first part is a collection of short stories about eight people, and as the novel progresses, we see how their lives become entwined in The Great Tale. Some become environmental activists, while others try to lead secular lives pursuing law or computer programming. But no matter how different our paths, we all live in the same world and will share in the same fate.

Powers skillfully blends fact with artistic license. His account of the real eco-guerillas and the Redwood Summer of 1990 were the heart of the novel. The scenes of police brutality and the heartbreaking consequences of breaking human laws in pursuit of a greater morality are laid out so vividly, I will be dreaming of living on top of a 20-storey redwood for weeks to come!

The teacher in me marveled at the hundreds of scientific gems within. Who knew that 2000 year old seeds from Masada could still germinate? Or that trees communicate with each other?

The reader within could only sigh in bliss over Powers' sentences. This is top novel writing: perfect, efficient art. Nothing overdone, no wasted space. All 502 pages were necessary.

The human is awed and humbled. Powers pointed out that if the planet had been born at midnight and ran for one day, we humans would only appear four seconds before midnight.

And yet, for all our youth and short visit on Earth, we have simultaneously done (possibly) irreparable damage, and brought forth such wondrous things. This beautiful wonder of a book challenges us to take concrete steps. Clicking on my GCash app and collecting points to plant trees is great, but what else can I do? It's going to take ALL of us, not just Greta Thunberg.

Tagging this under #whenliteraryprizesareworththehype! Got this one after reading BEWILDERMENT, and between the two amazing reads, I will be hunting down Richard Powers' backlist for the foreseeable future, with glee!

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Book Review: AN ACTOR'S HANDBOOK by Konstantin Stanislavski

An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement Of Concise Statements On Aspects Of Acting by Konstantin Stanislavski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I put down this long-sought-for book, all I could think was... WOW. For so thin a volume, it packs a whole lot of golden truths! Not just for acting, but true also for Life in general.

I also thought of how lucky I was in my teachers... they taught me Stanislavski without me ever knowing it WAS Stanislavski!

The less said about this book, the better. Theatre people will know that there are truths meant to be lived and experienced, that no amount of lecturing and quoting is going to be a good enough substitute for DOING. And for non-theatre people... go ahead and read it! But for it to make sense, you need to apply it. Join a workshop. Audition for a show. The world would be a better place if everyone experienced being part of an artistic team at least once in their lives: a school play, a student orchestra, a community choir.

Excited to share this with my students!

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Book Review: HOW DO YOU LIVE? by Genzaburo Yoshino

How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a lovely book! I particularly liked it when I found out that it was written especially for school children in Japan way back in 1937. It was meant to be an ethics textbook, only in storybook form.

Neil Gaiman points out in the introduction how it reminded him of Moby Dick: there's a narrative but also so many separate chapters about so many other different things. I think I learned more about Napoleon and Gandhara Buddhas from this book, than from any other source!

It tells of the adventures of Copper, a sophomore in junior high school, who tries to navigate teenaged life without the benefit of a father's guiding hand, for his dad had already passed away.
* tear *

His father's last words meant for his son were: "I want him to become a great man! A fine example of a human being."

And so Copper's mom and uncle join forces in trying to help a naughty lad become "great," but not in riches nor power. For them, a great life -- the only kind of life worth wanting -- is one spent in helping others, in bringing only good and beauty to the world.

The combination of epistolary chapters with present-day events was quite charming, and will make anyone want to pick up pens to write their "impressions."

We race through our days so quickly. Am grateful for this little book that invited me to stop and smell the sampaguitas. And go over my day, the consequences of my actions, to regret my mistakes and resolve to do better next time.

"Art and knowledge have no borders." How wonderful that this will soon become a Studio Ghibli movie, some 90 years after its publication!

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Book Review: THE WOMEN OF COPPER COUNTRY by Mary Doria Russell

The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"A life lived for others is a life well lived. Make one life a little easier, the whole world gets better in time. Work for the common good, and a good life will become more common."

This was my 5th Mary Doria Russell novel and she does not disappoint. There are two broad types of MDR novels: either a sweeping sci-fi/philosophy novel in the tradition of THE SPARROW (her undisputed masterpiece), or historical fiction highlighting an event that time has forgotten (like A THREAD OF GRACE).

THE WOMEN OF THE COPPER COUNTRY falls under the latter category. It ends with the Italian Hall Disaster of 1913, and that scene simply broke my heart.

MDR novels really should come with a warning, though: read with tissue. Be ready with plenty of ice cream after (or in my case, bibingka malagkit! Hurray!)

Behold Annie Clements (alternatively spelled Clemenc), the American "Joan of Arc" whose height and strength made her the leader of a union strike in Calumet, Michigan. Born to a town where everything and everyone was the private property of Calumet & Hecla, which at one time was the biggest copper producer globally, the reader bears witness to one woman's struggle against destiny, against rich men, all in the name of generations yet unborn.

"She still believes in the common good, and that's what the country needs right now."

Be warned, though, that MDR is not a romance writer. There are no happy ever afters in novels meant to highlight past wrongs, bringing its readers to see the uncomfortable truth: social evils in the name of capitalism are yet painfully present today.

It's impossible not to draw parallelisms with a similar figurehead in Philippine politics today, one whose optimism and sheer decency have become a symbol of hope for millions. She attracts fellow Filipinos who share her idealism and belief that together, we can still save the tomorrows of our children.

Today, several of her opponent's followers released posters claiming that this son-of-a-thief has practically won the elections already, and that the voting is a mere formality. While we ponder the disturbing implications (a bought-and-sold outcome?), there are those of us who believe that there are still more good-hearted, honest Filipinos than cynical ones. That there are more of us who will fight for long-term good, and not short-term financial gain by selling our votes. That we have fought this same political evil before, and can beat it again.

"Is it worth it?"
"Maybe not for us... but we plant the seeds of justice, and justice will rise out of all this muck someday... I believe in the future. I do. One day, life will be better for the ones who come after us."

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Book Review: THE BRIDGE ON THE DRINA by Ivo Andrić

The Bridge on the Drina: Introduction by Misha Glenny by Ivo Andrić
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"This is not a building like any other, but one of those erected by God's will and for God's love... the greatest blessing is to build a bridge and the greatest sin is to interfere with it"

My dad had a well-worn, much-loved copy of this book, one I'd heard of but never really thought of getting until I saw Papa's copy. And I knew at once I HAD to read it! Sadly I had to order a new edition as the old copy had several missing pages.

