Fiction that Happens

LESS THAN ZERO by Bret Easton Ellis was reviewed 16 years ago by Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times article, Books of the Times; The Young and Ugly. The most critical pieces of the book were precisely taken into account, and I happen to make the mistake of running into this excellent review to stall my own thoughts. Anything I'd say about the book (and perhaps what most people would say) subsequent to Kakutani, would seem like crap.

Now, the beauty of writing is that we are entitled to read our own crap. Nothing stops us.


In the lovingly-arranged, neatly-tailored, clean-living constitution of my family life, I craved for a novel that smacked me with, as Kakutani puts it - "a narrative, told in fast-paced, video-like clips, devolves into a litany of predictable scenes involving sex, drugs and rock-and-roll..." I need to absorb some virtual amounts of nihilism, disaffection, and general bad-assness. So when I read this novel, it's as though I craved and ordered for a triple-patty cheeseburger with bacon and gobbled with the pleasure of getting exactly what I wanted and more.

The casual nihilism of this book is needless-to-say disturbing. At the same time (at least to me) - it delivered that soothing, literary effect of reading something abominable being said with perfect nonchalance. It surprised me with a convincing authenticity that needn't even be detailed. The story told seemingly as-is, and with the genuine first-person voice, the minimalist approach demonstrates it's own powerful effectivity.

The book's been described as a grim sociological report or a disturbing reality that's been written. Disturbingly and quite selfishly, I enjoyed reading about insanely-rich fucked-up kids from LA, even if all this is just true. Beyond stereotypes, it read like fiction that happened.

Mr. Ellis wrote this when he was nineteen, and at some point I think that's really where the raw, underdeveloped talent peaks. This novel may be criticized for a lack of forceful imaginative transactions or literary grandiose, but if you pick up a book like this - you only need moderate imaginative transactions. On the better end, this novel isn't just pretending, and neither it is superficial. It's a good hit, and as good hits go you save another line for later.

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On the State of Book Buying

Priced $15 back in 1985, I got a good, worthy hit even if bought this for over 625 PHP. It's one of the few titles I'd still buy from overpriced bookstores like PowerBooks. Most of my books nowadays are priced between 100-200 PHP. Big thanks to BookSale, and the proliferation of ebooks/new media that dropped the price of things strapped in covers. Phenomenally, Profligate Book-Buying has ended. But yeah, 625 PHP was worth every page.

The PowerBooks (MOA branch) I bought it from closed down a few weeks after.

I am One, One I am: Thanks and Wishes.

Thank you to the small people and the big people who brought themselves to us today and shared our happiness in celebrating little Mighty Mighty's milestone.

Thank you to the universe for drawing us to this vortex of optimism. Thank you for spinning us in such a happy twirl during the past 365 days. Thank you for giving us the strength to spend our days with just short hours of sleep, and revealing how wonderful it is to be awake and reawakened.

Thank you for the love all around from our parents, our brothers, sisters, relatives, friends, the wocket in our pocket, the nink in the sink, the zlock behind the clock, the geeling in the ceiling , the jertain in the curtain, as well as the bellar, gellar, nellar, and zellar in the cellar!

Mommy covered everything, but since being one only comes once in a lifetime, I have another wish or two. Forgive me because I'm about to get preachy. These things come with the package of being a Daddy. See, the world is an awesome, awesome place, and among the many, many sounds he'll hear, thing's he'll see, and knowledge he will again, we wish he finds humility. We wish that he realizes early on, that you are wisest when you are humblest.

With too many people who'd grown with unremitting mediocrity, we wish that you spell the difference between dull conformity and true righteousness. As your Dr. Seuss says, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." So Speak for the Trees, and consider a person a person no matter how small.

And yes, we wish that you'd grow up as a gentleman. Honor your word: say what you mean, mean what you say, say it politely, live through your afflictions as graciously as you celebrate your wins, help the physically challenged up the stairs open doors for the ladies, don't kiss and tell, and don't go breaking girls' hearts.

Lastly, just don't watch too much TV. And that is that.

Ten Times To I.

To love, to be loved

To pray, pray, pray

To live curious and discover that the world is as awesome as it can be

To care an awful lot for our planet

To seek and pursue what is meaningful and true

To respect small people, to respect big people

To think left, to think right, to think low and to think high

To stay in the healthy shape you are in

To be the youest, you!

To say please, to say thank you!

Drafted this as D.'s "thank you" and "wish" speech during I.'s Dr. Seuss themed first birthday party. Certain lines were borrowed from Arundathi Roy (first line) NatGeo and Discovery Channel slogans (third line) and a lot of paraphrasing from various Dr. Seuss books.

Dibble Dibble Dibble Dopp

We open the window in the playroom and listen to something out of Explosions in the Sky. Rain falls in big, fat drops against the tin roofs. The city is covered in mist and is mystified. The little one listens attentively as I try to explain rain in the narratives of science, myth, music and poetry. We describe some pleasant smells that could accompany the rain.

It was another difficult night at work, capped by a long commute and I thought of when I can rest. It's stressful and pointless to even form a sentence to dwell on my exhaustion. As though the rain washed me clean of weariness, I'd rather not sleep and tell you,

(i do not know what is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody not even the rain, has such small hands.
-e.e. Cummings

On The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (Currently Reading)

One afternoon, she emitted an irresistible hiccup, blushed slightly (in your blood, which spreads its flames across your face, the cosmos makes it laughter). p.75

There are two different cerebral networks: the implicit (automatic actions such as body functions or driving skills) and the explicit (semantic and episodic memory). Semantic memory is a public-access memory, our knowledge of history and our remembrance of what we’ve read. Episodic memory stores events with an emotional attachment (what your name is, who your wife is, where and how you were raised, your passions, your soul).

The protagonist suffers a form of amnesia that only made his semantic memory function. Possessing knowledge of history and the world but not of himself, parroting beautiful lines verbatim out of the myriad literature he’s read, he sets out to resurrect his soul.

That’s me simplifying (probably in the ugliest possible way) the basic plot of the novel. Pushing it further to bad taste, I’d go on in saying that this is the Bourne Identity of Antiquarians (the protagonist being an antique book-dealer).

It’s been fascinating; how your mind can be so embellished with so much poetry and knowledge without so much remembering when you were born or who were the women whom you’ve made love to. Eco's style and execution makes this fascinating effect possible as he attacks with a whole stable of masterfully-chosen quotations and references. The illustrations are rich, but it doesn't leave you thoughtless. A hundred pages into the book, I was ready to concede that this was one of the best reads of my life.

Somewhere in his search for his soul, something in my own memory awakens. Inevitably relating myself to what I'm reading, I'm thrown back - cushioned with tender, delightful remembrance: to the long hours in the DLSU library. I rummage through my own attic of memory. I am reading, drunk with the moldy smell of so many pages my nose dove in between. I discovered and made so much of myself based off on what I've read and my experiencince of reading. And the book is still so pleasurably doing that now.

Even on a more universal level, our identity is interwoven not only with the facts but also with fictions made about the historical and aesthetic progression of this world.

It must be why we keep reading.

Trip Advisory

We've only had a beach trip or two, but we've probably travelled the farthest this year.

Because this year’s was an inner journey. We saw something of us, discovered and developed a new shape of us. We saw you grow so beautifully as though in each day – we landed on a wonder of the world we’ve never seen before. You’d expect me to throw a cliché or two, and say that you leaned like the Tower of Pisa, and eventually stood beautifully like the Eiffel.

Here with you now, is the best place we’ve ever been. Love all around.