Book Review: BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McCarthy

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

"When God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years..."

Never have I taken this long to finish a book... historically significant to me as it is the last one I bought from Book Depository before it closed.

Never have I felt this conflicted. There is a great deal of awe for what were undoubtedly some of the most beautiful sentences ever constructed in English, but also, an overwhelming sense of revulsion for all the senseless violence, the gory details of cruelties too evil to put down in a mere review.

There are those that say this book is one of the greatest ever written. To them I say, keep your canon and your PhD in literature.

This book neither ennobles nor entertains. The reason it took me this long to get through it was because I could only bear it in small doses.

I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who finishes this in one sitting, without even a nightmare that visits them that night. Anyone who reads this undisturbed has "a flawed place in the fabric of your heart."

Reading Blood Meridan is immersing one's self in terror. Beautifully seductive, yes, but it leaves this reader wanting to purge one's brain of the images placed within. Would that there was a DELETE button for this nihilistic novel.

The worst part of it is, the events in it are true. This is historical fiction that really happened, based on Samuel Chamberlain's experiences as a teenager riding with the Glanton Gang during the Mexican-American War. But all of the horrors are told without a historian's sense of weaving meaning from tragedy.

I do not think I shall be picking up any Cormac McCarthy book ever, after this.

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Book Review: TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG by Peter Carey

True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"I were already travelling full tilt towards the man I would become."

Fresh from Peter Carey's first Booker Prize winning novel OSCAR & LUCINDA, I hastily moved on to his SECOND novel that also won the same prize!

This book demonstrates Carey's incredible range, for the whole thing start to finish is written in the form of a long letter from the Australian Robin Hood to his daughter, in what felt like Ned Kelly's voice. Carey as author absolutely disappears! I felt as if I had read the real autobiography (although what the book is, is the best kind of historical fiction: a serious literary work as well).

"I wished only to be a citizen I had tried to speak but the mongrels stole my tongue when I asked for justice they give me none."

Ned Kelly is so famous, UNESCO claims he inspired the world's first full length feature film (THE STORY OF THE KELLY GANG, 1906). He's the outlaw who faced off against police in a homemade suit of armor, allowing him to take several shots (around thirty) and living long enough to be hanged for his crimes.

After reading the first chapter depicting the famous last stand at Glenrowan, I could not put the book down!

For Carey, the child makes the man. Inspired by the actual handwritten manifesto of the real outlaw, Carey traces how an unjust government creates its own criminal heroes, taking the reader for a wild ride from Kelly's tormented childhood up until his infamous demise.

"In the heat of the furnace metals change their nature in olden days they could make gold from lead. Wait to see what more there is to hear my daughter for in the end we poor uneducated people will all be made noble in the fire."

In Carey's work, it is revealed that sometimes, an oppressive system's workers are the ultimate bad guys, and sometimes, those marked as "criminals" are merely men with their backs to the wall, fighting for a chance to live, a chance denied them by abusive policemen and indifferent authorities.

When policemen put hands on your innocent 14 year old sister and imprison your mother for a crime she did not commit, separating her from a 9 month old baby ... wouldn't you do as Ned Kelly did?

"We had showed the world what convict blood could do. We proved there were no taint we was of true bone blood and beauty born."

What emerges is a thoroughly sympathetic character, and provokes a curious reaction in the reader. For we realize that the only thing separating us from Ned Kelly and a life marked as an outlaw is one of pure luck and mere circumstance.

Carey, in a stroke of inspiration, carefully inserted the St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V on the eve of the final battle and I shall never read that speech again without remembering the week I was in thrall to this literary tribute to a just criminal.

"From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."

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Theater Fans Manila: Ateneo Entablado's ISA DALAWA TATLO: NAWANTUTRI TAYO

 UNI REVIEW: Ateneo Entablado's "Isa-Dalawa-Tatlo: Nawantutri Tayo!" (theaterfansmanila.com)

Book Review: ONCE UPON A TOME by Oliver Darkshire

Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"A word of advice, if you value your life: stay away from any virulently bright green cloth bindings from the Victorian period, because the wretched things were coloured using arsenic, and it’s a nasty way to go."