Elif Shafak said that when she finished reading this book, something in her had shifted forever.

And I, typing with moist eyes after closing the cover, have to agree.

What kind of book would win the 1961 Nobel over contemporary contenders such as John Steinbeck and J.R.R. Tolkien?

This book about a bridge, written by one who personally knew Gavrilo Princip (the assassin who started World War I) and Adolf Hitler. Ivo Andrić survived World War I and II, being incarcerated in prison and under virtual house arrest in both wars due to his work (the Yugoslavian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and assistant to the Prime Minister!!).

"The time has not come to die but to let it be seen of what stuff a man is made. These are such times."

When he writes of war and peace, it is from one who has lived in both times. When he writes of men and governments, it comes from close scrutiny borne from lived experience. When he writes of the history of his country as seen from the people who live around an Ottoman-built bridge dating from the Italian Renaissance (that still stands today!!!), he writes of his own hometown of Višegrad in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina (NOT to be confused with Visegrád in Hungary). He knew the bridge's history intimately and when he writes of it, it becomes alive! As do the people: Jew, Christian, and Muslim, living side-by-side in peace for the most part, only driven to atrocities after orders come down issued by heads of state in distant countries.

"That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, was now set free. The signal was given, the barriers were down."

The book is an amazingly accurate portrayal of 400 years of history with so many characters that Andrić makes us care for -- not an easy thing to do! He tells of GENERATIONS in the span of about 400 pages, and it feels like reading the Bible at times, only that he features men and women of three faiths, featuring the heights and depths of human experience. The most unforgettable chapter involved the ones were criminals were impaled by Ottomans (described in bloodcurdling detail!!!), and the best ones were when the university-educated young men were debating on their future and that of their country. All take place on this great bridge: deaths, weddings, love affairs.

To tourists, it is the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge. But anyone who has read Andrić's immortal novel now thinks of the bridge with something approaching love. I didn't know it was possible to feel this way about a structure!! And yes, the Nobel is richly deserved. This book both condemns and uplifts humanity. What a movie, what a play it would make! There are monologues and dialogues here, of such delight!

"Anything might happen. But one thing could not happen; it could not be that great and wise men of exalted soul who would raise lasting buildings for the love of God, so that the world should be made beautiful and man live in it better and more easily, should everywhere and for all time vanish from this earth. Should they too vanish, it would mean that the love of God was extinguished and had disappeared from the world. That could not be."

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Book Review: THE ASSASSINATION OF MARGARET THATCHER by Hilary Mantel

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

After finishing Hilary Mantel's historical doorstopper novels on the French Revolution and Thomas Cromwell in Tudor times, I was curious how the great author would tackle short stories set in contemporary times.

The argument can be made that Hilary Mantel is a horror writer! But not in a supernatural spooky way. Hers is the horror present in the dark deeds and desires of normal people, make scarier with the idea that these terrible things can indeed happen.

The ten stories ring of truth, showcasing her skill for detail and incredibly rich texture. Mantel practically inhabits different personalities and changes her voice accordingly: the Caucasian wife who has to fend off the advances of a neighbor in Saudi Arabia, the woman whose house is picked by a would-be IRA assassin, the vampire who works in Harley Street.

I was particularly struck by WINTER BREAK (what would you do if your taxi driver does a hit-and-run and you're not sure if it was an animal that was struck down?) and THE LONG QT (a married man faces unexpected consequences when his wife discovers him with another woman). They were only 11 and 8 pages long but BOOM! The impact! Once read, they're in one's brain FOREVER.

Gave it a two-star rating only because the book does not suit my personality, I found it too depressing and troubling despite the technical brilliance. I much prefer her historical novels, thank you very much (which are also rather depressing and troubling, haha, but since they're so long, the emotions are drawn out and don't hit you with as much concentrated force).

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Book Review: BEWILDERMENT by Richard Powers

Bewilderment by Richard Powers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Mild spoilers below: be warned!)
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"Everyone alive on this fluke little planet was on the spectrum. That's what a spectrum is. Each of us vibrated at some unique frequency in the continuous rainbow. Nobody's perfect, but, man, we all fall short so beautifully."

If ever a book made be bewildered about my reaction (HAHA), it's this unforgettably heart-breaking book!! I can't decide whether I love it or hate it!! Had an inner debate on whether I would give it 5 stars or 1 (because of the last chapter DARN YOU TO HIGH HEAVENS RICHARD POWERS HUHU), but finally settled on a 4 because MY GOLLY THE MAN CAN WRITE. (And apparently the Pulitzer and Booker shortlisters agree!)

***Pardon all the exclamation points but THE BOOK LEFT ME AN EMOTIONAL WRECK!***

Prospective readers be warned: you will want to highlight/transcribe/put sticky tabs on nearly 3/4 of the book! Powers is able to say so much with very short sentences ("She felt like a prediction, a thing on its way here" and "What's grief? The world stripped of something you admire").

The author's background in physics before turning to literature is evident in his unique manner of rhapsodizing over things others might consider too mundane to write about: birdsong, insects, and flowers and plants. There's a great deal of pontificating as well, as this is a contemporary novel written by one who has a LOT on his mind. Powers managed to fit in Trump, TED talks, Greta Thunberg, Marie Kondo, Big Pharma and the political and environmental lunacy of 2021 under the guise of literary fiction, all while telling the story of a father and a nine-year-old son doing their best to cope after the death of the wife/mother.

This book will make you want to do the following (in no particular order):

1) Turn vegan
2) Throw it angrily after finishing the last chapter, lock yourself in a room and weep for a week
3) Research terms like Hadean Eon and the Fermi Paradox, and basically "obsess over the stars instead of Star Wars" and abiogenesis (the origin of life)
4) Call out all the institutions who are so quick to label (and prescribe medication for!) very young children as ADHD or OCD or "on the spectrum" instead of realizing that each and every child is a unique universe unto himself
5) Go camping under the night sky
6) Worry about the ethics of new research

Much of the book was about the father's agonizing choice of a new therapy for his child: a unique kind of behavioral modification from the Decoded Neurofeedback (DecNef) machine. It would involve having the son try to fit the template of his late mother's brain.

This paragraph on reading was lovely!

"I bought it in a used bookstore. Paying for it with my own money felt like cracking the code of adulthood. Holding it open in my hands, I wormholed into a different Earth. Small, light, portable parallel universes..."

