Book Review: THE SECRET PIANO (From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations) by Zhu Xiao-Mei

The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations by Zhu Xiao-Mei

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought long and hard if I could post this mini review.
Just the fact that I had to pause and consider censoring my innocent summary, one of many attempts to preserve what I thought and felt about a book (primarily so that I wouldn't forget them), is an indicator of how serious, how dangerous these times are in Manila.

Do we no longer have the freedom to speak or write plainly?

True enough, this lack of freedom is a main theme of this true story, written by a Chinese pianist turned professor and performer, now based in Paris (listen to her on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FYbe...).

The first half of the book was the strongest, for me, and gave a peek into what it was like, growing up in Mao's Cultural Revolution in Beijing.

From concert hall to gulag, there was much to admire about this remarkable lady... and much to criticize, as well, I thought.

But that is what democracy is about: being able to respectfully disagree with someone's values, priorities, and beliefs, while acknowledging our common humanity, our fundamental rights to self-expression. Being able to hold civilized discourse with someone from the opposite camp enriches both parties, and this is what we lose when all but the approved voice is silenced.

One of my favorite composers, J.S. Bach, plays a big part in this book. As a piano student who only got as far as his three-part inventions, I find his restrained passion incredible, the depth of feeling broad yet balanced, and I thought Zhu Xiao-Mei's interpretation of his Goldberg Variations seemed very different from how I've heard it performed (less focus on the intellectual/physical demands, and more intuitive somehow, I thought).

Bach brings order out of the mundane, and out of chaos. And that is what Zhu Xiao-mei has wrought out of her life.

I feel that pianists would be very interested in her detailed descriptions of her many teachers and pieces, while others would find her life's story utterly fascinating!



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Book Review: STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS by Ted Chiang

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I feel like I have arrived late to the Ted Chiang bandwagon. But what a glorious place to be in!

(Incidentally, ARRIVAL - the movie starring Amy Adams - was my first introduction to his work, although I didn't realize it until I saw the cover of the book which advertised the fact that he had written the short story the film was based on.)

Eight short stories are in this volume, his first collection... each one a masterful gem. No sentence is out of place, these are brilliantly concise and well-constructed. AND TO THINK THIS IS HIS FIRST BOOK!!!! How dare you, Sir. How. Dare. You. Be. This. Good.

So I tried summarizing them in one sentence each:

"Tower of Babylon" brings us to ancient times where men dared to build a tower that would pierce the vault of heaven itself.  

"Understand" tells of a miracle drug user who uses his newfound superhuman intelligence to literally undo another person... with just one word.

"Division by Zero" is the story of a mathematician who makes a discovery that disproves most of mathematics, and struggles to live with that knowledge.

"Story of Your Life" is the one that ARRIVAL was based on. On the surface, it's about a linguist's attempt to understand an alien race's language. But it's actually about free will and determinism, and asks: "If you knew what would happen, would you do it anyway?"

"Seventy-Two Letters" brings us to an alternative Victorian England where secret societies work with golems and kabbalists in a morbid struggle to contain and defeat man's impending doom (this would make a WONDERFUL movie!!!!!).

"The Evolution of Human Science" is a horror story writ in three pages, masquerading as a science journal editorial piece.

In "Hell is the Absence of God," angelic visitations are as commonplace as natural disasters, and sometimes the earth becomes transparent and people can see who is in Hell, and who ascends to Heaven.  

"Liking What You See: A Documentary" reads like the transcript of a documentary about a future world that can turn off a person's reaction to physical beauty. All sides of the debate on "lookism" are mentioned, plus a story of young love embedded therein.

Ted Chiang manages to condense incredibly complicated scientific and mathematical terms in almost accessible language. Haha! There's effort on the part of the reader, to be sure, because they require reflection and at times feel like one is studying for an exam (especially with SOYL). But he also manages to change his tone for the changing settings, which is not easy to do!

Hard to pick a favorite, but I think I liked the first story best for its optimism and simply told absolute truths.

"We live on the road to heaven; all the work that we do is to extend it further."

This book, then, is a celebration of the power of language. Of how words shape thought and destiny. And this is as good as books come.

From now on, Ted Chiang is a must-buy!!! I shall be reflecting on his stories for many weeks to come.



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Book Review: LAVONDYSS (Ryhope Wood Cycle # 2) by Robert Holdstock

Lavondyss by Robert Holdstock

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


"...For all things in this world were born from the minds of men and since all men were mad, they were mad creatures, madly running."
"We are voyagers in our own living madness. What we have that these wretched creatures around us do not is freedom. The freedom to choose."

I type this with a pounding head, an aching heart, a mind still immersed in the strange and terrible world of Lavondyss. And the wonderful music of Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Tallis Fantasia" playing in my inner ear.