It's a good thing I read this much-awaited book via my Kindle then, as this edition deliberately has this verdant green seen-better-centuries look!

Do you remember the things that gave much-needed light in the darkest days of the pandemic? Some people obsessed over avocado toast, exotic coffees, and nightly Met Opera streamings.

Me? Apart from SWTOR (a rather old Star Wars game, highly recommended!!) and Genshin Impact (I play for the awesome soundtrack!), I eagerly devoured the tweets of one Oliver Darkshire, head of Sotheran's Twitter account. (You can find them here: @Sotherans)

When I would have too much of doom scrolling, all it would take is reading a tweet or two and I would laugh, and feel so much better about the world.

It's amazing how hopeful one feels after a good belly convulsion! Oliver's tweets have made me ROAR on occasion, hehe.

Take one tweet as an example: "Every day I open my emails and scream LEAVE ME ALONE as I descend into a fit of angry weeping, even when there are no new emails. The solution, friends, is ravens."

Or:

"I have this new anti-theft strategy where I lose a book so earnestly and thoroughly that it vanishes from memory into legend, only reappearing in a time of great need, like Excalibur."

It's this weird mix of book nerdiness and witty snarkiness that appeals to bookish introverts everywhere!

The book itself tells of Oliver's experiences as a rare bookseller in perhaps the oldest bookshop in the world. It's hilarious, yes, but surprisingly with moments of tenderness and conviction, as when Oliver talks about dearly departed older mentors or the time they didn't sell anything to a neo Nazi.

"Nazis don’t get to have nice things like books or bookshops."

"Everyone has to draw the line as to who they choose to sell to, and the choices that we make on those occasions will shape the kind of world we find ourselves in... We are connected to the world by a thousand invisible strings, and each time we make sure a book on something unpleasant gets to the right place, or we block a homophobe from shopping with us, it’s a tiny step in the right direction."

Don't know what book to buy for someone as a gift? Oliver has sound advice: "You can’t just take a stab in the dark and hope for the best. In the best-case scenario, a well-chosen book shows just how intimately you know a person, their interests, their politics . . . their very sense of self. In the worst case, it can show that you barely have any interest in who they are."

What's a good litmus test for kindred spirits? Oliver says: "It’s my belief that anyone worth knowing enjoys spending time in a bookshop. I may be biased, but I can’t think of a more pleasant place to spend one’s time."

This is a must-read for any one who has ever loved the peace and quiet of a bookstore, and the solace that reading brings.

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Theatrical Review: Tanghalang Pilipino's NEKROPOLIS by Guelan Varela-Luarca

"Pag may nagmamahalan, may handang mag-alay ng buhay."

Tanghalang Pilipino productions are for the serious theater goer. You know the type. The Serious Theater Goer goes to be enlightened, not merely entertained. Ushers barely need to remind them to put away their phones, they already have a mode entitled "Theater (DO NOT DISTURB)" enabled with one click. They thrive on unraveling layers of meaning. They scour the program and obsess over taking good documentation photos of the statement set: all entangled webs of wire and rope, projections on a screen, and an eerie soundscape that almost (but not quite) sounds familiar.

TP has never shied away from challenging material, and NEKROPOLIS was very much on brand for them.

Let me paint you a picture of what audiences found when we sat in our seats: actors came in one by one, lay down on the stage, and were covered up with newspapers. Immediately, every Filipino in the audience knows what to expect.

I think it was Nanding Josef, the Artistic Director of Tanghalang Pilipino himself, who said in the talk back after the show that NEKROPOLIS was very much still a work in progress, with last minute changes being made to script and story even as late as last week. And I thought this nailed my general impression on a very memorable, if very raw, production.