The book defies categorization. Part sci-fi, part horror, part therapy for dealing with grief... All I know is... it isn't a romance because there is no HEA. But the longer I think about it, THAT's the message of the book. Seen through the eyes of a child more empathetic than most (and thus labelled as "special"), recent events on earth are too worrisome to ignore.

This book is a warning: act now, before we doom our children. But also... despite the world's madness, there is so much beauty in it to marvel at!

This latest Powers novel was my first, and half-way in the book I ordered his previous novel. It's like being immersed in the brain of a philosophy/science professor, and I just can't get enough!!

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Book Review: MATRIX by Lauren Groff

Matrix by Lauren Groff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"The religion she was raised in had always seemed vaguely foolish to her, if rich with mystery and ceremony, for why should babies be born into sin... why should she, who felt her greatness hot in her blood, be considered lesser?"

This sentence should prepare any prospective reader for what lies ahead. Lauren Groff's book is sheer literary magic: a feminist re-telling of Marie de France's incredible life as an abbess in Medieval Angleterre (England) so well-told, I prophesy its inclusion in Literature curricula in the future!!

It must be said... this book is NOT for the close-minded! It ends with the heart-breaking burning of a book of visions, when described, might be considered "heretical."

(But then, so was the idea that the earth was round, at one time.)

It is the incredibly inspiring story of what educated women can do, when working for the good of their neighbors, despite the political maneuverings of power-mad male clerics who considered nuns inferior to priests in the flawed hierarchy of medieval organized religion.

"Of her own mind and hands she has shifted the world. She has made something new. This feeling is the thrill of creation."

Such a treasure of a book! More than a meditation on the blessings of celibacy ("She could give up the burn of singular love inside her and turn to a larger love.") and the religious life ("It is good, so very good, this quiet life of women and work."), it is for everyone who has ever felt discontent with the responsibilities they are born into... basically the human condition.

The protagonist, Marie, is unforgettable because she, too, starts out so unhappy. Thought ugly and unmarriageable, she rebels in her youth against the royal decree that binds her to the abbey. But through sheer force of will, she is able to remake her very soul, and creates a better world in her tiny patch of land, through a life-long struggle against "a new darkness" that "touches the island, led by incompetence and madness and greed."

This is my first Lauren Groff and it won't be my last! Look at the beauty of this paragraph:

"For when it comes to strength and goodness and brilliance and gentleness and grandeur of spirit so vast it takes one's breath away, beauty is nothing, beauty is a mote to a mountain, beauty is a mere straw alight beside a barn on fire."

There are books that are dangerous because of the ideas inside. This book is one of them. But I consider my being enriched for having read it.

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Book Review: THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle)

The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Murder has no reason."

For a very short novel (a little over 120 pages), this book packs quite a punch!

It is the too-familiar tale of colonialism writ anew, in a universe where there are multiple "humans" apart from Terran ones from Earth. These humanoid beings vary in terms of physical appearance but possess the same human soul and intellect.

It starts with one Terran captain who is sent to chop wood in the planet Athshe, to send back to a future Earth where wood is more precious than gold. The Athshean word for "world" is "forest," and it breaks the reader's heart to see what could have been a mutually beneficial relationship laid to waste, simply because of the Terran "man's man" who refuses to recognize the humanity of a species shorter and furrier than him.

Reading this book in light of recent events with the International Criminal Court just emphasizes the need to have a governing body that provides a check and balance over those lording it cruelly over their tiny part of the universe.

The most interesting scene in the book was the visit of two out-worlder delegates from other humanoid planets, representatives of the League of Worlds, and how differently the anthropologist and the military man treated them. One "had been trained to keep his mind open whether he wanted to or not." The other one's mind was purely set on getting his way, darn the torpedoes.

This is my second book from Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, the first one being "The Left Hand of Darkness." They can be read in any order. I had no trouble reading this 2nd of 9 independent works in the series. If LHOD was commentary on gender's impact on society, TWFWIF is Le Guin's anti-colonial, anti-racist treatise. While shorter than LHOD, this book is equally memorable. I hope to be able to track the other 7 books down. Le Guin is a delight both for the heart and the intellect!



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Book Review: THE BOOK OF DISQUIET by Fernando Pessoa (Trans. Margaret Jull Costa)

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Beautifully written drivel.

* groan *

To think I was soooo looking forward to reading this book, after seeing it praised to high heavens! Am very grateful to the book friend who helped source this rare find, but I'm simply not its target audience.

There's a Filipino word that encapsulates what I feel about this book, which I disliked but finished out of a sense of integrity: "Sayang." The closest equivalent in English is the phrase: "What a waste."

And it IS a waste in more than one sense: the reader's finite time and resources, as well as the author's considerable writing prowess. Critics describe Pessoa as a genius because he managed to write in different personalities (called "heteronyms"). If so, this is a genius who wrote a book spreading the disquiet in his own soul to others, infecting other minds with his overblown sense of superiority at his aesthetic aptitude and moaning about how destiny doesn't reward him with the fame that he deserves.

What is the book about? It's about "the inert soul of a born abdicator," a clerk in Lisbon who has "conversations with myself" about Tedium, the people he observes in the cafe, at the office; the alienation he feels from others, and random things like the rain and evening.

"He symbolized those who have never been anybody; that was at the root of his suffering."

I suspect Pessoa wrote this out of envy of people he considered less intelligent than himself, but happier than he could ever be.

I've met people who would like Pessoa. People who consider themselves superior to their fellow man would like him.

Give me a Matthew Arnold over a Pessoa any day, or a Louisa May Alcott. They believed, as I do, that we were meant to do our part in making this world better, not increase the despair of others over imagined attacks by Fate.

Reading is spending time with the minds of other souls. There are cleaner, purer, more beneficial souls to spend time with than Pessoa's.

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Book Review: THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by Katherine Addison (The Goblin Emperor # 1)

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"It is the nature of all persons to hold on to power when they have it. Thus it stagnates and becomes clouded, poisonous... You do not hold on to power as your father and grandfather did. You are not afraid to let it go. And you have new ideas, ideas that no emperor before you has ever had."

This was a beautifully written fantasy novel that is rather unlike the grand epics that populate the genre. But in a good way. This is an intimate book in scale, about the trials of a lonely boy forgotten by the world, untrained for his royal destiny. Will he rise to the occasion, or will he be done away with by those mad for power? The author focuses the lens of her pen on one person, on one location. But if it is the royal palace full of noblemen who bristle at an outsider's rule, then of course there is no shortage of intrigue and murderous violence that truly surprised this reader (I yelped quite a few times because of the KABLAM-ASSASSINATION-ATTEMPT-THAT-I-NEVER-SAW-COMING moments)!