Lavondyss is a book that deserves ten stars out of the highest possible five star rating on Goodreads. I lack superlatives for a work of this genius, suffice it to say that if previous books left me teary-eyed, this one had me veritably WEEPING at 1:30 in the morning. I'm talking sobs muffled behind a pillow, a stream of waterworks, and a monster cold the following morning. *drinks from a steaming mug of hot calamansi juice*

This is one book whose back cover blurb does not even come close to the experience of it. Just as "Ghost-born-man-walking-on-water-telling-stories-dead-on-tree" does not even begin to tell one about Christ (a direct quote from the book!), so too does "Thirteen-year-old-girl-goes-into-a-parallel-universe-to-find-her-love-and-long-lost-brother" barely scratch the surface of what Lavondyss is.

Like its predecessor, it is about the power of myths and stories in shaping a country's story. But Lavondyss is so much grander and more epic, and more painful. Holdstock was a scientist before he wrote full time, and he brings that logic and clear-eyed vision to tell a story that seems so familiar...  reminding one of Jungian archetypes and Joseph Campbell's monomyth. Lavondyss is "a place of the birth of a belief in the journey of the soul."

Holdstock's unique writing style may be off-putting for some readers, especially if one is used to a certain lyricism and romanticism in fantasy works.

There is nothing romantic about this book, despite the plot. And it is definitely for mature readers only.

"Wizard. Warlock. Druid. Scientist. I'm known by many names over the centuries, but they all mean one thing: echo of a lost knowledge."

Holdstock's scientific powers of observation and reportage make for words that cut like a scalpel in their brutal honesty, making this reader cringe in horror and feel sick to one's stomach at certain scenes that depict pre-historic customs. Lavondyss is a dark place, a difficult book to get through, not just in terms of language but also in terms of plot. But at the end, ah.... One feels like one has lived many lifetimes, many times over, and is just overwhelmed at the reminder that humanity goes on, that we have overcome darkness in the past and that we shall overcome the darkness of the gathering storm today.

I am reminded of a discussion I witnessed between friends, they were talking about the real meaning of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and I was blown away by how it is actually about that single life-defining choice, and how it haunts you, and how we are the ones who create meaning out of our lives. (I am paraphrasing the wisdom of Tata and Elsie!)

So the question in this book is, "If you entered a parallel universe expecting to succeed in your mission after only a week or month at most, and you realize it might take decades or an entire lifetime, and that you might not even succeed... do you push on your quest or do you give up and merely wait for death?"

"The naming of the land is important. It conceals and contains great truths. Your own name has changed your life."

It is no coincidence that Holdstock named his heroine "Tallis." She is so aptly named! Read this wonderful essay: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2...). I particularly appreciated how Holdstock treated Tallis, how her language changed as she grew from girl to woman. I also recognize the great amount of research that went behind the writing of this award-winning novel.

"All of these things, simple evolutions of thought, began with the children, the new generation."

Below is a conversation between thirteen-year-old Tallis and the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, who shows up in the book (squeal of delight for fans of this composer!!!!!!!):

"A story, or a tune, comes as a piece of magic.. things change in life when you change them in stories."
"I assure you that they don't."
"I assure you that they do. Stories are fragile. Like people's lives. It only takes a word out of place to change them forever. If you hear a lovely tune, and then you change it, the new tune might be lovely too, but you've lost the first one."
"But if I stick to the first tune, then I've lost the second."
"But someone else might discover it. It's still there to be born."
"And the first tune isn't?"
"No, it has already come into your mind. It's lost forever."
"Nothing is lost forever. Everything I've known I still know, only sometimes I don't know that I know it. All things are known, but most things are forgotten. It takes a special magic to remember them."
"But you've lost your childhood. That can never come back."
"The child still lives in the man, even when you're as old as me."


This is a book that demands to be re-read! In another decade or so, I shall. What a treasure!!


View my review of Book 1
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Book Review: MUSE OF NIGHTMARES (Strange the Dreamer # 2) by Laini Taylor

Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Once upon a time there was a silence that dreamed of becoming a song, and then I found you, and now everything is music."

I'm so glad to have had the mental space and energy to finish a book, after a six week drought. I've nearly forgotten how therapeutic it can be, to be lost in one's own world, shared only by the author.

"We're not free! How can we be free if justice isn't done?"

I read this on the day we celebrate my Motherland's independence. And yet as I type this, I realize we are not truly free. The mere fact that we are so careful now of what we post is a testament to how unfree we are.

And this is where books come in. Their stories and truths paint the atrocities of this world ever brighter, reminding us of what ought to be, releasing us from any doubt or false illusions that social media and politicians paint on the blank canvas of non-readers.

Laini Taylor's second book in the series starts immediately after the terrible, heart-wrenching cliffhanger scene in Book 1, the one that I was shoving around in the faces of my book club friends because IT WAS THAT GOOD (see: http://teachergabi.blogspot.com/2020/...).

Taylor takes the old YA formula : two superhuman beings from warring worlds torn apart by cruel Fate, and adds a flair for story telling all her own. It's a strange mix (get it? Strange? haha) of scifi, fantasy, and myth, and it's one hell of a ride.

I loved that the bad guys were multidimensional and sympathetic characters, it made the tragic parts more soul-crushing. And this is something Taylor does particularly well... she highlights the redemptive power of choice, of choosing love over hate. Of transcending one's upbringing.

"You can't save everyone... you know that, don't you?"
"I know... but we can try. And... maybe that's how we save ourselves."