The cast and production team admitted it freely, saying that they were inspired by the book THE SOVEREIGN TRICKSTER, and that Director Charles Yee and playwright Guelan Varela-Luarca initially came up with activities and games, before crafting a collection of interconnected tales from that melting pot of ideas, a paean to our shared humanity, a plea against the repeat of a not-so-distant past.

To have so many creative minds at work inevitably means that something gets lost in the transmission, such as the goal to give an impression of "a thousand cuts" in the light (had it not been mentioned by production designer Tata Tuviera, we wouldn't even have known this was the intention).

The major pointer for improvement was definitely the directing of the actors and how they projected their lines to the audience. Having heard the senior TP actors in previous plays, I was bewildered to find myself straining every muscle to hear lines from these same fine thespians who have previously projected their voices so effectively, in even bigger venues. Only Marco Viaña was blessed to have blocking that enabled him to "shoot" his words at a conveniently located boom mike, although the way he murmured and raced through his lines was also an auditory challenge. The rest of the impassioned cast could barely be heard, which was such a waste!! As a play like this rises and falls on the power of its text.

And yet, with the 75-80% I understood (thank goodness for context clues), there is indeed power in this tale of a city of the dead, that so closely resembles our real one.

NEKROPOLIS is the sort of play it is best to get into without knowing anything about it, so I shan't say much about the plot except that it is most definitely for mature audiences, as there is much that triggers.

But that is really the goal of TP, I think. It is too easy to be numb, to become automata focused on surviving the daily heat and commute, to put food on the table. Watching a show like this is the artistic equivalent of being shaken from a stupor, ending with a definite call to action.

The goal is grand and noble, and NEKROPOLIS' creative team deserves our highest respect for that, as are all art endeavours that are THIS brave, THIS idealistic.

There is no such thing as a perfect prod, but Nanding Josef said it best, in Filipino: "We try to show uncomfortable truths about our society, however imperfectly. It is all in the attempt to contribute to Truth and Goodness, in our own small way."

NEKROPOLIS runs only this weekend at the Cultural Center of the Philippines ' Black Box Theater. I look forward to a more polished re-run in the future!

Many thanks to Theaterfansmanila.com and TP for the ticket!

Ex Libris Philippines: Teodoro Agoncillo

When Papa was alive, he made every single new faculty member borrow and read this book, perhaps THE definitive Filipino history book as it doesn't "read" like your boring AP/Hekasi school book.

To get an idea of the author's lyrical pen, here are some excerpts from his shorter works.

"History is not objective," wrote the great Teodoro Agoncillo in his essay HISTORY AS HUMANITIES. "In the process of re-creation, the personality of the historian plays an important role. He displays his passion, his prejudices, and emotion — in brief, his humanity... It is this subjectivity that characterizes all great historians, a subjectivity that makes for divergencies in interpretation. It is ignorance of the nature of historical writing that made even learned men in the past say that history is and must remain objective — an impossibility since the historian as man or woman cannot run away from himself/herself."

"If the students today do not have any sympathy for history as a subject it is not because of any defect in the discipline but because of the shortcomings of certain teachers of history...A good teacher of history is not he who can rattle off dates and names like a trained parrot, but he who makes the past come alive in the imagination of the students."

In another essay (LITERATURE AS HISTORY), Agoncillo wrote: "No reader, native or foreign, can enjoy Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo without knowing the circumstances that led the author to conceive them and the reason for their being. The humor, the irony, the piercing satire in their pages would be lost on the reader if he does not understand the historical background of those novels. I once said ... that Rizal’s novels are not, properly speaking, fiction. They are socio-historical novels which give us an intimate glimpse into the condition of Philippine society and the manner and morals of the people ... at a definite point in time. To look upon them as pure fiction is to misread Rizal’s intent and purpose."

No wonder, then, that the great man was not only Chair of the UP History Department, but also head of the National Historical Institute (now known as the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, or the NHCP) until his death in 1985.

The book ends after EDSA 1. So much has happened in the decades since. But we need to look at our past, so we can better understand where we are headed.