One thing that sets the novel apart: its protagonist is downright ugly (He's half goblin). The racism in the book comes from the more beautiful elves who look down on the "uglier" goblin race.

But then one terrible murderous assassination kills the reigning emperor and his three heirs simultaneously. And thus the fourth son -- whom the father addressed as "that damned whelp who looks just like his mother" and banished for 18 years -- is suddenly next in line for the Untheileneise throne.

Addison's world building is immense. Hers is a world with hundreds of characters, all of them with specifically chosen names that bear no resemblance to names in real life. And so many traditions and proper nouns are also named, helpfully listed in the 14 page appendix at the back. The sheer force of imagination that went into this book is remarkable, as the details are dense and shimmer and breathe with a life of their own. However, as a reader unfamiliar with these elvish and goblin names, I would recommend setting it aside for focused, straight reading on a weekend. Don't make the mistake I did: finishing 5 chapters, putting it down and picking it up again after 22 months. I had to start again from the very first page, hehe.

The theme of reluctant-yet-virtuous-ruler seems particularly timely in a weekend that will go down in Philippine history as one of the most dizzying in politics.

I knew this book was special because, when I put it down, I found myself truly caring for the innocent king. True, he knew nothing of politics, but that made him purer and with a heart bent towards serving instead of being served. Cynics around him scoffed and said he wasn't fit to rule, but those in his innermost circle saw that this innocence was worth protecting, that he hadn't been corrupted by all the power-grabbing in court.

Instead of focusing on vengeance and chess moves, he spent his time learning about what his people needed. He sought to bring elf and goblin closer together. He hadn't wanted this power, but now that he had it, he tried to use it to bring order to a fantasy world that so closely resembled our real one.

And all I could think of during this political circus of weekend was: perhaps this is the kind of leader that we need.

"He knew that if the rest of his life was spent in building bridges, it would be no bad thing."

Looking forward to reading Book 2 (The Speaker for the Dead), which came out this year!!

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Book Review: SHELF LIFE - CHRONICLES OF A CAIRO BOOKSELLER by Nadia Wassef

Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"In an effort to suppress dissent, each political regime had taken control of cultural output... Starting a bookstore at this moment of cultural atrophy seemed impossible - and utterly necessary... Diwan was conceived as a reaction to a world that had stopped caring about the written word... She has nobler ideas than her surroundings permit... She brings people and ideas together."

Thus began the true story of a woman and her two female friends, and how they put up an ideal bookstore in a male-dominated Cairo. It is about to turn 20 years old in a few months, and can be found online here: https://diwanegypt.com/

Enjoyed this book (an early Christmas gift from Le Twinnie) so much! The four-star rating is because I think this has a target audience: a female book lover who holds administrative duties professionally. Am unsure if men would appreciate the writer's voice: colorfully cursing in every other page, declaring her opinions so decidedly while mercilessly painting an unflattering picture of a few vile people she encountered. Who knew that a bookstore could be so exciting?!

Part of what made this book so enjoyable was the author's sense of time and place. I streamed Umm Kulthum on Spotify because Wassef said she alternated her music with George Gershwin's in her bookstore.

It was inevitable, I suppose, for a bookseller to recommend her favorite reads, and thus I emerge at the end of the book having added more than a dozen "must-save-up-for" titles in my ever growing Wish list. It's good to have book dreams. Haha.

I could relate to so much in the book: a very frank description of the divide between the two Egypts (separated by educational background and socioeconomic class) seemed almost the same as the situation in Manila, as well as the unique approach to combat inefficient government bureaucracy (appreciation boxes of candy, anyone?).

It's the story of idealists living in a non-ideal environment, and I suppose every reader can relate to this. Readers know that the status quo shouldn't be this way, that there were better times, that we can forge better days ahead. That we are capable of much more than the mediocrity that surrounds us.

I read this book at a time when book selections in Philippine libraries are under siege, and freedom of thought is threatened. I take comfort in the fact that for as long as there are readers in any society, this attack on Civilization will not succeed.

"Mediocrity is our enemy... We wanted to remodel our country... we kept the faith, despite the odds. We refused to be bitter. Reading itself is an expression of faith."

It's a must-read for any book lover! And it made me miss physical bookstores so much, huhu.


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Book Review: "NINE LIVES - IN SEARCH OF THE SACRED IN MODERN INDIA" by William Dalrymple

Nine Lives: In Search Of The Sacred In Modern India by William Dalrymple
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"All religions were one, maintained the Sufi saints, merely different manifestations of the same divine reality. What was important was not the empty ritual of the mosque or temple, but to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart -- that we all have Paradise within us, if we know where to look."

This is my second Dalrymple, and once again I am struck by his beautifully illustrative and compassionate way of writing about geography, culture, and faith, for these three shape - and are shaped by - each other.

In this book, Dalrymple shares the nonfiction accounts of nine people he met in his travels: Jains, Sufis, Wahhabi, Buddhist, and followers of Tantra alike receive the blessing of respectful attention, without judgment, as the author asked them to share their lives spent in pursuing God in their chosen manner.

The differences are there, yes, but so too are the similarities, and it is a testament to Dalrymple's skill that this Catholic reader found much that resonated in the excerpts from the various religious texts included.

"What difference does it make if you call Allah by his Hindu names - Bhagwan or Ishwar? These are just words from different languages."

I was moved almost to tears in some chapters like "The Daughters of Yellamma" where women described the pains and humiliations of being a devadasi, and "The Singer of Epics" where I marvelled at the skill of bhopas, bards and shamans who keep a 600 year old epic alive.

In a time when a lot of secular and religious groups incite their members towards hate, this wonderful book was a healing balm to read, inspiring reflection on our universal common humanity.

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Book Review: A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY by Hilary Mantel

A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"A mob has no soul, it has no conscience, just paws and claws and teeth... what does the crowd want? To roar."

People are uploading their Halloween reads and here I am thinking I have just lived through the scariest book experience yet... a bone-chilling account of The Terror of the French Revolution through the eyes of Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins, as well as their wives.

For there is nothing as frightening as idealism and "vertu" gone wrong in the face of mindless mob rule.

Mantel is a resurrectionist: with her pen, she summons these great men from the page, transforms ink into flesh and blood, and she makes 873 pages feel simultaneously like several lifetimes, yet not long enough.

"How are they to form a moral society when they have no experience of one?"
"The people were translated from heroes to scavengers, to savages, to cannibals."

