Photos (Manila International Book Fair 8/29/2007)
More photographs courtesy of Kate Dy.
The “Philippine Knowledge Revolution” kicks off with a bang. Visit the Wikipilipinas booth at the MIBF for free demos and tutorials on how to contribute to the wiki as well as for a more or less comprehensive orientation about its sister site Filipiniana.net.
For posterity! The Read Or Die volunteer matrix (a work of art, I tell you).
Lunchtime (I think!).
Day 2 @ MIBF: First Impressions
Second day at the Manila International Book Fair!
Other than the sheer number of books and of book-loving people (and Read or Die flyers handed to the attendees, it’s an art form I tell you), there was also a lot of activities simultaneously happening at the book fair that it’s hard to pick and observe one event at a time.
My own first day at my first MIBF started at the Vibal booth which had the exhibit and demo for WikiPinas and Filipiniana.net. The booth itself is very eye-catching because aside from the huge banners and giant arrow sign hanging over the booth itself, there were a dozen or so shiny Mac PCs. There were also friendly facilitators (dressed in white to match the Macs) to help the curious use the wiki and the filipiniana websites. WikiPinas as the name implies is like the popular Wikipedia except the content is, of course, everything and anything Filipino. Articles can be edited same as any other wiki. Filipiniana.net, on the other hand, serves as an online archive of hard to find, out of print or unpublished copyright free works. Some of the articles on the site are even in Spanish! Good thing the English or Filipino translation is but a click away. The interface of both sites are easy enough to use, and combined can provide a very valuable resource for researchers on Filipino literature. You may view a short video presentation on Filipiniana.net over at YouTube
While the demo was ongoing, storytellers from Roofdeck Productions were at the Activity Center doing a storytelling session with the kids from The Growing Place. More on this when Karen posts as she was with the storytellers for the event.
Lunch was spent at the book donation kiosks which were very noticeable as they flank the entrance of the World Trade Center even before you enter the book fair grounds. The kiosk features what else but books with READ! spelled out in big bold letters serving as backdrop. Despite having the display cordoned off, people were still very much inclined to touch and feel the books for themselves and read the blurb at the back or sample some of the first few pages. (I do mean what I said literally, as I recall the copy of Good Omens was particularly manhandled, and several people were eyeing the copy of Trainspotting with Ewan McGregor on the cover with intent to own even by dubious methods).
The hallway where the two book donation bins (still empty btw, please rectify before the week ends!) are located is the best place to observe the bookfair attendees. Bianca Canoza has posted the ’stereotypes’ at her previous post here. I will have to agree. Also, while giving out flyers near the book donation kiosks, I noticed that the most common reaction after reading the header of the flyer (which read Read or Die of course) was an exclamation of disbelief and the word “DIE?!?” repeated at least twice. As one conversation went between me and a trio of students from Manila Doctors Hospital:
Girl 1: Read or Die? Pwede bang Read na lang? Gusto pa po namin makatapos ng nursing eh.
Girl 2 to Boy 1: Oi ikaw, Read OR Die?
Boy 1: READ syempre!
There was also one very excited mother who applauded Read or Die for giving out flyers as she tends to not listen to spiels (talk about being compared to a water purifier salesman ~_~ not that I have anything against water purifiers or salespeople in general) but gives more attention to what’s written on flyers. Said woman was also notable because she had her daughter with her and the daughter was the only person who didn’t ask what Read or Die meant as she explained to her eager mom while they moved on to the next booth that the name of RoD was taken from an anime (manga technically). We should have given her a prize! Or something.
The first forum on Pistang Panitik also started today. The featured National Artist was Bienvenido Lumbera. Since I am made of EPIC PHAIL, I wasn’t able to prepare a critique for the panel. But Tin (aka El Kapitan) was there! And Giyenah also managed the flow of the discussion.
Several other discussions were happening at the same time and other RoD volunteers were able to attend those panels. Hopefully, their posts should be up soon!