(original post here)

Ballet Review: Alice Reyes Dance Philippines' ENCANTADA

There were two similarly-themed ballets showing in Manila this weekend (Filipino gods and nature). If you're still confused about which one was Ballet Philippines' DIYOSA and which one was Alice Reyes Dance Philippines' ENCANTADA, well, maybe this will help: one had artistas watch it, while the other had fellow National Artists (Ramon P. Santos and Kidlat Tahimik) in the audience, supporting National Artist Agnes Locsin and National Artist Alice Reyes in the extraordinary restaging of what was one of the most powerful experiences of this theater goer's life!

All ancient civilizations share the Great Flood myth. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Noah's Ark, from Bukidnon and the Igorot, to Davao's Mandaya peoples (incidentally, Agnes Locsin hails from Davao!)... there are many variations on a common theme: a great cleansing borne out of a wrathful deity.

As Covid itself is seen by some as a natural cataclysm of sorts, it is especially poignant to witness the (re)birth of a stellar dance company (for greater context: Alice Reyes was previously the director of Ballet Philippines, as well as being its founder). And what an arrival! I was moved to tears (three times come intermission time, and I lost count how often I cried in the second act), a unique power of the truly sublime in art.

Dance is one of the most accessible art forms, especially in the hands of a gifted choreographer-storyteller like Agnes Locsin. Her ENCANTADA is primal, the power of its storytelling of mythic proportions. Choosing prima ballerinas more for their strength and not their beauty (a truth this ballet fan has observed through years of watching Nutcracker and Giselle), dancers enacted this feminist iteration of a Great Flood myth with movements that seemed both familiar and altogether fresh. Angular, jerky gestures merged with fluid grace as indigenous movements the audience had studied in their Buwan ng Wika school days were combined in breathtaking shows of athletic virtuosity as dancers leaped, or were flung into the air only to be caught by partners at the very last second. And what really struck me was the CLEANLINESS of it all, the highly polished synchronization that speaks of countless hours of rehearsal. This high level of polish has not been present in previous local ballet performances, and so to see it was extremely moving indeed!

And the music!!! I despair at the impossibility of conveying the full-body shock of a resounding agong, the urge to dance so urgent, it was a big effort to restrain myself from dancing along when the kulintang ensemble played in ever faster rhythms. Joey Ayala, Bayang Barrios, and Ang Bagong Lumad's unique sound is especially moving because it is a pan-Filipino ensemble: with a combination of kulintang instruments and the kubing from Mindanao, with the gangsa from the highlands of the North, and a few more modern instruments thrown in the mix.

Gongs in Philippine culture are sacred, passed down from generation to generation. There is power in their playing, and I believe this was felt subliminally by all blessed enough to be present for this mass ritual-as-performance.

The incredible vocalists alternated between songs (lyrics by Al Santos) and wordless vocalizations. I've long admired Bayang Barrios' commitment to passion and narrative drive above "sounding good," and her powerful ululations stirred our most base emotions in a way no rounded bel canto tones can.

It starts with the diwata Encantada atop a mountain, and an indigenous tribe dancing a prayer for a fruitful harvest led by the babaylan.

Below the mountain, the aptly named Estranghero steals the image of the Virgin Mary, after witnessing the mismatch between holy words and infernal abuse by the priests. One would think that the music to accompany the church men would sound like the heavenly purity of Gregorian chant, but Joey Ayala gave the frailes a basso profundo glottal fry, musically symbolizing the lowest pits of Hell, with haunting singing of "Diyos ko, patawarin mo ako sa aking malaking sala" in the vocal style of the pasyon.

The guardia civil wound the thief, but he is taken in by the women of the mountains. They remove the curious dress of the statue he stole, and then Encantada recognizes it as a version of an anito. (Theologically speaking, the show packs a powerful punch, too!) She and the people embrace it and the lowlander, as our forefathers must have done when the first Spanish priests showed up in 1521.