The length of the novel was necessary, to drive in the point that the revolution did not happen overnight. It was a series of violent incidents fanned to flame by intellectuals who later lost control of a monster of their own making. It is a chilling warning as to the results of anarchy, when nothing is left sacred. Its readers shall have nightmares from the true-to-life descriptions of savage acts committed in the name of freedom, of the worst of human nature harnessed in the name of the people.

"What is the point of combating the tyrants of Europe if we behave like tyrants ourselves? What is the point of any of it?"

Perhaps the greatest warning here is the loss of institutions: when they crumble, so does civilization itself. Cousin against relative, childhood friend turned to foe, it became a mad free-for-all. And when the protection of civil rights are ground to dust, those who destroyed them are destroyed in turn.

"There is a point beyond which - convention and imagination dictate - we cannot go; perhaps it's here, when the carts decant on to the scaffold their freight, now living and breathing flesh, soon to be dead meat."

Perhaps scariest of all... is that this can happen anywhere. At any time.

"We are entering a time of terror."

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Book (and Film) Review: THE ENGLISH PATIENT by Michael Ondaatje

 

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others... her body full of sentences and moments, as if awakening from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams."

MY REACTION TO THIS BOOK EXACTLY. This is poetic storytelling at the highest level, insert all the superlatives here. You MUST experience it for yourselves to learn how heartbreaking beauty can be.

I don't think I've ever been compelled to watch the movie IMMEDIATELY after finishing the book, in the same way I was seized with urgency by this masterpiece.

There are two pairs of lovers caught in two timelines, less than a decade apart, one at the start and the other pair finding each other at the end of World War II. It tells of quiet moments before and in between chaos, silent oases where people celebrate life and love however they can, with more information on WWII bombs and mines, and desert geography, than I've ever encountered before.

It is simultaneously an anti-war tract, a warning against excessive passion, a tribute to life-giving affection, but above all ONE MAGIC CARPET RIDE over the Saharan desert.

Both are absolutely beautiful. Deserving of all the awards. But be warned: both will break your heart.

It's been two days since I've finished it and I'm still torn up inside about it!! Perhaps I ought to stop listening to the breathtaking Gabriel Yared soundtrack, with its echoes of Bach, still remembering how sensual some of the scenes were and mulling over the impossibility of perfect love.

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Book Review: EARTHLY POWERS by Anthony Burgess

Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

"What you're trying to say about God it seems to me cannot be said ever ever, do you understand, about God... the human imagination is capable of a terrible amount of evil. God bless us, God save us from harm."

That quote sums up how I feel about this terrible book. Is it beautiful and brilliant? Undoubtedly so. But so was the former angel known as the Morning Star. I am a firm believer in the redemptive power of art and literature, and I was appalled at how this 600+ pager of a novel came to a close: such incredible promise, such explosive potential, and all for naught.

It is a very lengthy, very learned memoir that starts out with perhaps the most infamous sentence in English literature (too foul to be reproduced here), which should have warned me about its contents. It tells of a man who is asked to confirm a late pope's sanctity unto sainthood, who sifts through his memories of living through perhaps one of the most evil of centuries (the 20th), who sees and lives through much evil.

I do wonder what the author meant to accomplish by this fearsome work. This should come with a warning: "not for ye of little faith." It seems to be written by one who has a passionate love/hatred for the Catholic church, and for any form of organized religion. If there was such a genre as "fictional theology" or "theological fiction," then this book would exemplify it: most of the dialogue and conflicts revolve around matters of faith, as well as of gender and sex.

Some might define great literature in terms of technique, of the weight of ideas, the erudition of an author who can write with authority on all matters anthropological, musical, literary and linguistic. By that rubric, they would say this is a great novel.

But great literature should also ennoble, not enfeeble; encourage, not demoralize. And by that metric, this book gets a solitary star.

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Book Review: THE MASTER AND MARGARITA by Mikhail Bulgakov (translated by Hugh Aplin)

 

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

One-star to this very trippy book with a crazy narrative that didn't make sense, interweaving events in Stalin's Russia with the last hours of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, featuring You-Know-Who, his minions including naked witches and talking cats, and various unfortunate writers and literary men.

I have some dear friends who count this among their favorites, and so I bought the cheapest edition I could find and read it in the name of friendship.

And honestly if I didn't regard these friendships highly I wouldn't have forced myself to finish my copy, hehe.

Intellectually, I understood the narrative. Even got most of the references (hurray for college and footnotes!). But for the life of me, I just don't get WHY it's considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

I understood what the story is about. But it's a bad thing if a reader has to Google the ending just to make sure she understood it (I used the Internet to verify that, indeed, things did turn out the way I understood they did).

I'm now wondering if I would have fared better had I read a different English translation? Hmmm. To those who loved this book, I'd be really interested to find out what drew you to it!

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Book Review: CITY OF MIRACLES (The Divine Cities # 3) by Robert Jackson Bennett

 

City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"I will not let you forget who you are. I will be there to remind you... until you are you."

And thus ends one of the greatest trilogies I've ever had the privilege to read. CITY OF MIRACLES, like its predecessors, tells of humanity's attempts to recreate civilization with science and technology, after killing its miraculous gods a little under a hundred years ago.

But, as in the previous two books, it's VERY hard to kill what is divine.

What if there is a child of old gods, seeking out its siblings in order to devour them and take their powers for itself? There's nothing like SAVING THE WORLD levels in terms of stakes, and Book 3 gleefully brings together our favorite trio: the Viking-like Sigrud (who has the uncanny habit of surviving encounters with deities who want him dead), the politician-extraordinaire Shara (whose assassination at the beginning sparks all the events that follow), and female general-turned-politico Mulaghesh, whose definition of adulthood is EVERYTHING:

"My definition of an adult is someone who lives their life aware they are sharing the world with others... someone who knows the world was here before they showed up and that it'll be here well after they walk away from it. My definition of an adult, in other words, is someone who lives their life with a little f***ing perspective."

The last scene was an absolute masterpiece! T.T And THAT'S how you end a series, guys. I had Hans Zimmer's GLADIATOR soundtrack playing in my brain as I read the last couple of pages, and I think I wet the last page with my tears! Huhu.

You know it's a great ending when you're inspired to re-read Book 1. That's what the ending of Book 3 did for me.

Another hallmark of greatness: when there are references to tiny events in Book 1 that resurface in Book 3, seemingly unimportant but later revealed to be grace notes that show how much care and thought went into the plot.

