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Dec. 29th, 2007 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionOn the Goddess Rock - Arlene J. Chai. Not impressed w/this one. It's about two Chinese families who have been intertwined for several generations due to a child born out of wedlock. I got real tired of hearing about the importance of sons & first sons, & how powerful both the families were (lots of "only the Lees could do" this or that). There was some clumsy melodrama, too; one character says something like, "But did your grandmother tell you that if you want to come back to this house you must kneel before me???" & it just struck me as really, er, shoujo anime. Like I expected the guy to let out the big girl-nemesis laugh where you hold your hand to the side of your mouth & cackle. Anyway--I really liked Chai's previous novels, but this one was a dud.
One Tribe - M. Evelina Galang. Isabel Manalo, devastated after a miscarriage, decides to move from the Chicago area (where she & her siblings grew up as the only Filipinos in school) to Virginia Beach. She's been hired to teach Filipino culture & history there, to youth troubled by drive-by shootings & milder forms of gang violence. The white administration & local Filipino parents feel that giving the students information about their background will keep them out of trouble.
The irony is, these kids are already steeped in Filipino culture: they speak Tagalog to each other, they have a few local activists that serve as informal mentors, they participate in activities (such as a beauty pageant--which causes more strife & stress for the girls than anything else) sponsored by the many Filipino organizations in the area. In comes Isabel, who doesn't speak Tagalog & grew up alienated from any Filipino community, & who is supposed to instill this feeling in these kids. But like Isabel, they have been squeezed by the vise of tsismis (gossip): constantly told not to bring shame onto their family, surrounded by the buzz of busybodies exchanging scandalous details.
After the expected period of friction w/the teens (but some success teaching younger students), Isabel's work elicits disapproval from the school administration & local parents: she's not teaching the kids to be respectful, she's teaching them to question & to voice their own thoughts & to understand how race & colonialism play into how they're treated in their community. After this buildup, the ending is frustratingly vague, just when certainty would be most satisfying.
Although the plot in general probably sounds cloying, I found it v. moving in parts, & I liked how the novel explores questions about who is Pin@y, who decides, & what does that mean? There's also humor, in the form of Ferdi Mamaril, a stereotyped uber-Pinoy activist who leaves long lectures on Filipino American history on Isabel's answering machine. Sometimes I think Galang tries a little too hard to imitate teenage voices, but overall she does a fair job. I did think Isabel was just blindingly oblivious sometimes: is it that hard for a teacher to figure out that "Sup?" means "What's up?" And even if she didn't speak Tagalog, I found it hard to believe that she would've been so ignorant of it that, when hearing the teens speaking it (mixed w/English), she asks them if it's slang.
The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings about New York City - Edited by Bino A. Realuyo. This is a massive anthology, w/a lot to like. Unfortunately most of the poetry didn't please me (although I am increasingly pickier in that regard these days), but I liked a lot of the short fiction. I also liked the excerpt from a conversation between Jessica Hagedorn & Kimiko Hahn, & Luis Francia's essay "Memories of Overdevelopment." Also Adrienne Su's "Sacred Foods in Brooklyn," an homage to rice & bread!
Rolling the R's - R. Zamora Linmark. In this excellent series of vignettes, Linmark explores childhood in 1970s working-class Hawaii. Most of his characters are Filipino, & many of the vignettes focus on Edgar, already confident, in 5th grade, of his gay identity. There are laugh-aloud moments (many involving Edgar & his friends acting out Charlie's Angels or other shows of the time) & shiver-inducing ones (a few glimpses of pedophilia). And then there are the ones that just made me nod my head in admiration for how smart & true they were. In one scene, Edgar is berating two of his classmates: Nelson, a Filipino boy who insists he's not Filipino b/c he's not "like the others," & Stephen, a white boy who insists on being referred to as "Caucasian."
The Road to Hell - Jackie Kessler. In this sequel to Hell's Belles, ex-succubus Jesse is forced to go back into Hell to rescue her lover Paul, who has been killed by the ex-succubus queen Lillith, as well as the fury Megaera, being punished for failing to return Jesse to Hell after she left. I liked this book more than the first one, partly because I didn't have to try to believe that Jesse & Paul were falling in love, because that happened in the last one. Also, there are some fun scenes involving teaching an angel how to become a seductress (since she's been assigned the role of succubus), & some fun fistfights between supernatural creatures. I'm still not totally gripped by the whole internal-politics-of-Hell-and-Heaven thing, but am more interested. The next book is through the viewpoint of Jesse's incubus friend Daunuan, which should be fun.
