“The half-life of love is forever.” – This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Book Cover and Author (Pic from salon.com)

Junot Diaz’s sophomore work, This is How You Lose Her (Penguin), is just as inspired as his first novel. The thing that easily gets you his is wonderfully simple prose that you as a reader can easily connect with. This has been evident since the start from my first experience reading “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. His second work is not a novel; it is a collection of somewhat related stories.  One would easily identify the theme of the book to be about break ups specifically those of the tragic romantic kind but the book delves into other forms of loss as well, I would spare you the details of what other forms of loss you would read. 

The work reads like that of a semi-autobiographical kind, each story involves “Yunior” and you get the impression that the author put himself into this character. Yunior as a character is enigmatic, it’s either you root for him or you want to be him.

I’ve been reading more and more fiction about transplanted people living in America, the theme reverberates in me as I have a lot of relatives living in the US. In fact almost everyone here in the Philippines is related to at least one migrant worker.  This type of fiction has been gaining momentum as the world becomes more and more globalized (Kiran Desai, Jhumpha Lahiri), the dilemma of transplanted people adjusting to new cultures, identifying to the new country and the struggle to keep their identity makes for a compelling read. 

The author saved his best work in the last part of the book, this story “The Cheater’s Guide to Love” is the ultimate in break up stories and of the long, dragging and arduous process of moving on. This story just killed it for me, it spans about 5 years from the break up. Junot Diaz is a master of the break up and moving on story.

Read NYTimes' review of the book here.

The book's Amazon page.

Swamplandia!

Just a quick post, I finally got my lazy ass to finish Karen Russell's "Swamplandia!" (yes it comes with an exclamation point!). I started reading it last month after I finished "Room", or so I think it was "Room" that I finished last. I had high hopes for this book since it consistently ranked as one of the best books of the year it was released (2011).  Honestly I found the prose rather boring, it didn't really hold interest to me. There were times I thought of abandoning the book, I kept waiting for the speed to pick up but it just never came together for me. But a quitter I am not, I powered through and finished it anyway. 

I must say that it got better towards the end when their lives were unraveling. The book is about a family of alligator wrestlers that lived on an island off the Florida swamps. I found it hard picturing the surroundings which was supposedly a beaten up crummy theme park that featured alligators and alligator wrestling. The main protagonist of the book is Ava, the youngest of the Bigtree kids. Personally, I identified more with Kiwi, the oldest of the Bigtree kids. He's more on the bookish-academic side of things. Being home schooled, they were quite innocent of the workings of the life in the mainland they came off as being unprepared for practical requisites of the real world.

The book shifts from a first person voice through Ava and a third person narrative through Kiwi's point of view. I would've loved to read a section on The Chief's background and more on the life of their mother, Hilola.

In the end you couldn't help but be on their side, the book ends before you could get a glimpse of how it ended up for the whole family but you can get snippets here and there specially on the last chapter proving that Ava continued her life on the mainland.

I wonder what I'll read next, my kindle is just bursting at the seams with unread books!

Crazy Rich Asians Casting

So I caught the CRA bug even though nobody I know was reading it, it just kept popping out on all the websites that I visit. Once I started reading I couldn't put my kindle down, I couldn't work because I get so antsy wanting to know what came next. The book is like a Dan Brown novel, it certainly is a page turner. Nakulangan lang ako sa ending, I was like "yun na yun?!?!?" the author left it open for the readers to infer on how things were gonna go down.

As the title suggests, the book is about the super rich in Asia. Being a student of Mandarin, I get the distinction that Overseas Chinese make with the Mainlanders. It is set mostly in Singapore, where the family of the main protagonist resides. It's a very Asian thing that I lot of us Filipinos get even though we're not of Chinese descent. I love that author infused Hokkien and even Malay expressions in the book (Hokkien is spoken here in the Philippines).

Anyway, the book has been picked up by the same company that made the Hunger Games into movies. A lot of speculation has been happening online on who they might cast in the movie. Limited lang naman ang knowledge ko of the Chinese and Hongkong movie stars, but the actors must be fluent in English, Mandarin, Cantonese and sometimes Hokkien and Bahasa. These are my picks.

Let's start with Nicholas Young, my pick would be Godfrey Gao. Nick Young comes from an extremely wealthy family, as any protagonist in any story it's a requirement that looks very much like a movie star. He's an intellectual having completed advanced studies in Oxford and teaches History in NYU.

Godfrey Gao in Burberry

I would cast Zhang Ziyi for the role of Astrid Leong, who else can carry couture dresses with ease than Ziyi? In the book, Astrid is a very sophisticated woman who goes on couture fittings every Paris Fashion Week, she also splurges on jewelry whenever she has a problem. 

Zhang Ziyi as Astrid Leong

Takeshi Kaneshiro for Michael Teo, although he would need to bulk up.

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Michael Teo

Angela Baby would be the perfect Araminta, although I would also consider Olga Kurylenko because in the book Araminta has certain Eurasion features because her mother came from Xinjiang.

Angela baby

Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko

Tony Leung for Philip Young, Nick's father. Tony Leung has been a favorite of mine ever since I saw that Zhang Yimou movie Hero.

Gong Li should be Eleanor Young.

Gong Li

Colin Khoo, Nick's best friend is said to be the most eligible bachelor in all of Singapore and is also extremely good looking, I thought of Daniel Henney kaso the book also describes him to be very tan almost like a surfer's complexion naisip ko naman si Wang Leehong who's on a darker side. He's also perfect because he seems to be very deep. 

Wang Leehom

Michelle Yeoh is just so regal I can't help but associate her with Shang SuYi, Nick's aristocratic grandmother. She's too young to play the grandmother role to a 30 year old, yun lang.

Michelle Yeoh

Kerry Chu is Rachel's mother, she came to America to raise Rachel on her own. I would cast Ming Nawen, Joy Luck Club diba?

  

Siwon Choi although Korean looks very much Chinese, I would cast him as Alistair Young the Hongkong movie star.

Siwon as Alistair

 I can't think of anyone pa for Rachel Chu, I have a bevy of other stars that I want to see in the film adaptation hehe.

My loot

National Bookstore is on sale! S-A-L-E is my favorite four letter word, I practically buy everything on sale. A rule I follow when buying is if it isn't at least 50% off I wouldn't buy it. Why buy it at full price when I can buy it at a discounted price, right?

Anyway, here is my loot. Everything was 70% off! 

1\ Incendiary by Chris Cleave
    Last year I read "Gold" by the same author and I was highly amused, I have high hopes for this book.

2\ Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
    This on'es been on my "to buy" list since it came out but never saw it on sale.

3\ Toxicology by Jessica Hagedorn
    Right now I'm reading "Manila Noir", it's a collection of noirish short story edited by Jessica Hagedorn. She probably is the most famous Filipino voice in literature but this would by my first foray into her work, haven't read "Dogeaters" just yet.

Now all I have to do is find time to read all this. I seldom buy actual books now since I transitioned to ebooks, my Kindle has been keeping me busy and it still has a lot of books I have yet to read but it's nice to feel and smell actual paper once in a while.