Where do I sign up to be tattooed as a fan of RJB's?!!? This series is deserving of all the awards!

The strongest book, it must be said, was the first. The second was the weakest (gave it three stars). This third one was 4.5 for the most part but THAT ENDING is deserving of five stars, just for that poignant scene alone! Darn you RJB for breaking my heart and remaking it!!

What a journey. This series will live on in my heart for decades to come. A must-read!


View my review of Book 2 here

View my review of Book 1 here
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Book Review: CITY OF BLADES (The Divine Cities # 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett

 

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I have trudged through fire and death to come and ask you this: Can we not be better? Can we not do better? Our ancestors were legends who remade the world. Are we willing to be so small-minded with our brief time upon these shores?"

My personal litmus test for five-star classics is: Am I going to re-read this? And while my answer for Book 1 (CITY OF STAIRS) of THE DIVINE CITIES trilogy was a resounding HELL YES, my answer for Book 2 is a whispered, pained no, hence the 3 star rating.

And it pains me, because the first 3/4 of the book was very good! You need to understand... I waited 10 long months after reading Book 1 for Book 2 to reach the shores of Manila. I pined and longed like a girl waiting for her sweetheart. And so when it arrived, I TORE into the package, bid adieu to reality and locked myself in my room to dive into a world I didn't want to leave.

I was delighted to find familiar characters in Book 2, still set in that world where gods once walked, but had supposedly been killed off in a cataclysmic event known as "The Blink" some 80 years in the past, and where men have made great strides in science and technology, when formerly deities were needed to wrought "miracles."

A female senior-citizen general who sacrificed one hand to save the world in Book 1 is now promoted to the lead role! I love General Mulaghesh: her grit, her passion, her vulnerability. The author (RJB) does characterization so skillfully, you'll never get confused even with large casts. You root for them so much, and their fates affect you so much, too!

I figured out the technique RJB employed in Book 1 that he used skillfully in this second book as well: it starts with a mystery.

In Book 2, a government spy goes missing after investigating a curious ore that may have links to the Divine. And a retired general is brought back into service, bound by honor and duty that I wish all soldiers had:

"A true soldier does not take. A soldier gives. Anything. Everything, if asked of us... a soldier strives not to take... so others might one day have something."

However, Book 2 merely approaches the near perfection of Book 1. The ending, especially, seemed rather rushed and not satisfying.

Still won't stop me from diving straight into Book 3 after work tomorrow, hehe.

"The world may not go on forever. But that does not mean we cannot try to make tomorrow better."


View my review for Book 1
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Book Review: ISTANBUL: MEMORIES AND THE CITY by Orhan Pamuk

Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"For anything we say about the city's essence says more about our own lives and our own states of mind. The city has no center other than ourselves."

I think this memoir would be best appreciated by either a passionate lover of either Istanbul or Pamuk. As this is my first by the author, I don't qualify, hehe.

The pictures are gorgeous, there's no doubt. And Pamuk did write in the intro that he meant it to be picked up and read in snippets, with a tenuous narrative thread that can read forwards or backwards. Part history, part travel guide, mostly a memoir of an author's unhappy childhood in a rich family, Pamuk drew comparisons to his own family's dwindling fortune with the melancholy "hüzün" pervading Istanbul's people, who "simply carry on with their lives amid the ruins" of a once-powerful city made powerless by its defeats by the West.

Taken as a literary whole, I found the book too long-winded, repetitive at times, and it was difficult to sympathize with the first-world problems of a man in a poor country, who felt himself better than everyone around him, who admitted that he could afford to be kept by his parents in comfort even if he didn't seek a profession of his own.

I suppose I went into this with too high expectations, and left rather disappointed. I hope his other works don't! After all, one doesn't win a Nobel for nothing!!

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Book Review: TEHANU (Earthsea Cycle # 4) by Ursula K. Le Guin

Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Despair speaks evenly, in a quiet voice."

My God. This book ought to come with a trigger warning! IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR CHILDREN. I can't emphasize this enough. And even for adults, one shouldn't expect this to be anything at all like the previous three books in the series.

TEHANU is a raw wound, beautiful but deadly. The emotional scarring starts at the beginning: a child is found, burnt, with the unthinkable done to her, by her own family. This is the story of her hard-won salvation.

If Book 3 was tropey, Book 4 is its polar opposite. There is almost nothing in it to recommend its being fantasy (except for a dragon appearance at the very end). For we find our hero and heroine from the previous trilogy, grown to middle age, but left without any magic.

"He thought he had learned pain, but he would learn it again and again, all his life, and forget none of it."

How does one fight home invaders and evil child abusers without spells? How does someone from the pinnacle of power learn to live as the humblest of mortals?

I think this book will resonate with older readers, especially teachers and parents. At its core is the fundamental question: how does one bring up a child? Especially after so much trauma?

I think I have never hated any character in my life with the same righteous passion I felt in this book. But Ursula Le Guin preaches the false joy of anger: "Leave them to their hatreds, put them behind her, forget."

I cannot forget this book. I will never stop recommending it, but also, I do not foresee a time that I shall reread it because it broke my heart too much this first time.

To be fair, there is a lot of beauty in it, too. There is the rediscovery of first love in middle age, of the reminder that women's domestic lives are every bit as heroic as daring quests. There is the joy and peace of embracing one's duty: "I know all that all I understand about living is having your work to do and being able to do it. That's the pleasure and the glory, and all."

Not for kids. But perhaps the best EARTHSEA book of them all. On to Book 5!

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Book Review: THE FARTHEST SHORE (Earthsea Cycle # 3) by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"What is evil?"
"A web we men weave."

For the past three days, I've been reading myself to sleep with an installment from the Earthsea Cycle (#perksofbuyingcompilations).

"Just a few pages" becomes chapters and before I know it, it's waaaaay past my bedtime and I've finished the whole thing!

Such is the quality of these books. However, compared to Books 1 and 2, I have to say that Book 3 seemed the most... tropey. It's a familiar story: there is a great evil abroad, and our hero from Books 1 and 2 (Sparrowhawk is fast becoming a real person to me!!), now the archmage of Earthsea, must leave his ivory tower and do battle with only an innocent teenaged prince, Arren, as his companion.

That being said, Le Guin's prose elevates it to another plane. Just look at this gem of a paragraph:

"Arren saw the dragons soaring and circling on the morning wind, and his heart leapt up with them with a joy, a joy of fulfillment, that was like pain. All the glory of mortality was in that flight. Their beauty was made up of terrible strength, utter wildness, and the grace of reason. For these were thinking creatures, with speech and ancient wisdom: in the patterns of their flight there was a fierce, willed concord."