The last couple of activities for the day were the book launch of “If a Filipino Writer Reads on Don Quijote”, written by Vince Groyon, F. Sionil Jose and Alfred “Krip” Yuson (with an introduction by Lito Zulueta) by the Instituto de Cervantes and the Sudoku Challenge co-hosted by PSICOM and Read or Die. Along with the Sudoku Challenge was the launching of some new titles from PSICOM. These were:
Mga Kwentong Parlor ni Wanda Ilusyunada
Torbik & Co by Art Columna
Sopas Muna, a collection of inspirational stories
TOPAK!, a humor magazine
Chopsticks Comics by Stanley Chi
and True Philippine Ghost Stories: Haunted Campus
The artists who worked on the above books were present to sign copies and do caricatures for their readers.
Day 2 of the bookfair ended at eight pm. It was a long day indeed but well worth the experience.
Pictures, courtesy of Emil, to follow!
But wait! For you guys who tuned in to RX 93.1 between 9:20 and 10:20 pm today, you might have caught the radio show with Tin (aka El Kapitan), Dean Alfar and a representative from Anvil Publishing (gawd, I fail at names). The main topic for tonight was “Do Filipinos still read?” The answer to which the bookfair attendees can say for themselves — YES, of course! Issues that were brought up include the great debate about which language should be used in writing by Filipino authors (whichever suits them best), whether graphics novels are considered literature (hell yes), and lastly, Harry Potter, Book 7, and what comes after (people reading other books, hopefully). Other topics discussed were the nature of Read or Die (it’s a book club, and more!), why speculative fiction is gaining popularity these days (as Dean Alfar explains, it is a kind of escapism that gives the readers hope), and what kind of books are bestsellers in the country (self-help especially cookbooks top the list, as well as, not surprisingly, ghost stories). The DJ then asked if these are what Filipinos are reading right now, what can be concluded from the Filipino reader, to which Dean Alfar candidly answered that Filipinos love to cook, love to hope and love to get scared XD
For events in the remaining days of the Manila International Bookfair, stay tuned to this blog. For updates on the activities lined-up for RoD’s Ang Bagong Libro on Sunday, head over to here.
Manila Book Fair: Volunteering, Books, Books, Manly Men!
I love our volunteers. As other members have said, thank you very much for helping out and for being patient with us.
Here’s Kate Dy’s wonderful report about her day of volunteering in the Manila Book Fair:
Volunteering At The Manila Book Fair: 8/29/2007
by Kate Dy
It’s amazing how much mental torture I went through while on the job. You would think that volunteers have it easy— we stand around giving fliers, we roam the corridors of the World Trade Center interviewing to people, we oogle the manly security people, we eat free food— but in truth, it’s a really really hard life.
Imagine having to stand in front of the Vibal booth enjoining people to try out the demo, while being tempted by the Powerbooks sale merely inches away. Imagine walking around distributing fliers to the passers by while glancing longingly at displays that you can’t really stop to appreciate, since you’re “working” after all. Imagine seeing all the large SALE signs and feeling a tug at your heartstrings when you see someone buying a book that you’ve been waiting to go on sale for so long. Imagine the manly security men… er, okay, enough of that methinks.
Seriously now, the 28th Manila International Book Fair is a haven for book lovers and man-watchers alike. Focusing more on the books, since that is what most people go there for, cheapskates like me will be glad to discover that there are sales galore! And not what I call “fake” sales with 5-10% discounts, but real sales! National Bookstore has its 20% off everything sale, and with a Laking National card you even get spendable points for that. Powerbooks— bless them— gives stacked discounts, meaning you can use your PowerCard on sale items and get stuff for 30-40% off! A Different Bookstore had the “three books for Php 350″ and “four books for P450 each and get one free” promos, while all the rest of their books were 25% off. I swear, it was a glimpse of heaven.
