problem about books is....

the problem with me is when i really like one material of an author, i tend to seek out the rest of his work and try to read and own 'em all (and have this urge to own 'em all). this started out with a fixation on Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that i read all those years in grade school. but back then i wasn't obsessed with owning them. i was satisfied with just borrowing from my brother, friends, and the library. but when i got a bit older some symptoms started showing up. i read great expectations from our school lib in sixth grade. i decided that i like Dickens and started searching for his other books. most came from book sales the rest from Natio (brand new ones or stuff on sale). then there was jane austen and thomas hardy. then The tales of Prydain form Lloyd Alexander, James Blaylock, then Tolkien, Lewis.. and the list goes on. Maybe that's why i stay the heck away from Lawrence Sanders and John Grisham and Agatha Christie and i own just a few of Michael Crichton. These guys come out with a lot of books and It'd be a pain to track all of them. If I ever get to like 'em mamumulubi ako since andami nilang na publish na mga books.
my latest craze is Jasper Fforde. The first one Eyre affair i spotted in Fully booked bookstore. I knew squat about the author and bought the book purely on the merit of its intriguing colorful cover. it was shocking red at the front with a Scooter-riding dodo. its title was in big fat bold arial letters in light blue. the spine was a garrish blue. it was just begging to be bought so i bought it. turned out i liked it and i knew i was hooked. which is a bit bad for me since it cost me an arm and a leg (a little less than 500 big ones) and i bought it after i already resigned from my day job. i thought, if i buy the rest of this bloke's book it'll really make quite a dent in my wallet since they're about the same price. so i set aside that thought for a while. Good thing I made it a point to pass by the booksale on Makati Cinema square and found .. tadah! not one but two of his other works, costing 1/4 of its Fully Booked price. oh joy!

The Way of the Sword (Musashi)

Category: reviews - books

I'm nursing a fever while reading "The Way of the Sword", the third Musashi book, very much in the same condition as Otsu was at the beginning of the story. But unlike her I could only wish for a more romantic reason for having the fever. She was pining for her one true love, Musashi, and her sorrow at not having him at her side was so great that it manifested itself physically in the form of a fever, while I got mine from overexerting myself from a recent school field trip and exposing myself to the virus (how banal can you get?).
Anyway it's a great read. i've been trying to get a hold of this book from the UP lib before but i got so lazy i didn't get the chance to read it then. good thing a new friend (a co-teacher in school) lent one to me. The thing is he only has the third book, so I sort of started in the middle and although it can stand alone, I'm more than curious now to read the prequel and get the lowdown on how a country bumpkin transitioned into the (debatably) greatest swordsman that ever walked Japan.

I've always been interested in stories about samurais and sword fights. the book brought to mind all the other writings that i've read that touched on the subject and couldn't help comparing.

I understand that Musashi, although a non-fic character, had been made larger than life throughout the years. most likely his story is more of a legend now than a biography, more fiction than fact. Still, it is a great read and what I liked about Eiji Yoshikawa's description of the battles is, it does not get too gory but still manages to be detailed. Also, the account of the fights doesn’t lose itself in the pomp of going into the particulars and intricacies of the names and histories of the fighting styles, rather he describes the fight as it unfolds, the way by-standers and spectators at that time would probably relate them. (kumbaga para kang nakinig sa huntahan ng mga usisero ^_~) An added plus is, women were not depicted as just helpless creatures. Most of the women characters old or young were either stoic or wily. Focused and driven mothers exemplified by Oko, Osugi.Gonnosuke's mother though not evidently admirable, has that certain irrefutable influence on the men that only powerful women can possess. the crafty and sly Akemi who manages to get herself out of scrapes into another is also a great example of girl power. as a reader you do not fear for her safety. even if she gets into a tight spot, you're confident that she'll come out unscathed. Otsu, in the beginning, seemed to be the epitomy of a damsel in distress. she starts out in the book pining for Musashi so much that i wanted to hit her on the head. it's a good thing she redeemed herself later on. she was only frail when she didn't know how Musashi really felt about her but upon knowing his true feelings she showed conviction that is so strong it can put any man to shame. Though physically fragile, she had a strength about her that is acknowledged even by Musashi himself, admitting that he was overpowered by it at times. Speaking of their relationship, I liked the delicate undercurrents of their love story. On the outset there doesn't seem to be anything happening between them but the force of each one's unexpressed emotions can be evidently felt.... really subtle, really restrained but potent nonetheless.

what else can i say? i loved the book. it made my stay in bed during my sick days more bearable.
i can't wait to read the rest of the five books, sayang wala sa National or PowerBooks, I've yet to check Fully Booked.
Anybody out there who has Musashi books I can borrow?

a kindness remembered

Category: musings

these thoughts all came to me as i was doing my laundry.

Kindnesses done to us, especially when we are still very young, tend to be remembered, way until even the doer has forgotten his deed. it's a classic backgrounder for stories in mangas and even cartoons, they explain away why a certain character does what she does, or why the character loved another character so much, etc. i remember such an explanation on of those hey arnold! episodes. There was a flashback and they showed that at the first day of prep school, everybody was ridiculing Helga for her gigantic pink ribbon, it was only Arnold who stood up for her and said that he liked the ribbon and that the color pink suited her. apparently this act of kindness stuck with Helga and she feels grateful to him even now that they are fifth graders, she even thinks she is in love with him (although she makes a bang up job concealing it of course).

As for me, I was surprised to dig out a somewhat akin story from my own childhood. It was one afternoon during the fourth grade. one classmate, a girl, said in observation, some words to this effect "your family are probably poor, right? i mean you always wore dresses that your mother made, and right now i can even see some worn out parts were there are patches." I happened to be wearing a dress with one of my favorite patterns, it was dark violet with long pink sleeves, the middle portion had a drawing of a girl with like 10 or 15 dolls surrounding her. although i didnt ever aspire to have that many dolls, the print fascinated me, i was intrigued that there also different patterns in the dolls' dresses, each one unique. needless to say even if the dress had seen much wear i refused to give it up and had my mother sew patches on the holes and the worn out parts. of course at that time i was completely powerless to explain all those things in one breath to this girl who might even be right in assessing that i am poor. i didn't know where to start to defend myself so i just stood there frozen ogling her with confused eyes almost on the verge of tears. a classmate happened to hear the conversation and spoke up. He said, "well at least the patches are nicely done and the dress is clean, there's nothing wrong with it". I then made a rejoinder and said that it's still wearable anyway. and with that we were able to vanquish the enemy, so to speak. all throughout my gradeschool these two were my classmates. Somewhere in my brain i have tucked out this incident, but consciously forgot about it. I would sometimes wonder why i never became friends with that girl and somehow i knew there is something about her that i don't like but i've forgotten what. for the boy however, i had nothing but benevolent thoughts, although i never really became one of his close buddies, coed public schools being what they were at that time, I've always kept up that affable atmosphere with him. even now i think kindly of him although at the top of my head i can't really pinpoint why. only now did i remember. it was that single act of kindness, a defense on my behalf, that molded the way i interacted with both of them later on.

I wish I can be able to write whenever writable thoughts are jostling for competition in my head. but the thing is, this usually happens when I am out somewhere, far from my computer or even from pen & paper.

I don't know, maybe it is the same for everyone. as for me, sometimes, thoughts grip me and they form themselves into paragraphs racing one after the other, begging to be written. sayang nga lang more often than not i don't really get to sit down enough to commit those thoughts on paper. and, when i do get the time to write, my thoughts have gone dormant on me and what i do get to write is not the same. the words don't seem to have the same life and vigor that my former thoughts had and I'm terribly disappointed.