ALL THE GLORY OF THAT WRITING. Reading it, one feels... ennobled!

Was quite shocked to read about slavery and drug use in its pages, keeping in mind that Le Guin wrote this for young adults in 1972. In the afterword, she says that she did this deliberately bcause she saw evil "as an insidious and ever-present enemy in my own daily life in my own country: the ruinous irresponsibility of greed."

But it is never all doom and gloom with Le Guin, which is why we love her.

Her heroes are pushed to the very brink of death, and sometimes past, but they persist. "Though you choose despair, remember we have not yet done so."

Hurray for the weekend... which means... guilt-free reading time! Onwards to Book 4!

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Book Review: THE TOMBS OF ATUAN (Earthsea Cycle # 2) by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"You were taught to be a slave, but you have broken free."

Finished work in a hurry so I could dive into this immediately after finishing Book 1. This 2nd volume is definitely in the HORROR category 😳 hahaha! Great atmospheric writing about a girl who becomes a slave to a religious order and spends most of her time in a vast underground city where she. Is. Not. Alone.

"There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds."

As an indictment against organized religion, this one is more powerful than most. And of course, the crisis of conscience in the end was superbly captured. This unique Le Guin blend of maximum emotional impact combined with minimum word count is a feat to behold.

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Book Review: THE WIZARD OF EARTHSEA (Earthsea Cycle # 1) by Ursula K. Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"There is a horror follows you. I will tell you its name."

Utterly devoured Book 1 in a single sitting, on a school night (!!!) because reading it seemed like the most essential thing to do!

Le Guin wrote it for younger audiences, but it certainly did NOT feel nor sound like that to me! The story made me tear up in some parts!! A comparison that comes to mind is C.S. Lewis, such is her grace and command with the pen, and the gravitas of what's at stake (the ruination of a soul and of a world). Of course, her poetic style is all her own. Very few books make me hear a narrator say the words in my head. This was one of those "play a mental Audible recording" ones where you hit PAUSE and REWIND only about a million times!

Le Guin said "In the name is the magic" when she wrote this story of a young mage's education. To compare it to Harry Potter would do it a disservice. She herself is the archmage of Earthsea and her words weave the best kind of conjuring spell: A short meditation in terms of page number, that felt like it aged the reader a million years and came away so much wiser!

This is not a book to be taken lightly, despite any impressions the cover may give (Wizards? A quest? A dragon?). To be honest, it felt like horror to this reader, of the best kind. And despite the elements of fantasy, the evil is scary because it tells of what humans can bring into the world, so easily.

The hype is more than justified. Am going to the docks tomorrow at first light to explore the rest of Earthsea. Look for me in a few years, or better yet, join me and read this book as well!

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Book Review: THE CITY WE BECAME (Great Cities #1) by NK Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Come, then, City That Never Sleeps. Let me show you what lurks in the empty spaces where nightmares dare not tread."

NK Jemisin is pretty much an automatic buy ever since this fan tracked down her award-winning BROKEN EARTH trilogy (with all books winning the Hugo in three consecutive years!!). But this book is very different from her previous sci-fi / fantasy / genre-bending novels, because it is set in our own world.

Welcome to a world where cities have avatars, where New York has several because each of its boroughs has a distinct personification (and none of them are White!!). A damning treatise against systemic racism and a love letter to Jemisin's city, this is a thrilling action-packed novel that uses fiction's facade to highlight modern-day injustices that people of color face.

Jemisin has managed to turn all that justified anger into something beautifully hopeful. The over-all message is one of inclusivity borne out of mutual respect amongst peers.

If you knew nothing about the book, from the very first chapter you could tell that it was written in 2020, and that the author paid tribute to writers like Lovecraft and Whitman in borrowing their phrases but turning out something completely original. (Thank you to Le-Creative-Writing-Major-Twinnie for pointing out why the opening phrase "I sing the city" seemed so familiar!).

Jemisin's writing, built on building from past authors, is pretty much like cities built upon centuries of history, with all its people and cultures forming a unique entity whole unto itself.

And another reason why the first chapter sounded like a song I'd heard before became apparent when I dug up another Jemisin book of short stories, and saw that the second story (THE CITY BORN GREAT) was the first chapter of THE CITY WE BECAME.

I was a bit worried at first because I thought about how "dated" the language of the book is, so utterly modern, so 2020 with sentences like "She's got maximum Don't Give a F*** mode engaged, and I'm surfing on her b**** wave" and the concept of Starbucks as an aggressive evil eldritch monster.

But then again, I suppose I worry needlessly about future generations reading this book. After all, we read books in 2021 from centuries past, and still understand them (only with a bit more effort required, thank you footnotes!). Isn't literature lovely?

"It's impossible not to smile, too, even here at the end of the world. Joy is joy."

Jemisin is amazing! Looking forward to the rest of this new series!


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Book Review: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (Hainish Cycle # 4) by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it."

Thus spoke Genly, a man from Earth, sent as a diplomatic representative to the planet Gethen. But not all its inhabitants believe that the Terran comes in peace, and he finds himself running for his life in an Arctic world where he cannot distinguish friend from foe, nor male from female.

Sounds sci-fi-ey enough, but the book does not "read" like sci fi.

You know how, when you open a few epic books (usually mythology ones with heroes and gods) and you start hearing an epic narrative voice like Morgan Freeman's in your head? This book was like that.

This was my first Le Guin, and let me preface this by saying that I have EVERY intention of looking for her other works and reading them!! (Please don't kill me, Le Guin fans LOL)

That being said... I didn't enjoy the book as much as I expected I would. This expectation comes from hearing about her from friends, and also from the number of awards her books got (this particular volume garnering both the Hugo and the Nebula in 1970!!?).

As a wordsmith, she is no doubt a master (a mistress?! This newfound gendered word sensitivity is proof of a hangover from the book!).

With sentences like: "It was all golden, all benign: that week of walking."
and
"We creep infinitesimally northward through the dirty chaos of a world in the process of making itself."
plus
"What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy."

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN? Le Guin's sentences are miniature masterpieces.

There were so many times I'd stop to reread particular phrases because their artistry demanded it of me, but if one does this too often (as I did), I found myself unable to get into the spirit of the story. If books are objects I'd gotten used to diving into as if they were pools of water, this book was a beautiful impressionist painting: I looked and admired at individual strokes of the brush, at the expense of appreciating the whole. But I could only approach and admire from a distance.