Act II should perhaps come with a trigger warning, as rape and headhunting (done under the church men's orders) is never comfortable to watch, even when done artistically well (or perhaps ESPECIALLY when it is done with such skill!). You could hear the decapitations in the music! Kind of like what Poulenc did for the guillotine in his opera Dialogues of the Carmelites. As for the choreography, you could explicitly see the metaphor as female dancers acted like logs being felled, with matching sounds of a chainsaw accompanying the grotesque orgy of violence. The lights bathed the stage in red as we beheld a hell we are all burning in... one of our own making.

And this is what sets off the Great Deluge.

Earlier in Act 1, there was already foreshadowing as Joey Ayala and Bayang Barrios sang "Ang kababaihan ay nagiging ilog... ay lumuluwal sa mga batis."

Hell hath no fury like the enraged diwata. Witnessing the violation of her babaylan, she unleashes a great flood shown by blue lights, but more impressively heard than seen as the music built up into a grand crescendo, complete with a classical soprano singing at the top of her range, while male singers chanted and prayed in despair to a silent god who has forsaken them, and a tidal wall of massed female dancers crept up to drown man's sin in cleansing water. Absolutely spine-tingling to recall!

All's well that ends well as life is renewed. "Buhay ay dudungaw," the singers joyfully proclaim, and dancers trade their browns for green dresses.

My favorite part was when the transparent set piece (by no less than National Artist Salvador Bernal!) that had shielded the musicians from view for most of the performance was finally lifted, and you could see the glad smiles in their faces as all were included in what felt like a final blessing. Dancers gathered in circle, as our mountain people really do, and the whole thing felt like a benediction.

The happy audience roared its adoration, and I actually lost count of the number of curtain calls! (At least five, perhaps six) EVERYONE stood up, and honestly I can't remember the last time I watched something that was truly deserving of this kind of recognition. Throw all the awards at ENCANTADA, as this is the sort of performance that makes one proud to be Filipino, that shows the best of our culture.

How wonderful it is, to be alive to see this!!!

Am so grateful to have been a part of the audience last night! Thank you so much to Theater Fans Manila and Alice Reyes Dance Philippines for the ticket!

Ex Libris Philippines: The Rizal Collection at the Yuchengco Museum

To continue with the Jose Rizal trend from yesterday, here's a reel from my recent visit to the 4th floor of the Yuchengco Museum (with the beautiful kundiman - or the Philippine art song - of Francisco Santiago sung by Celeste Legaspi as background).

We have a portrait of the author of NOLI ME TANGERE & EL FILIBUSTERISMO ("Noli and Fili" for short) painted by Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. As you see, the novels have been translated into several languages.

But apart from the 2 revolutionary novels, Rizal is also famous for the poem he wrote on the eve of his execution...

(See the original reel here)

Musical Review: Upstart Productions' BREAKUPS & BREAKDOWNS by Joel Trinidad and Rony Fortich

I remember attending one of Joel Trinidad's workshops many years ago, where my classmates and I learned so much from his and Nikki Trivino's analytical input. While I think I did passably OK with the Shakespeare monologues and other fun things we did in class, in the final recital, the monologue assigned to me was that of a 30-year-old woman breaking down after her philandering husband leaves her. Younger, more innocent me hadn't yet experienced this all too common, universal human emotion, and so, to no one's surprise... I sucked. Hehe.

Afterwards, my siblings and I got the chance to chat with Joel while waiting for our respective vehicles to arrive. "Thank you for being patient with her even though she sucked big time," said my ever supportive but blunt siblings. Ever the gentleman, Joel denied it, but I freely admitted to sucking BIG TIME (here's to self-awareness and artistic objectivity!!) and revealed that I'd never experienced heartbreak before. "I hope you never do. I wouldn't wish it on anyone," Joel said, and I'll never forget the intense look in his eyes, as if drawing from a private, bitter well. (Now that I've had my heart broken, too, I recognize this haunted look more easily when I see it in others. Remaking one's self from brokenness leaves visible marks.)