And yeah, the temptation was too great to resist. No, I didn’t steal a security person, I bought books! Thanks to detours while on the job with Abby and the fun fun 30 minutes of off-duty time in the evening with Jeriel, I managed to get
Star Wars: Inferno for Php 268.00 (from the original price of Php 332.00) AND got Laking National points for it, earning me an additional Php 26.00 to be spent at a future time. From the wonderful A Different Bookstore sale I got War Trash, Shadow Puppets, and Children of the Mind, all for a total of Php 350. Now the original price of each of the Ender books was Php 435, and the Ha Jin book was Php 373, so all in all I saved nearly a thousand pesos! I cry tears of joy and cheapness. Oh, and from the Filipiniana shop thing, I was able to buy a copy of the 1972 Philippine Constitution for Php 5, and The Old Testament: A Survey (don’t ask) for only Php 20! Later on, I got the 2008 TIME Almanac for Kids for the brother— originally priced at Php 503.00, they gave it to me for Php 188.00. This undamaged, pristine plastic wrapped 2008 almanac, for less than 200 pesos. Oh, and finally decided on what to buy from the PowerBooks store which had been beckoning to me since morning: Dean Alfar’s Salamanca for Php 160.
Books + Friends + Discounts + Intellectual Discussion + (Yes, the manly men) = a day well spent volunteering for Read or Die.
I plan on going back to do some serious shopping as soon as my (incredibly busy) schedule allows. Men and books beware.
The imagination to ask
Out of everything that Dean Alfar and the LitCritters had to say in their talk on Philippine speculative fiction at the Manila International Bookfair last August 29, what struck me most was the repeated emphasis on the relevance of speculative fiction in the Philippine setting: its importance not merely as the literature of the imagination, but as an agent of transformation and change.
Many would say that the Philippines is not really a country prepared for the fantastic: our day-to-day life is so choked with gritty details and the hardships of just surviving that we have little time (or energy) to spend on flights of fancy or on wondering “what if?”. They would say that writers have a responsibility to write not about “what if,” but “what is,” to wake up people and galvanize them to do something about the mess that is our country. And yet, as Dean and the other LitCritters said, specfic is just as relevant as social realism, and — if I do not presume too much — just as important when it comes to propagating ideas and changing how people think.
Why? Because of the very nature of speculative fiction. It is, as the specfic talk so effectively put it, “the literature of the fantastic” — the literature that dares to ask the most absurd questions, that speculates and wonders and imagines and dreams. And because specfic is all about questions and transgressing boundaries, reading it exposes you to new and exciting ideas and hones your imagination. And imagination is a very, very powerful thing.
Dean called the youth of today the “generation of the imagination.” I don’t think this is an exaggeration at all, because with our increasing freedom to express our thoughts, share them with others, and build communities around our interests and goals, it’s what we think, rather than what we ‘are’, that defines us. The age of the internet has become the age of the idea, and we need more than ever to set our imaginations loose, to pursue possibilities, to dream at will. For it is the idea that powers change.
I have often heard it said that we young people should read less fantasy and science fiction because they skew our perception of the “real world.” The truth is that we are very much aware of what is going on around us, but sometimes it is to things unreal that we turn for answers. We cannot read only stories about people going nowhere in the midst all-consuming corruption and decay. We also want stories that might never happen in real life but are no less wonderful and true just the same. Truth isn’t confined to reportage.
In the Philippines — especially in the Philippines — specfic has a major part to play in our literary consciousness: perhaps not as a vehicle to deny the realities of our society, but as a means towards learning to dream, think for ourselves, and ask important questions. As a source of and inspiration for courage, even: the same courage it takes to step out of the box, shake off the chains of convention and tradition, and ask: What if things were different? And how can we make it so?
–
Personal notes: The LitCritters mentioned some stories they’d like to read: amalgams of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, interstitial fiction, what have you. What I’d like to see is good physics, written well and made as interesting as we students of physics think it is (there is a reason Feynman likened physics to sex). I’d like to see a sci-fi story that deals with some of the more interesting questions and predictions of quantum mechanics, which at times sound even more unbelievable than a lot of sci-fi I’ve read.