The fight continues. Thank goodness for books, for the small freedoms we still enjoy. May we derive strength from them to go on.

Because that's what stories do. They go on.

Here's to brighter chapters and more hopeful tomorrows!!



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Book Review: ENDURING LOVE by Ian McEwan

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"There are those whose symptoms are part of a general psychotic disorder... And then there are those with the pure form of the disease who are completely obsessed by the object of their love, but they function perfectly well in all other parts of their lives."

Love is a form of obsession, but when does it cross the line from sweet to scary?

The disease being referred to is De Clerambault's syndrome, also known as erotomania. It is when someone believes that their unrequited love is, in fact, requited, and McEwan's novel shows us how far the extreme consequences of this psychosis can go.

If I hadn't had my pandemic brain, I just know I would have consumed this book in one sitting. It's tautly, expertly written. McEwan is a virtuoso, and this novel will remain in my memory as "the one that starts out with a horrible balloon accident and ends with a fictional journal article in the appendix that fooled psychiatrists because of how well-written it was." (See https://www.theguardian.com/theguardi...)

Highly recommended, but for mature audiences only!

And oh, what a nice surprise to discover that this book has been made into a movie starring 007 himself! Link to trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXiNV...



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Book Review: THE LUMINARIES by Eleanor Catton

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"If I have learned one thing from experience, it is this: never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person's point of view."

This line encapsulates my experience of reading this formidable book. I feel both fulfilled and frustrated, happy that I managed to force myself to finish it, and sad that I did not enjoy it as much as I could have, had I read it in normal times. It's the novel form of the old joke: "A man walks into a bar..." and encounters 12 strangers in a secret meeting about crimes in their town.

Came upon this book during a sale last year, was sold because of the price and the label declaring that it won the Man Booker Prize, and also... look at that enticing cover!!

It couldn't sustain my interest after the first couple of chapters, mainly because there were SO MANY characters! I abandoned it, thinking I'd pick it up again when I'd have a long period of uninterrupted reading time so I could make sense of it.

Fast forward to this pandemic, and I thought I'd give it another go. By this time, I had found out that it was going to be made into a mini series starring Dev Patel, Eva Green, and Marton Csokas! So I was quite motivated.

Even so, it was hard to read with all the anxiety. I could only manage a few pages a day, so it took FOREVER to finish all 832 pages.

I suppose it's not the book's fault that the reader's mind was, quite simply, fractured. I do have a lot of respect for its construction. All those characters, all those different story lines and points of view... how did she manage?!

The Luminaries takes its name from the celestial signs, but also, there is this beautiful Maori belief that the stars are the souls of loved ones who have passed on. Like the waxing and waning of the moon, the chapters are longest at the start, and get shorter as the book progresses. The book has a lot of celestial charts, which make no sense to me, but then again, I never much cared for zodiac signs and fortune telling.

This book is a masterclass in characterization! Although sometimes, I feel like the length of time spent in showing us how the characters think and feel was at the expense of the story's pace.

"We all want to be loved -- and need to be loved, I think. Without love, we cannot be ourselves."

At its core, The Luminaries is a love story. It is about fate and destiny, and how more than a dozen strangers' lives can be so intimately threaded together, regardless whether they come from China, Britain, or New Zealand.

The mini-series is just one of the many things we have to look forward to, when this crisis passes!



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Book Review: DEATH'S MASTER (Tales from the Flat Earth # 2) by Tanith Lee

Death's Master by Tanith Lee

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"There is no benefit which has not a sister in misfortune."

This was my second Tanith Lee book, and it took a while to finish because I've been finding it most difficult to focus ever since the quarantine lockdown started in Manila. Tanith Lee's voluptuous writing demands a great deal of focus, her books aren't the kind that can be skimmed quickly. Each sentence is to be savored. Each paragraph is a work of art.

But that's just it.

At the end of the day, gorgeous writing isn't enough for me. I want to be changed by what I read, hopefully for the better. This book didn't serve that purpose, apart from showing me how to write exquisitely.

Tanith Lee's characters are horrible people, though masterfully depicted. The world she constructs is terrible in its horrors and savage in its beauty. There are no happy endings, no easy morals. Rather, there are themes in the intertwined stories of lost men and monsters.

This book's theme is death and immortality. "But after the conquest, what? A sedentary world of clockwork immortals." "No jest, to live forever, your lives worthless, spent in goalless atrophy. The rat in the cage, running from one corner to another and back again, lives better."

Perhaps one possible reason Tanith Lee wrote such unsympathetic characters is that she is driving home the message about BALANCE. Too much beauty and power exists in these greater-than-life characters. They love too deeply, with too many! And when they drink the draught of immortality, they live too long.

I much prefer the first Flat Earth book (Night's Master) because there was a redemptive act of grace towards the end. This second one lacked that. Upon closing it, I kept thinking, "Was that it??!" All that suffering, that build-up... for what???

We with such short years demand meaning, and reading this book in this difficult time... when death is everywhere... might not have been the best use of what little time I have, mortal that I am.



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View my review for the first book in the series