Joel Trinidad has somehow transmuted that intense pain that I caught a glimpse of into this 2.5 hour musical comedy (about 2 couples that go out with each other's exes) that has all the lightness and fluff of cotton candy and popcorn. Enlisting the musical prowess of the amazing Rony Fortich, he and Nikki Trivino have put together an incredible ensemble of singing actors, any one of whom fans will pay good money to see. (And fans will, for the prices in the new 400-seat auditorium of British School Manila BGC range from P500 to P2,300!)

Featuring a very strong start, but a very uneven set of singing and acting prowess from the cast, I was actually feeling rather sleepy towards the end of the second act (have I mentioned that it's 2.5 hours long? Well it's 2.5 hours long). Good thing Tanya Manalang burst into her solo number OUTSIDE THE LINES, complete with memorable lighting from Miyo Sta. Maria (the lines and bars looked like those in a prison cell, and visually underscored how she was "breaking free"). NO ONE was sleepy after that!

Another favorite was Nelsito Gomez's BE PREPARED! It's a treat for this theater fan to see this "serious" actor/director take on the role of a model-playboy and ham it up onstage! Talk about range! Audience members shall never look at a Hawaiian shirt the same away again. Goodbye Lito Atienza, hello Nelsito Gomez, I mean, Derek. * wink *

Some songs seemed like they were put there merely to add to the length of the show (CLIENTS FROM HELL), and I honestly think the sheer number of musical numbers ended up adding to the monotony. After a while, it became repetitive: duet, solo, solo with back up muses, ad infinitum). Perhaps the show would have worked better in one act, rather than two.

I think the audience that will enjoy this the most are high school or college students experiencing "The Game" of enacting power dynamics between sexes in relationships for the first time. As a gateway into musical theater, it may prove exciting ... for them.

(I did witness a barkada exiting the theater singing BOY MEETS GIRL at the top of their lungs, which is always a good thing! Also, this was arguably the strongest song, melodically.)

But for the more mature (ahem ahem I don't want to say "old" hehe) theater goer, the real wonder is how one can extend the limited theme and predictable plot into something that is 2.5 hours long. (Oh, I mentioned it already? Well then I've mentioned it already -- and did you notice how that extended my word count LOL) The musical came across as rather shallow, with a lot of the jokes featuring over-extended word play, beats left dangling too long, with some of the humor falling flat. We appreciate the effort made to prolong a play so the audience can get their "money's worth," but maybe it would be better to edit out what doesn't work instead of insisting that it be crammed in, purely for the sake of length.

Having witnessed the fine mind of director/writer Joel Trinidad at work in a previous life, I'm excited to see what he is truly capable of writing, should he wish to fully explore those untapped depths. We have not yet seen what he is truly capable of.

Go see it if you're in the mood for "uncomplicated" musical theater with fine singing and acting from most of the cast. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday/Sunday evening.

(Grateful for the invitation to the preview, courtesy of Upstart Productions and Theaterfansmanila.com !)

Niki Trivino, Rachel Coates, Reb Atadero, Sarah Facuri, Joel Trinidad, Tanya Manalang, and Nelsito Gomez

Ex Libris Philippines: Noli and Fili

April is National Literature Month (Buwan ng Panitikang Filipino) in the Philippines, and so I thought I'd start my 3-day guest posting with the 2 most ubiquitous Filipino novels ever!

Including books in the Required Reading list of every school at the national level is not without its dangers. In the hands of a tired teacher or faced with an apathetic batch of students, these two treasure troves may be left largely unmined. Some great works of art require effort in order to gain maximum enjoyment, but the rewards are infinite in their return.

And so it is always cause for rejoicing when these books that built my nation (literally) become the inspiration for newer works of art that inspire teenaged students to take a closer look at the books themselves!  ...

(Read the rest at the original post here)

Book Review: WONDERFUL FOOL by Shusaku Endo

Wonderful Fool by Shūsaku Endō
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"To be a saint or a man of too good a nature in today's pragmatic world, with everyone out to get the other fellow, was equivalent to being a fool, wasn't it?"