Blogging the Book
Sorry for posting our updates about the MIBF just now. Let’s just say we’re all caught up in the whirl of activities. Well, we did warn that our coverage is semi-live. This post recounts the events on August 29, the start of the book fair. This is not a comprehensive report though, but the impressions of a few RoD volunteers. Before our the official opening, I asked our volunteers (all of them from Ex Libris UP) to try and record their experiences throughout the day. Thank you for doing your share, ladies! and I personally want to thank them all for being a part of our activities, not to mention enduring our helter-skelter schedule and accompanying ditziness. Photo documentation is courtesy of Kate Dy, also from Ex Libris UP. To the others, Abby and Jeriel, it’s not too late to blog!
Jayeanne Vergara
Sailing through the doors of the World Trade Center yesterday, (August 29, 2007) for the 28th Manila Iternational Book Fair, I was literally swamped with books. Novels, textbooks, picturebooks, comics… almost everything that has to do with the printed word covered every inch of the WTC. Bookstores, specialty shops and publishers all converged under one roof for 5 glorious days.
Heaven. Pure bliss. Volunteering for the Read or Die book club was certainly worth it. 
Me and Bianca (another volunteer) were supposed to man the NBDB donation booth for most of the day, but it still wasn’t set-up so we were instead assigned to help out with the Vibal Publishing’s launching of the Wikipilipinas (it’s 4 things! 1. an almanac, 2. an encyclopedia, 3. a reference (??) and 4. a community of communities! ) and Filipiniana. net ( a Filipiniana digital lib… yey! great reference for school stuff). The people from Vibal taught people how to use these websites and create their own accounts. We were the first lucky ones to try out the sites and the brand new Macs they provided for the participants. They even gave out user manuals on how to edit your page using html code (or something like that. Pardon. I’m not really into this techie stuff ^^).
But the most exciting part for me (aside form lunch break.. hehe.. ^^) was when we went to the Philipine speculative fiction forum. We got to hear Dean Alfar, Nikki Alfar and a bunch of other writers talk about the genre. As a big fan of comics and grafiction (which are often catgeorized under this genre, too) I’m glad to hear that finally this type of genre is now discussed under *serious* terms. People usually classify this genre as mere pulp and pop, and as Dean Alfar said, it’s the responsibility of writers to create literary stories to help alleviate the status of the genre.
Well anyway, I got off duty right after the forum. Before leaving (of course) I took a quick shopping run and came home with 4 new books (yay… I finally have a copy of J.D. Salinger’s short story collection ^^).
Can’t wait for the next book fair!
Bianca Canoza
Going around and harassing passers-by with the powers of my flyers gave me a good view of the people who attended the fair. There were a jillion of them, some looking happy, some looking sad, some looking as though they ought to be in a different place.
So far, I have classified the following previously unknown specimens:
The Tag-along - These are the persons who were obviously blackmailed into coming in with their friend/family/loved one/pet. Like janitor fish, they cling on to their oblivious partner, and hope to see the light at the end of the day.
The Lost People - My favorite kind: the lost people are the bunch who wanders around dazedly as if shocked by the very sight of books. Usually, they have ten or so flyers dangling off their bags and hands before they get a hang of themselves.
VERY Important and Harassed-looking People - I bet that once every year, these people go find a little corner in a dark room and sing lullabies to themselves. Well, either that or they find other means of coping with their high-tension selves. Loosen up, people!
Desperate Salesfolk - These are the sort who give flyers to random people and write blog entries about it.
Taong Bato - The only known species resistant to all flyer-giving tactics known to man. I think they’re really plants disguised as humans. They probably attended the book fair in order to gather valuable information to be used for the plant invasion.
The Barkada - You remember the time you were in highschool and were surrounded by, oh, twenty of your friends? Well, it’s time to relive those thoughtless days once more.