Another factor that prevented me from identifying with the main characters is, I think, the fact that Le Guin set her novel in a world where humanoids are androgynous. Physically, they remain gender-neutral until they enter a period called "kemmer," which is similar to animals being in heat. So you have kings who become pregnant, and friends turning into lovers then going back to being friend zoned, which can be quite confusing for this Terran reader.

I suppose it's hard to throw away a lifetime's identification as female. This book does make me reflect on how much of our identity is tied up with our gender. Le Guin also ruminates on how "masculine" traits drive humanity into acts of aggression, like war.

As a love story, it left me unmoved. Again, perhaps it is because of the reader's own sexual orientation.

I do look forward to reading her other works! There is much to learn from Le Guin's craftsmanship.

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Book Review: THE CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP OF FERDINAND AND IMELDA MARCOS by Primitivo Mijares

The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos by Primitivo Mijares
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's just no way one short social media post can do justice to all 768 pages of this monumental, historic book. There is so much detail of a man who would be king and broke every law of God's and man's to do it.

From shooting his father's political opponent when Julio Nalundasan won the elections for representative in Ilocos Norte, to antedating documents to suit his political purposes (hence the lack of consecutive numbering of his decrees)... from making false multi-million dollar war claims to claiming that he was "the most decorated Filipino soldier of World War II who single-handedly delayed the surrender of Bataan by three months and saved Australia and New Zealand from Japanese conquest"... behold the worst of our race: Ferdinand Marcos.

Not a single page of the book is wasted. The reason it's so long is because there's just SO. MUCH. FILTH. Never mind spilling something as weak as tea. With his voice shouting from beyond the grave, the author spilled hot, thick blood, quite literally, for this book to be published. His 16 year old son's body was thrown out of a helicopter as punishment, and a year after, the author also disappeared. Two of the thousands upon thousands killed, not to mention those tortured, during the Marcos regime.

Imagine if the number one media man of the President, a trusted confidante able to waltz in and out of his office at will, wrote a tell-all book.

Now imagine that same man defecting and being a chief informant against his former master before a U.S. Congressional Committee, despite attempts at silencing him through bribery ($100,000.00 in 1976!).

This is not mere gossip. This is a primary source, from a man who was in the inner sanctum. He sacrificed life and child for this book. The least we can do is read, and remember.

It's terrible enough that lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared F. M's birthday a special non-working holiday in Ilocos Norte. But let us not hand our country back to this evil family when we vote in 2022. They have lied about EVERYTHING, from educational backgrounds to World War II medals, so why believe in their fake history videos and propaganda?

We have the power to show, by our actions, by our votes, that we condemn this bloody legacy. We do not forget. And we do not forgive.

(Rated 5 out of 5 and tag under ESSENTIAL READING!)


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Book Review: THE PULL OF THE STARS by Emma Donoghue

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Influenza delle stelle - the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates."

I became a fan of Emma Donoghue's after reading "THE WONDER," which will soon be a Florence Pugh/ Ciaran Hinds film. Raved all about it to my book club so I won't do so here, hehe, but it was UNFORGETTABLE.

So when I saw my local bookstore carried her next novel, it was an automatic buy! And I only found out that it was about a pandemic when I cracked it open and dove headlong into Dublin in 1918, where a country was crumbling from a world war, an Easter insurrection, and the deadly Spanish flu ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

"A nurse is like a spoonful of tea leaves. Her strength only shows when she's in hot water."

Emma Donoghue's female characters stand apart because they're no-nonsense, dedicated, and dutiful. If they do happen to find romance, it's unlooked for and it isn't the focus of the story. Her heroines are utterly dedicated to A Great Cause, one they aren't afraid to break social norms for.

Just like in THE WONDER, this book was based on the true story of the incredible Dr. Kathleen Lynn, "The Rebel Doctor," and an amalgamation of real nurses and hospital aides from the period.

"The way this godforsaken island's misgoverned, it's mass murder by degrees. If we continue to stand by, none of us will have clean hands."

I found it very interesting, style-wise, that Donoghue never used quotation marks in the entire book. It had the weird effect of making me more focused than usual, and everything seemed more immediate, as if events were unfolding right that very second TO ME.

Emma Donoghue's genius lies in making a tiny room (in this case: a maternity ward) the center of the universe. The reader feels that every patient, every blood pressure reading, every temperature check is the most important thing in the world!

If you're worried that your heart is becoming cold and callous with the daily heartbreaking news, don't be! Because Emma Donoghue will break that ice and make you cry with this book, not just for what has happened before, but for what continues to happen today.

How hellish it was to combat a pandemic a hundred years ago, with no vaccines, no medicine but gauze masks, whiskey, onions, and avoiding the color red! How far we have come! And how far yet we have to go!

Another feature of Emma Donoghue's writing is that she can both showcase our terrible inhumanity (she has this thing for the hypocrisy found in some members of the Catholic Church) and yet leave her readers believing that humans are capable of being our best selves in the worst fixes, that we can go beyond our personal hells to strive for the common good. All this, with a book I was simply powerless to put down (thank goodness it was a Sunday)!

It should be noted that this is strictly for mature readers only due to the controversial themes!

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Book Review: FOUNDATION'S EDGE (Foundation # 4) by Isaac Asimov

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos."

A friend and fellow Asimov admirer (hi Rich!) told me that Books 4 and 5 are completely different from the original trilogy.

And upon finishing Book 4 in the series, I do agree.

Perhaps it's only to be expected. When Asimov wrote the first part of what would later become the original FOUNDATION novel, it was the '50's. The world changed so much in thirty years, and so did his concerns. FOUNDATION's EDGE was written in the '80's, an entire generation later.

If the original FOUNDATION trilogy could be read as a metaphor for the struggle between democracy and fascism, this fourth book introduces a new enemy: AI.

Who is more powerful? The man with a gun? The man who controls the will of the man with a gun? Or an artificial intelligence (with the hive mind power of an entire planet under his/their control) capable of controlling both men?

What is more essential for humanity? Free will? Peace and order? Or life and growth?

"However small the chance of catastrophe might be, if enough people take enough chances, the catastrophe must happen eventually."

I am left with an urgent need to continue with Book 5 straightaway, since the TV series starts in a week! And with a bit of horror and despair comes a dawning realization that I need to read Asimov's other series of books (the Robot ones!!) if I want to be able to fully appreciate the mind-blowing epic that is FOUNDATION.

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