I finished this novel on Easter Sunday, after hearing mass.

I was very distracted all throughout the service. So many things bothered me: work deadlines, the heat, the mosquitoes, the out-of-tune singing by the singer who was obviously given the microphone due to seniority in rank and not musicality... that I found it difficult to concentrate on the readings and the sermon of our parish priest. It shames me to admit it, but I was in a rather hateful mood.

But I was brought to attention when I heard "Netflix" and "The Two Popes."

It's amazing how quickly the mere mention of something we love can bring about a change -- in my case, a quick change of attention, of attitude. I leaned forward to listen more intently.

Michelangelo, the priest told us, had gone around Rome and noticed that the most common image of Christ was as he died, miserably, a victim of human torture and hatred. And so he was determined to portray Christ differently in the Sistine Chapel.

I've never been to this famous chapel, but I've been inundated with glorious images of it all my life. It's so full of life, of light, an obvious labor of passionate love.

What does this have to do with the book?

Endo's novel, too, speaks about our image of Christ. A mysterious Frenchman arrives in Tokyo, around 15 years after World War II, and seeks out his boyhood penpal. He won't reveal why he's in Japan, and when the mystery is solved in the last few pages the reveal hits with the metaphysical forcefulness of Salvation.

This Frenchman becomes an object of scorn, and is considered a fool because of his utter and even idiotic simplicity. Ugly and ungraceful, he goes around with the dregs of Tokyo society... yakuza, women who work at night, and is often physically beaten as a result of many misunderstandings. In fact, with the open ending, we're not even sure if he makes it out of the book alive.

But does it matter if this obviously Christ-like figure is dead? The point is, he LIVED.

And in the novel, he lives on still in the hearts and minds of the people he encountered.

"He is a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man's way to go out."

Endo's novel invites us to meditate on who Christ is to us. And whether we celebrate Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday, or if we are in the midst of our Passover and Ramadan (I find it so beautiful that the People of the Book are celebrating holy days at around the same period of time) ... the historical Christ (whether viewed as prophet, man, or God) has much to teach us all.

View all my reviews

Theater Fans Manila : FEU Theater Guild's HALU HALO

 

UNI REVIEW: FEU Theater Guild’s ‘Halu Halo’

Book Review: OSCAR & LUCINDA by Peter Carey

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"It was all born out of habits of mind produced by Christianity: that if you sacrificed yourself you would somehow attain the object of your desires. It was a knife of an idea, a cruel instrument of sacrifice, but also one of great beauty, silvery, curved, dancing with light."

Believe me when I tell you that OSCAR & LUCINDA is a fitting book for Holy Week.

It's a theological / sociological treatise masquerading as a love story (sharp eyes will note I didn't promise a happy ending by using the term "romance").

If that turned you off the book... it shouldn't!

Perhaps I should begin again and say that this is now one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME. I LOVE books that are more than what they seem. O&L is such a book that makes fun of the invention of genre. Philosophy abounds in its dialogues on the nature of God, religion's role in shaping a nation, and it MUST be said that it is also a very feminist book indeed! But this is feminism done right, with none of the toxicity that is to be found in so-called feminist novels nowadays (pure rage, little reason and even less art) and all of the righteousness, and from a male author, too!

"And where is the church on which account so much blood has been spilt?"

It is the middle of the 19th century. Oscar is born to a religious father in England, but finds no joy in his father's house, and is adopted by a poor Anglican minister instead. Lucinda is raised in Australia and is orphaned, left with a fortune she feels guilty for inheriting and a deep longing for companionship that her circumstances prevent her from getting.

Both of them turn to gambling, Oscar to raise funds and Lucinda to rid herself of blood money. In author Peter Carey's hands, metaphors take on epic proportions as gambling is likened to the everlasting gamble souls take when betting on a certain religious denomination, and glass is held to be a symbol of civilization, of the quest to purify souls and magnify the Lord's light, both mirror and window.