The Shoppers - You can’t really hand them flyers since their hands are full of shopping bags and free samples. The Shoppers are notable, not because of their unique ability to hold as much as ten plastic bags in one hand, but because of the astonishing capacity of their wallets.
The Monks - Of course I had to mention them.
If there are any other species, please contact me. Or at least post another entry. If we can compile all the known types of bookworms, then maybe, just maybe we can have world peace. Or at least a very concise classification of bookworms.
Notes on reading Ermita
I was ten years old when I first read F. Sionil Jose’s Ermita. Ensconced in the huge chair that dominated my mother’s office, enveloped by the smell of black coffee and old law books, I had begun to nod off when a bright patch of color caught my eye. I remember tugging on envelopes and binders until the book’s cover revealed itself: a watercolor of a busy street surmounted by a stark black gate.
Ermita is obviously not a book for children. It is a story about a woman who becomes a prostitute and, instead of succumbing to the supposed degradation of her profession, finds a way to rise above it. In between the social commentary and dramatic narrative the author writes about love, power, politics, and sex. Quite a lot of sex, in fact. Maybe too much, too obvious sex — this being a view that has only been reinforced with each re-reading.
Granted, my subsequent readings of Ermita may have been colored by the fact that I first read it when I was a child — read it all the way through that one sleepy afternoon, my eyes alternately narrowing in concentration and popping out of my head in shock. The Joselito Rojo/Ermi scene was the first time I encountered sexual harassment in print; I almost didn’t understand what was happening and had to read it again, further scarring my sixth-grader imagination. Didi Gamboa’s ashtray so horrified me the image burned itself into my brain. (Over the next few months it turned up in my head at the oddest times, since I didn’t understand how an ashtray could be shaped that way. And it was pink besides.)
More than ten years and several re-readings later, however, the shock value of Ermita is practically non-existent. Yet I still feel that its treatment of sex is one of excess: a rather obvious point (regarding sex, men, and women) keeps insisting on being made — over and over again, to the point of redundancy. It’s true that since the book is about a prostitute one can’t avoid talking about the physical side of the profession; that indeed one is almost expected to talk about it, intimate details and all. Joselito Rojo and Didi Gamboa were fine, actually, but towards the end of the book one starts feeling a little worn out, as if after innumerable trysts and affairs it’s taken some effort to keep one’s credulity intact. How many times, after all, does Ermi have to tell herself (or the reader — she’s self-conscious that way) that men want only one thing, and only she could give it to them? Can’t she do anything apart from seduing these men? Over the top, much?
I think Ermita, despite the artistry of its author, occasionally slips into the pitfall of pandering to (a male reader’s) fantasy — or if it doesn’t pander, it’s self-indulgent. I don’t know whether this is my naivete or some vestige of childishness speaking, but I honestly believe that had some parts been treated with more restraint, the book could have been more powerful overall. Prostitution, corruption, power — they could have been kept without sacrificing… sensibility, I suppose, or believability. At the very least they could have been kept without having F. Sionil Jose’s views on how women see sex (and how men see women, and how… well, how everyone wants sex) hammered repetitively into one’s brain.
Don’t misunderstand me: I like Ermita. I like F. Sionil Jose’s writing — the man writes music. And between too much sex and too little, I think, all things considered, that he went with the more fitting extreme. But here I am trying to figure out how I as a reader feel about his work, and I find myself revisiting all those first encounters with his novels, when I was reading for the sheer pleasure of it, for the sound of the words, the images conjured up by the text. Reading, as it were, like a child reads, without thinking of what critics have said or what subtext the writer was trying to incorporate. Going back to the first time I read Ermita I remember being overwhelmed by the beauty of the work but also crying when I finished it, because the deepest impression it had left on me was the interchangeable hatefulness of sex and men.
–
Notes:
1) Very muddled. Still trying to come up with something coherent, but am curious what people think.
