REVIEWED, AND IT'S ALL DESSERT!

Halo-Halo

Today the 8^th issue of The Halo-Halo Review is fresh!  I’m happy to share the first review of The In(tervention of the Hay(na)ku by self-described “emerging critical scholar” Maileen Dumelod Hamto. You can see her review HERE but here’s an excerpt that of course makes me sniffle:

“Poetry rules are sometimes made to be broken,” Tabios writes. At its core, the Hay(na)ku is liberatory and emancipatory, similar in magnitude to the genius of Black American inventors and innovators in literature, music and other creative pursuits. By developing the Hay(na)ku, Tabios invited her contemporaries to define FilAm, U.S.-born-and-bred poetry from brown-skinned Filipinos, to cease conformity with white supremacist notions of “goodness” in art and the expectation of appeasing the tyranny of literary gatekeepers in order to be validated. 

As an emerging critical scholar, I ask these questions: who determines the importance and significance of a word? In a literary form where every word counts, who is doing the counting? Poetic constructs are defined by rules established by dead white men. Tabios, as a decolonizing poet, takes self-determination to a whole other level by creating her own, devising a forward-looking FilAm/Pinoy literary identity that is concurrently sophisticated and approachable.

I’m also happy that several of my edited projects got reviews:

“HUMANITY, Vol. 1 edited by Eileen R. Tabios,” Review by Marjorie Evasco at The Tambara Journal, June, 2019 (as reprinted online by The Halo Halo Review)

“VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA edited by Eileen R. Tabios,” Review by Neil Leadbeater

“Evidence of Fetus Diversity edited by Eileen R. Tabios,” Review by Aloy Polintan

Finally, I am mentioned in an anthology review: 

“NO TENDER FENCES: An Anthology of Immigrant & First Generation Immigrant American Poetry edited by Carla Sofia Ferreira Kim Sousa & Marina Carreira,” Review by Cristina Querrer 

I’m a cat with cream--or the halo-halo's coconut milk--all over its face. Thank you, Universe.

Do check out the entire issue to see what's up with Filipino-Pilipinz literature. I even review the novel that just won the Philippines' National Book Award, Reine Arcache Melvin's THE BETRAYED.  And so much more! Lots of good reads and eats!

ON INSURRECTO BY GINA APOSTOL

I've decided to review more fiction this year, part of the process of trying to finish my own novel. First for the year, my review of Gina Apostol's novel INSURRECTO is now up at The FilAm; here's an excerpt:

One of the most effective ways to enhance the effect of a joke or a witty remark is to underpin it with deep thoughtfulness; multiple layers of significance elongates resonance—it can make unforgettable a joke or other manifestation of humor. Apostol’s humor is so smart it seamlessly and often transitions to meta. For instance, “he laughs as if he has invented the act that will follow and that, soon enough, swallows him.” That’s a statement that can linger or come up unexpectedly as a recall, given its penetration as an observation. 

“Insurrecto’s” story is wide-ranging, thus, contains many dark elements because such is the 20th-21st century history of the Philippines. Apostol’s sense of humor helps us bear the darker aspects even as it highlights the darkness of such aspects ... 

A BOOK REVIEW OF SORTS ... OF THAT EPIC STRUGGLE

I just returned from Japan where I attended a friend's wedding. The requisite lengthy plane ride allows me to present this review:

Book 3 of Karl Ove Knausgaard's MY STRUGGLE may have been his struggle but it was my torture. That's why I can only read his books during long plane rides when I'm literally a captive audience. If I were to read it, say, at home, it'd be too expensive as I'd undoubtedly fling the book at the walls too often, miss too often, and smash a window too often. Too often because after each flinging, I'd nevertheless be compelled to go outside and pick up the book, return into the house, and continue reading it until I flung it again to smash yet more glass.

I don't fling himself's STRUGGLE at the airplane windows as I want to live and, living, don't want to be arrested when the plane lands. Anyway, two take-aways from this Book 3:

1)  First, thanks to Knausgaard for explaining why the area around a toilet is usually damp after male usage. See, I'd always assumed it was because men miss as they aim their telescopes at the urinals. But no, Eileen. As Knausgaard reveals, it doesn't happen during the actual pissing. It's when men shake their telescopes afterwards that the pee goes spraying outside the urinal boundaries. I never thought about that before. Why would I think about that? Why would Knausgaard write about that? Because that is his strength, isn't it? The guy's vision doesn't miss anything. Such lucidity must be often painful--I hope it occasions him as much pain as it does the reader who must experience every teeeeeeny-tiiiiiny detail or banality that his sight uncovers.

2) The fact that each volume is so long -- Book 3 goes for 427 pages -- highlights the brilliance of his endings. I'm debating with myself as to whether Book 3 is his weakest or strongest ending among the first 3 volumes. It's probably equal to (though different from) the strong endings of the first two volumes. It's just that the strength of Book 3's endings lies in its last six words and so one can relish it only for as long as six words ... whereas, if memory serves me correctly, the radiant endings of the first two volumes were longer and thus could be relished for a longer time.

427 pages and I don't get even the t-shirt, just the above 2 take-aways. Seems paltry when I talk about it. But what's so brilliant about his STRUGGLE is not what others say -- you need to read every word to get the paradoxically intense yet light balance he achieves between. every. single. word. AND MAINTAINS over a lengthy span of pages.

Actually, there is a third take-away: I'd be remiss if I didn't note this third facet that stuck: the abusiveness of his Dad and how Knausgaard takes it as among if not his greatest achievements that his children will never live in fear of him. Yes, that's notable ...]

Okay, off to Book 4. It surely can't be as odious as Book 3's narrative that I find quite painful for being of so little interest to me. Jeffrey Eugenides' review also makes me look forward to Book 4 (UPDATE: I’ve since ordered it).

Ultimately, I adore how I both loathe and admire Knausgaard--the only contemporary writer for me that elicits, nay, wrings out this pleasurable dysfunction. So, with both a long-suffering sigh and yet no small amount of anticipation: Onward...