In love, and in madness, they bet their destinies and fortunes on one mad scheme: to bring a glass church to the absolute edge of the Antipodes and western civilization.

"Churches are not carried by choirboys. Neither has the Empire been built by angels."

I know now why it became a movie (Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett), and why it was even turned into an opera in 2019. (I have seen neither, and probably never will, just because the book tore me up so much!)

The characters are so vivid in my mind, so real, that I truly mourn the ending of the book, and I wish I could reread it for the first time again. And I know I will, if only to exult in Peter Carey's prose, peppered with nouns and adjectives of his native Australia, casting a critical eye on the white cleric's role in its bloody colonial history.

It's so hard to choose another book after reading one that exceeds the maximum five-star rating! Hmmm maybe I should go for the second novel of Carey's that also won a Booker Prize, hehe.

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Book Review: THE ADVENTURES OF AMINA AL-SIRAFI (Book 1) by S.A. Chakraborty

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Praise be to God, who in His glory created the earth and its diversity of lands and languages, peoples and tongues. In these vast marvels, so numerous a human eye cannot gaze upon more than a sliver, is there not proof of His Magnificence?"

And thus begins one of the best five-star fantasy novels I've ever been blessed enough to read!

Chakraborty has taught me never to judge an author solely by her first book.

I initially picked up Book 1 of Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy and was disappointed in the execution, so I didn't have high hopes for this one (also the first in what promises to be another threesome).

And boy oh boy, I just LOVE it when I discover a new author to love! In the years between her first book and this most recent one, Chakraborty has evolved and written a book worth screaming about from the tops of trees: BEHOLD SOMETHING SO FRESH, SO VITALLY WRITTEN, IF YOU DON'T READ IT YOU'RE MISSING OUT ON HALF YOUR READING LIFE!

In these pages we find a Muslim FEMALE nakhudha (ship captain) so mythical, she makes Sinbad look like an amateur. Amina al-Sarafi is so memorable because, in all my literary journeys, I haven't encountered anyone remotely like her! No longer young (we need more middle-aged heroines! Woot woot!), the book tells of how the ex-pirate queen gets dragged back to a life of adventure so she could save both her daughter, and the child of another. Add in some supernatural elements, a healthy clash of East vs. West, and that incredible monster you see on the beautiful cover, and you get this fantastic page-turner!

"Both my grandfather and father had impressed upon me from an early age that we shared the sea with countless other peoples; if God had not meant for such diversity, he would have made us all alike."

It is wholely wondrous to this reader, so used to Western texts, to read Persian, Sanskrit and Arab terms, to encounter verses from the Qur'an's holy writ instead of from that of my own religion. And to recognize in greater detail how truly similar we brothers and sisters - children of Abraham - are.

And yes, this is one of those books one is grateful to read using a Kindle, so I could easily look up the unfamiliar words and recognize the misbaha as similar to our rosary, the maghrib to our vespers.

And the fantastical creatures like the peri (similar to our angels) and monsters which we have no English equivalent for populate this rich tale thrumming with action and peppered with insights that pierce every feminine heart.

For which woman has not felt the twin tensions of balancing duties at home and at work? Who has not felt guilty for enjoying undomestic pleasures, the satisfaction in meeting professional challenges head on, and solving them?

"The door called to me like the ghost of a lover, a haunting I did not want and yet couldn’t deny...Our hearts may be spoken for by those with sweet eyes, little smiles, and so very many needs, but that does not mean that which makes us us is gone."

This is more than a rip-roaring good read. It is downright revolutionary, with its mix of Muslim and Christian protagonists, its distinct pan-Arab focus, its representation of characters outside the usual dual gender assignments, and above all, its portrayal of womanhood in all its glory, and its acceptance of uniquely feminine struggles with identity and ambition.

My e-book is not enough. I NEED a hardcopy on my shelves, and shall hunt down the rest of the books in the trilogy as soon as they are published. What a gift, what a joy to be alive in the era of Amina al-Sirafi!

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