2) …I still don’t know where I’m going with this argument. I don’t know yet, anyway. I have the beginning and a part of the middle and a part somewhere near the end, but I’m still trying to work out the connections. (And the conclusion, of course.) The last sentence is– well, it comes out of nowhere.
Ang Bagong Libro Final Programming Schedule
At last it’s done. You can find Read Or Die’s schedule at the 28th Manila International Book Fair here:
http://read-or-die.org/bagonglibro/
We have events in the Activity Area from August 30 to September 2 (11AM - 12NN; 2PM - 3PM daily).
Roofdeck Productions will conduct storytelling sessions from 11AM - 12NN and 2 PM - 3PM featuring the latest books from Adarna House, OMF Publishing and Vibal Publishing on August 30 and August 31.
We’ll be co-hosting a Sudoku challenge with Psicom (which will run alongside their book launch) on August 30 from 6PM to 8PM. RoD volunteers will also be assisting at the Wikipilipinas booth daily.
RoD reactors will also be present at Pistang Panitik with the UP Institute Of Creative Writing. The festival runs from August 30 to September 2. You can view the schedule of Pistang Panitik at http://pistangpanitik.org.
The Philippine Order of Narnians will be conducting a special reading of selected texts by CS Lewis on September 2 from 11AM to 12NN at the Activity Area. Hogwarts Philippines follows this up with a book discussion of “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows” from 2PM to 3PM, also at the Activity Area. Both activities are held in cooperation with Read Or Die (we’ll be interspersing with short quiz shows!) and Powerbooks.
And of course: on Sunday, September 2, we will be at Function Room B from 10AM to 8PM for a series of panels and competitions for Ang Bagong Libro. You can view the detailed panel programming here with links to guest biographies or you can get a bird’s eye view of the flow of events in the front page (now with flash!).
New confirmed guests: Cozy Reads, Glady Gimena and Kooky Tuason (of Romancing Venus).
Stepping Out: A Literary Cosplay Competition will also take place on September 2. Contestants can start registering as soon as the Book Fair opens on September 2. We will have a registration table and pre-judging area at the Main Lobby of the World Trade Center. Registration and pre-judging end at 2PM. Final judging commences at 7PM at Function Room B. The top ten finalists will receive 10 gift packs courtesy of Powerbooks and Anvil Publishing. The grand prize winner will receive a brand new iPod Nano courtesy of Vibal Publishing. Complete set of rules can be found here.
I’ll post about Write Or Die in a separate entry but the competition will take place on September 2 as well, from 6PM to 7PM. Participants are UP Writers Club, UP Quill, UST Varsitarian, Malate Literary Folio (DLSU) and the Ateneo Heights. Judges are Dr. Isagani Cruz, Dr. Vim Nadera and (still mayhap) Ms. Karina Bolasco of Anvil.
Please drop by our booth The inimitable Leandro Polidario has designed a very interesting set-up, if I do say so myself. We’ll be accepting memberships and selling our shirts (please buy!). Otherwise, feel free to stop by and chat.
And most important of all: We are also in charge of the Book Donations so if you’re coming to the Book Fair, please bring some of your secondhand books with you (or you can donate brand new books too, if you’re feeling generous). The Book Donations area is in the Main Lobby so you won’t miss it! Please spread the word!
Caveats
All right. I received five rather alarming text messages in the space of thirty minutes. Don’t worry I’m sure the person in question is still perfectly alive.
This is one of the perils of maintaining a collective blog. RoD members are all welcome to post in it and all of us are entitled to our own opinions. Except for entries explicitly labeled and worded as ‘official’ (i.e., having to do with club activities and projects), the management does not take responsibility for what individual members believe or say. We have wildly divergent and promiscuous tastes, and despite the melodramatic posts about club unity and all that, well, that’s got to do with advocacy. We all like reading so we’d like for other people to read. In that respect, we run the risk of being labeled self-righteous prigs. We’re aware of it so you can shove it too. In everything else, especially in what we actually do read, we don’t always agree. Actually, we can be violently antagonistic–and definitely self-righteous–about this issue.
