Ex Libris: And then there were three.
Making lists seems to be a defining feature of the holiday season. You have your wishlists, naughty-or-nice lists, gift lists, grocery lists, pre-New Year’s resolution lists, bucket lists (just in case), and so on and so forth.
Of course, the thing we have to remember about lists is that they’re intrinsically political; subjected to a rigorous process of elimination — what to exclude and include, what rank or label to assign each item, what justification to give for said item’s place on the list, etc. Nonetheless, the timeless appeal of lists lies in the fact that they’re convenient, straight-to-the-point, and generally strive to make life easier for the harried common man.
Thus, in the spirit of list-making, Christmas, and all that jazz, allow me to depart from the usual and share a brief, 2010 personal list derived from the one thing I can’t live without: books.
Best coming-of-age/historical novel I’ve read in the last 12 months:
Ilustrado: Was it all just hype? Because seriously... City of Thieves By David Benioff
The mission? To find a dozen eggs. The situation? Leningrad in the thick of winter and war-wrought famine. The characters? One socially-awkward, adorably wry Jewish teenager named Lev, and his polar opposite: the handsome, chirpy, and overly confident deserter Kolya. In short, we have the impossible, the intolerable and the unforgettable all in one package. And amazingly enough, Benioff is able to weave all these elements into a story so thoroughly engaging, so morbidly funny and plain-jane fantastic that it rejuvenates the dusty trappings of your typical historical fiction. Set during the WWII Siege of Leningrad, City of Thieves is as factually accurate as it is well written, with Benioff artfully abandoning the holier-than-thou mode of today’s historical novels and simply letting his characters (and readers) go with the flow. The novel is engaging because it’s got so much soul, and the fact that its tone constantly shifts from the humorous to the heartbreaking adds all the more to its colossal appeal. Believe me when I say that even though City of Thieves is as traditional (and perhaps as predictable) a tale as the next one, that fact doesn’t do anything to diminish the writing’s brilliance or its powerful storyline. I’d read it again (and then again) in a heartbeat.
Literature I should have read a long, long time ago but didn’t up until a month ago:
The Old Man and the Sea: The little novella that could (and did!) The Old Man and The Sea By Ernest Hemingway
Beautiful. This work is amazing. I may be overdoing the use of singular adjectives to describe this, but really, The Old Man and the Sea is just phenomenal. Superb. The whole thing is deceptively simple — a simple man with a simple life, simple goals and a simple means of livelihood. Moreover, you basically just have everything the title says, namely, the old man (Santiago) and the deep, unrelenting sea. Don’t be fooled by the measly 120 or so pages; in no way is the story simplistic. Admittedly, while I was at first lulled by the pace during the first few pages, by the time Santiago had set out to sea, I was (excuse the pun) hooked, and already had a sense of the greatness underlying the point of the whole story. After all, while arguably the only thing Santiago did for the most part of the novella was to battle with a large marlin, the events that transpired during and after this portion were undeniably the most majestic and riveting. Sure, the man versus nature theme is a mainstay of popular literature and is nothing new, but in The Old Man and the Sea, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more deft and subtle handling of the theme. I find this handling particularly enhanced by Hemingway’s trademark writing style, through which he is able to convey the gravity of, say, a three-day sojourn at sea or the labored pains of an old man, and using very minimalist language at that. Truly a master of the “show-don’t-tell” writing dictum, and a man who delivers hook, line and sinker.
Most overrated piece of ‘lit’ I deigned to read in the last three months:
Ilustrado By Miguel Syjuco
Though arguably the most talked about novel written by a Filipino author in the past year, I have to say that for all its awards and distinctions (grand winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize as well as the 2008 Carlos Palanca Awards), for me, Ilustrado didn’t live up to the hype at all. But first a quick background: The novel, Syjuco’s debut into the realm of popular literary consciousness, tells the story of Crispin Salvador, an aging, self-exiled writer living in New York, and Miguel Syjuco (the character and also the author’s namesake), Crispin’s protégé and fellow writer-in-exile. Ilustrado opens with Crispin, described as “The Lion of Philippine Letters,” being found dead in the Hudson River. It is from here that the story takes off, with Miguel subsequently setting out to investigate his mentor’s mysterious demise and attempting to understand the circumstances surrounding the death. Incidentally, Miguel’s “search for the truth” takes him back to home soil, where, in the process of digging up skeletons from Crispin’s past, he also manages to confront quite a few of his own demons as well.
Ilustrado is a book which defies convention in every sense of the term. It has no qualms about disrupting the conventional momentum of plot and linear time; and, aside from containing multiple narratives which branch out, converge, and sometimes simply trail off at different points in the book, the story itself is fleshed out in a myriad of different ways: via travelogue, blog entries, email, dream fragments, sidebar stories, and even excerpts from Crispin’s body of works, among others.
Now I’m all for experimentation, and I find nothing wrong with writers dipping their pen into the postmodern inkpot. In fact, when executed skillfully, there’s no better story to read, since the idea (well, for me) is for the postmodern writer to at least create sense out of all the chaos. But then again, when the postmodern narrative falls flat, I find there’s nothing more aggravating or annoying. And in the case of Ilustrado, it’s the latter that applies. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that Syjuco’s a bad writer (how else could he have won all those awards?) — it’s just that he has no follow-through. Ultimately, the text cannot seem to move beyond its complicated trappings, too fixated as it is on the figures of Crispin and Miguel, as well as on typography and form. The novel does nothing to engage the reader beyond its intricate style, with the fragmentation and discontinuity of the text finding no real coherence when viewed as a whole. In the end, its audience is left more confused than enlightened.
