Twelve Months of Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's 400th death anniversary will fall on 23rd April 2016, so 2016 is a very big year for Shakespeare buffs. To join in the general festivity, I'm planning a feature on my blog called "Twelve Months of Shakespeare." Each month I will read and review a Shakespeare play. I will also write about why I chose that particular play for that particular month and also commentaries. I've been planning to do this feature since January but due to unforeseen circumstances I'm starting it this February (but I promise I will make up January later).

As February has Valentine's Day, I chose Romeo and Juliet to commemorate it. Without further ado, the first installment of "Twelve Months of Shakespeare": Romeo and Juliet.

Review: In the Country by Mia Alvar

I read this book with high expectations, and though some stories fulfill those expectations to me, I was gravely disappointed with a couple of them. Though Ms. Alvar's prose is great, sometimes she resorts to cliche and predictable outcomes for her plots. I enjoy "The Old Girl", a story examining the life of a thinly veiled Corazon Aquino in Boston, and immensely like the thriller-like "The Kontrabida" and "The Miracle Worker." Others, like "Legends of the Old White Lady" and "The Shadow Families" offer stark, realistic characterizations. As a whole, I really liked the stories in the book; they are certainly above-average. Masterfully crafted, if not lacking in inventiveness.

However, I was so disappointed with "Esmeralda", written in second person POV. This one story alone drops my grade from four stars to three. It throws me off and sours me to the whole collection. Maybe because it's so different from other stories in the collection. Like I said, it's written in second person, which I find one of the most grating POVs ever. But I can forgive a poor narrative choice if the story is interesting enough; it's not. Unlike others in this collection, I find the plot very unrealistic. I feel like I'm thrown in a telenovela with all the overwrought words and metaphors, and contrived melodrama. The story tries so hard to be meaningful and dramatic that it feel fake. The characters are superficial cardboard cut-outs without any depth. I hate this story, which is disappointing, since I love the rest of the book.

I still recommend this book to anyone interested in short fiction, especially short fiction by women of color. It's a shame that one story ruins the whole experience for me.

Review: Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan

This book has what I call the "Lolita" and "The Virgin Suicides" 'curse' which, although I like the prose and characters, I won't give it more than three stars. Why? Because of it's violence to women.

Eka Kurniawan has been called the successor to Pramoedya Antanta Toer and his books have been likened to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Reading this, I can see why. Mr. Eka has a distinct style that is unlike other contemporary Indonesian authors: poetic and sarcastic without being too overwrought or cheesy. This novel is about a prostitute and the tragedies that befall her family, and has been described as 'grotesque' so I know I'm not going to find rainbows and sunshine and many consensual sex. 

The first and last hundred pages or so are amazing. I like Dewi Ayu's plight and her stories. She is a fierce, amazing woman who knows what she's worth and acts accordingly. Dewi Ayu does not have wool over her eyes like so many of her peers have. She is realistic and pragmatic and also just a touch insane. I immensely enjoy the story when it's focused on her, so that's why I give this book three stars despite my misgivings. The sexual violence in the first Dewi Ayu narrative is shocking, but expected. 

The problem starts when the narrative moves to Dewi Ayu's daughters. That's when the sexual violence, to me, becomes unbearable. It seems like on every page someone is getting raped. Eight-year-old girls described in a sexualized manner. Dewi Ayu and her daughters are the most beautiful women in Halimunda, so every man wants to bone them and damn consent. More mentions of Dewi Ayu's daughters' sexual desirability, never mind the fact that they're ten-years-old. More rape. And this goes on and on for two hundred pages or so.

I'm not a prude who demands every sexual scene to follow the safe, sane, consensual rule. But there's a line between what I call "meaningful sexual violence" i.e. sexual violence that have impact to the story and "gratuitous sexual violence" in which the sexual violence loses all meaning and becomes another source of titillation. The sexual violence in this book falls to the later category. I don't feel shocked when a character is raped; I just sigh, make some disgusted noise, and move on.

Dewi Ayu's and her daughters' misfortune are tied to their sexual desirability. Their tragedy is that they are beautiful women in a chauvinist patriarchal world. And I'm so tired of this narrative. Like many male authors, Mr. Eka is commenting and satirizing the sexualization of women. Like most male authors, his efforts fall short, although I applaud it. 

Maybe I'm just tired of seeing women fall victims to violence. Maybe I'm just tired of how when we heard the words "sexual violence" we automatically assume that the victim is a woman. Maybe I'm just tired of grown men sexually commenting on a teenage girl's body. Maybe I'm just tired of gratuitous sexual violence in my books. Maybe. Maybe.

My Year in Books: 2015

2015 has passed and now we're in the beautiful, exciting 2016! Whoo! I mean by the looks of it, it the world is nearly apocalyptic (Daesh, Donald Trump, global warming, economy slowing down) but hey, that's what they say in 2000 and 2012 and look where we're at now!

So, I would like to chronicle my year in books, compiled from my Goodreads account:

Number of books I read: 71

Books by female authors: 47 (66%)
Books by male authors: 24 (34%)

Books by white male authors: 22 (31%)
Books by non-white male authors: 2 (3%)
Books by white female authors: 40 (56%)
Books by non-white female authors: 7 (10%)

Fiction books: 63 (88%)
Non-fiction books: 8 (12%)

Novels/novellas: 48 (68%)
Short stories: 6 (9%)
Comics: 5 (7%)
Plays: 4 (5%)
Essays: 4 (5%)
Biographies/Memoirs: 1 (2%)
Other non-fiction books: 3 (4%)

Looking at the stats above, I see that I have fulfilled my 2015 New Year's resolution of reading more books, particularly by women. But the number of books that I read by people of color is sadly very lacking. In response to that, my New Year's resolution for 2016 is to read more books by non-white authors. I have already started that by going in 70% into Eka Kurniawan's book, Beauty is a Wound, but because I have finals, I may not be able to finish it for another week or so.

Thanks for sticking by with me in 2015, and I hope we'll have lots of fun again in 2016! Happy New Year!