The reading lists from August henceforth have been chosen by different members. I’m sure some selections will go down in flames. My own selections last June certainly did not meet with collective approval (if anything, it echoed into a blank void).
The same goes for favorite writers or not-so-favorite ones. Our official policy is to promote Filipino writing. It doesn’t mean that we’ll be kowtowing to every writer just because he or she is Filipino. I dislike several Filipino writers and talk about their work at great length and with much vitriol in other forums, oral or written. Not in this one. If I can string my thoughts together (which range from “Irrelevant bullshit!” to “Ang tanga!”) into a coherent statement on why I dislike a person’s work (i.e., why it should burn in hell), I’ll post it here. We may not be the best writers out there and we certainly aren’t critics, but we aren’t one-liner readers either. Intemperate ranting doth not a commentary make. That’s the policy in this blog.
In conclusion: Always back it up (preferably with lolz) when posting something er unduly provocative under the group name. Yes, thank you.
RT: Had to delete your comment too, to avoid putative apocalyptic scenarios.
Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka
Ode to Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka
Published by Shogakukan
Translated by Vertical
I knew that if I read this book, I would be swept in a heartbeat. But not in the same romantic tale that Tezuka presented to me in Ribon no Kishi. This was way different from what we knew of him. Consider my review a bit dumb and light hearted, but I honestly did not see this in Tezuka. Sure, we’ve seen Kimba, Atom, and Sapphire. In my head, I felt that Tezuka was Disney. Many books on manga said he was Japan’s answer to Disney. So when I grabbed Ode to Kirihito on the shelf the other day, I knew I would have an entire paradigm shift on that old man with a beret. Indeed, I felt like Tezuka struck me with a bat saying “Wake up kid, I’m just as cruel as the other guy.” The man is no Disney, and he will never be one.
My friend Takk was right. This was grim. Far beyond the fairy tales of Ribon no Kishi and the wonder of Atom. Tezuka created a greedy and vengeful world for Kirihito Osanai. And I’m just in awe of his genius.
Just admit that you’ve got it all wrong
Tezuka begins the book with the character of Kirihito Osanai, a young doctor with ambitions to find the source and possibly a cure to a disease that turned humans into dogs. Osanai has a different theory on the rare monmow disease compared to his mentor, Dr. Tatsugaura. Tatsugaura then sends Osanai to the village with the reported case of monmow disease. Osanai leaves without worry of the troubles that would lie ahead in his future. His departure marked the beginning of changes, of which some are truly grim and unbearable. Yes. Not all of Tezuka’s works are nice and fluffy. Ode to Kirihito revolved around the world of medicine, its politics, and its effects on people. The fantastic went as far as the disease that turns you into a dog. This book is beyond Megalopolis and flower beds. The book tackles the darkest of our our emotions.
If I try to encapsulate the entire story of Ode to Kirihito with one word, it would be obstinacy. You have one seasoned doctor who refuses to accept questions about his theories. You have a young doctor who could not deal with the changes in his body. You have a women in deeply and blindly in love. You have a man endlessly atoning for his sins. Each of the characters in this story has a sense of obstinacy and it resonates through out the book. Despite this, you’d never feel annoyed with theme for Tezuka managed to balance them out, presenting them in a more mature light.
When I read this, I honestly didn’t feel that same Tezuka that had written Ribon no Kishi. Some chapters were just too depressing. Just when things were doing along fine, Tezuka whips his pen and creates tragedy upon tragedy. Grim as they were, I still kept on reading. His story and art bridge towards grotesque, yet it was tastefully done that you can still keep on reading. The images were shocking but not traumatizing. Again, I’m just in awe of his genius.
There were still some moments that reminded me of the old Tezuka. His sense of justice was still there. So was his amazing art. There were some moments were the paneling was a bit off, probably an experimentation on his end. But all in all, he drew the story well. An amazing story done by one amazing man.