One Tribe - M. Evelina Galang. Isabel Manalo, devastated after a miscarriage, decides to move from the Chicago area (where she & her siblings grew up as the only Filipinos in school) to Virginia Beach. She's been hired to teach Filipino culture & history there, to youth troubled by drive-by shootings & milder forms of gang violence. The white administration & local Filipino parents feel that giving the students information about their background will keep them out of trouble.
The irony is, these kids are already steeped in Filipino culture: they speak Tagalog to each other, they have a few local activists that serve as informal mentors, they participate in activities (such as a beauty pageant--which causes more strife & stress for the girls than anything else) sponsored by the many Filipino organizations in the area. In comes Isabel, who doesn't speak Tagalog & grew up alienated from any Filipino community, & who is supposed to instill this feeling in these kids. But like Isabel, they have been squeezed by the vise of tsismis (gossip): constantly told not to bring shame onto their family, surrounded by the buzz of busybodies exchanging scandalous details.
After the expected period of friction w/the teens (but some success teaching younger students), Isabel's work elicits disapproval from the school administration & local parents: she's not teaching the kids to be respectful, she's teaching them to question & to voice their own thoughts & to understand how race & colonialism play into how they're treated in their community. After this buildup, the ending is frustratingly vague, just when certainty would be most satisfying.
Although the plot in general probably sounds cloying, I found it v. moving in parts, & I liked how the novel explores questions about who is Pin@y, who decides, & what does that mean? There's also humor, in the form of Ferdi Mamaril, a stereotyped uber-Pinoy activist who leaves long lectures on Filipino American history on Isabel's answering machine. Sometimes I think Galang tries a little too hard to imitate teenage voices, but overall she does a fair job. I did think Isabel was just blindingly oblivious sometimes: is it that hard for a teacher to figure out that "Sup?" means "What's up?" And even if she didn't speak Tagalog, I found it hard to believe that she would've been so ignorant of it that, when hearing the teens speaking it (mixed w/English), she asks them if it's slang.
The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings about New York City - Edited by Bino A. Realuyo. This is a massive anthology, w/a lot to like. Unfortunately most of the poetry didn't please me (although I am increasingly pickier in that regard these days), but I liked a lot of the short fiction. I also liked the excerpt from a conversation between Jessica Hagedorn & Kimiko Hahn, & Luis Francia's essay "Memories of Overdevelopment." Also Adrienne Su's "Sacred Foods in Brooklyn," an homage to rice & bread!
Rolling the R's - R. Zamora Linmark. In this excellent series of vignettes, Linmark explores childhood in 1970s working-class Hawaii. Most of his characters are Filipino, & many of the vignettes focus on Edgar, already confident, in 5th grade, of his gay identity. There are laugh-aloud moments (many involving Edgar & his friends acting out Charlie's Angels or other shows of the time) & shiver-inducing ones (a few glimpses of pedophilia). And then there are the ones that just made me nod my head in admiration for how smart & true they were. In one scene, Edgar is berating two of his classmates: Nelson, a Filipino boy who insists he's not Filipino b/c he's not "like the others," & Stephen, a white boy who insists on being referred to as "Caucasian."
Edgar first points his finger to Nelson. "You, Mr. Haole Wanna-be," then points to Stephen; "and you, Mr. Haolewood. You guys think you so hot-shit, but you know what? The ground you standin' on is not the freakin' meltin' pot but one volcano. And one day, the thing goin' erupt and you guys goin' be the first ones for burn."
The Road to Hell - Jackie Kessler. In this sequel to Hell's Belles, ex-succubus Jesse is forced to go back into Hell to rescue her lover Paul, who has been killed by the ex-succubus queen Lillith, as well as the fury Megaera, being punished for failing to return Jesse to Hell after she left. I liked this book more than the first one, partly because I didn't have to try to believe that Jesse & Paul were falling in love, because that happened in the last one. Also, there are some fun scenes involving teaching an angel how to become a seductress (since she's been assigned the role of succubus), & some fun fistfights between supernatural creatures. I'm still not totally gripped by the whole internal-politics-of-Hell-and-Heaven thing, but am more interested. The next book is through the viewpoint of Jesse's incubus friend Daunuan, which should be fun.