Aftershock
I am still on a high with Ode to Kirihito. For a moment, while reading, I was thinking “God! This is the stuff that Urasawa is made of!” Then I thought to myself, maybe Urasawa was more like Tezuka. lol. Either way, I’m just amazed with the extent of Urasawa’s talent. Unlike Disney who still keeps children in a dream, Tezuka grew up with his children. He realizes the fact that the same people who loved Atom have now grown up and are looking for an entirely different story altogether. And this was his story for them.
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Note: This article is crossposted in Otaku Champloo. You can purchase the book in any Powerbooks outlets.
Book Fair Updates
Before anything else: Dear AM Radio demagogues — ‘Endangered species’ does not translate to ‘mapanganib na mga hayop.’ Eh kung sinisipa ko kaya kayo.
I have press details for nearly all the Book Fair events so I should be posting them to Libro.ph, well, right now (my Internet connection keeps getting cut off though, thanks, PLDT. Sterling service as always.)
More confirmed attendees:
Wyton Ynion (who’s one of the best literary scholars right now, I think).
Maia Jose (The romance novel writer. I visited her website at http://maiajose.com and I’m very interested in how she’s using the genre to promote women’s advocacies).
By tomorrow I should have everyone’s profiles up in the Programming page of Ang Bagong Libro. Yay. Salamat po sa lahat ng mga pupunta! Still waiting for details from the participating groups in Write Or Die (oh dear, can it be–another website?), but the judges are more or less confirmed: Vim Nadera, Isagani Cruz and (I think!) Karina Bolasco.
Please note that the guests will not be sitting in the same panel. Hindi po keri. The line-up will be posted tomorrow along with respective panel descriptions.
On our front:
Rael came up with the most wondrous volunteer matrix ever. I’ve been puzzling over just how many people we’re supposed to feed (or ask our already overtaxed sponsors to feed) because the number seems to keep shifting everyday and I’m so dumb at stuff like this.
Rael, on the other hand, is an absolute whiz at organizing people and must have been sorting things in her head from Day One. One of the major reasons why RodCon–which was purely volunteer-run–somehow cohered and pushed through despite all the problems we faced (precisely because we lacked professional experience) was because Rael knew how to manage staff.
She was smiling all throughout the volunteer meeting last Saturday while I blabbed on and on about running SIMULATIONS and HOLOGRAPHS. And then she brought out her color-coded notes and I knew it was going to be all right.
I still have panic attacks every now and then but I’m truly grateful to all these people in RoD who’ve been with me since the first, when it was just a very very simple book club and they did not know that they were in for a future of staffing booths on the run, putting up posters and tarpaulins in the most unlikely places, selling tickets to events they knew nothing about, getting shoved at with books to review and websites to update and authors to talk to, running after sponsors, and donating and sacrificing their hard-earned money better used for other things. Salamat at… walang bibitaw? Ewan ko, mga may kuliling nga siguro tayong lahat. Ako, matagal ko nang tanggap na may sayad ako, pero yung pagtiyagaan niyo ito, kayo rin, ano? Don’t know what will happen in the Book Fair. We’ve tried our best up to this point. We never thought that we’d end up in the Book Fair in the first place. This year has been crazy. Corny man, let’s just keep doing what we’re doing, learn from our mistakes, and be as sincere and honest as possible.
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It’s really hard to set aside time to read these days. Sometimes people are too busy that they only scan...
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@ jon - hahah you and your friends rocked! my dad always used to brag that he used up more UP diliman library...
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I used to go to my elementary/high school library a lot. :D Didn’t go to the library that often in college,...
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Good to mention Corso, pure poet. Would you consider linking to the film about him. www.corsothefilm.com
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Automated Alice by Jeff Noon
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Invisible Cities (A Harvest/Hbj Book) by Italo Calvino
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The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
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