Column: The need for more libraries, or for better bookstores

The need for more libraries, or for better bookstores
Rebecca Arcega

Last year, I spent two months vacationing in Wellington, New Zealand and found myself having less control over my time than I’d hoped for.

Not having easy Internet access also left me out of the loop, so I wasn’t able to keep up with the online activities that inspired me to keep working on the Philippine Speculative Fiction blog (http://specfic.philsites.net)

Still, I found that there are some advantages to not being “wired.” One gets more time to think, for one. I think one of the many things about my trip was access to a public library. I was there at least twice a week, and in-between raiding my uncle’s private stash, I foraged in Upper Hutt and took home some titles that I was sure I wouldn’t easily find in the Philippines.

For me, the Upper Hutt Public Library was , quite simply, a little slice of heaven. It had been a while since I was last able to visit a decent library, about four years ago when I was doing research for a certain writing project, and I was able to enter the University of the Philippines Main Library again.

Every time I stepped through the doors of the Upper Hutt Library though, I was bombarded by conflicting emotions. One of them, I was surprised to find, was guilt. I kept thinking about certain people back home who would love the gorgeous selections. I made up my mind to email a friend about the extensive Dragonlance collection I saw, another friend about the newer Iain Banks titles, and someone else about the surprising number of Storm Constantine’s non-Wraeththu books. Hell, I even took pictures.

And I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. I no longer set aside a sizeable amount of my earnings to books, and while I do love to read, I don’t dare call myself a bibliophile anymore.

Yet I was the one who had access to all those books.

It’s a more personal neurosis, I think - I wouldn’t ascribe it to a Pinoy trait, a “girl thing,” or anything so potentially explosive. I simply hate picking up a paperback at Powerbooks and sitting down to read it, because I feel like I’m depriving other more worthy readers of good seats.

I think things like: there’s a kid out there somewhere who needs to read more Rimbaud than I do; I’m just here rereading Un Saison en Enfer for the nth time on a whim. I’ve already read enough and it’s time for me to write; I shouldn’t take up too much space or too many hours. It made me wonder if my self-esteem issues are still within normal, or if I should start seeing a shrink.

Also, it made me think about how quite a few of the active literati in the Philippines can afford to have their own private libraries. I imagine that really good writers consciously know that they will never have read enough, and in their heart of hearts they are always on the lookout for the next textual high.

The question is, how many of our would-be writers can actually afford that high, and how many can’t?

Loving libraries

Growing up, I was a big fan of libraries. I lived within campus during my university years, so I could library-hop in my spare time. My favorites at the time were the UP Main Library (treasure trove!), the Engineering library, and the Fine Arts library. The last time I had to do research there as an alumna, I had to go through a rigorous (and IIRC, somewhat costly) process just to secure a “special” library card. I just don’t know if students from other schools would have an equally hard time.

But in high school, I used to live one hour away from my campus in Malolos, yet I braved the heat and the traffic during weekends just to be able to visit the town’s public library. Granted, I was very much the little nerd at the time: I grabbed at whatever meant access to books that I could read almost for free.

2007 Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing once spoke of the need for good libraries, saying that “In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, with the tradition.” We always hear talk of Pinoy writers needing to write more. But as a good friend once said and I never forgot: “The more I read, the more I want to write.” Some of us tend to notice it off the bat - our most productive times are when we are in the company of other artists, when we’re being forced to catch up with a reading list, when we’ve just experienced something awesome and we’re driven to share it with other people. In short, when we’re being inspired.

And in other countries, they have places where you can just walk in and be inspired, and you have no excuse not to be. When somebody says “I think you should read ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ by Susanna Clarke,” you don’t have to shell out P600 just to take that godawful thick but hugely entertaining title home. You don’t have to commute 20 miles to the library at the metropolis or strain your eyes reading pirated ebooks (which are usually badly formatted and poorly spellchecked, by the way) just to catch up with the artists you admire.

We already have a fair number of great bookshops and publishing houses, but I’m wondering if they would ever be able to afford customer-friendlier sales schemes. At Dymock’s bookshop, you can even return a brand-new book within a certain number of days, and as long as it’s in excellent condition you can exchange it for another title - with adjustments duly made to the cost, of course! To be honest, I don’t know if our local bookshops operate with a similar principle, but I’d sure love to see something besides the traditional “No return, no exchange” policy.

Right now, I live near a mall. This mall has a National Bookstore outlet. I notice one specific teenage boy poring through the books in the Filipiniana section almost every time I visit. But every time I approach him to try and ask him about himself, he shies away, as if he’s expecting that I wanted the space to browse through the Filipiniana section for myself.

I can’t help but think this boy should be in a library, not sneaking around in a bookstore.

I don’t blame publishers for wanting to make money. I certainly don’t hate bookshops, especially ones that make it a point to stock not only bestsellers, but Really Good Books. All this helps in furthering literacy in the country. But you still have to ask what’s slowing us down, what’s making it harder for the rest of us to catch up.

Make no mistake here, I’m not nursing a resentment for people who have the means to buy the next bestseller hot off the shelves and think P200 for a hardcover is a great buy - for the record it’s a huge bargain, but I think I’ll wait for the paperback to go on sale. But I do want to call more attention to the rift that is being created by lack of access to information. Are we really asking to breed more novelists, when even local novels cost P500 a pop, our cost-effective presses can only produce a limited number of quality titles, and our benchmarks of modern literature are only available via Amazon.com? Are we serious about expecting people to become better writers, when it’s so difficult for them to even have an idea what good writing is?

Moreover, and just to be clear, what I’m saying is not “How can we guilt-trip the haves into slowing down for the have-nots?” but “How can we empower the have-nots so they can finally catch up?”

I’m aware that inequalities will persist. It doesn’t follow that just because we will have more and better libraries, we’ll be able to breed better writers - i.e., that people will actually go to those libraries, and read, and be inspired. It’s not that simple.

Still, if we’re serious about our dedication to literacy, and if we’re serious about wanting to pull our fellow writers up to global standards, we should at least acknowledge certain realities about the playing field. There’s “coddling” and there’s “helping,” and right now we’re still at that stage where we need all the help we can get.

May 6, 2008 | Filed Under Read or Die, Books, Reading | 4 Comments

Column: Reading Dangerously

Promoting reading and love for books might seem the most innocuous of advocacies, and perhaps–from a certain perspective—kind of boring. Other people seem to harbor an existential sort of fascination with the name of our organization; on our part, the only advantage is that we are not in any danger of being automatically considered as unreconstructed bluestockings, especially when confronted with lofty frat boys. Not that we—or any reader—should care. However I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve run into our share of Lovecraftian weirdness. Publishers and editors have recounted numerous stories of being stalked by aspiring writers. But reams of psychological suspense and slasher novels are written about and starring bibliophiles, and for good reason.

A mysterious self-confessed male person sent me a caustic text message asking why most published Filipino writers are “elitist, pompous, boring, university-bred asshats” and “why can’t we have Filipino versions of Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs?” A day or so later he followed it up with a question–addressed to ‘Read Or Die’–what ‘a priori’ meant because he’d started reading Arthur Schopenhauer. I didn’t reply to his earlier messages and had no phone credit when the a priori question came up. He repeatedly insisted that I reply because he had nobody to ask and he was only a minimum-wage earner employed by the government and a lapsed alcoholic with poetic pretensions who’d started to get back to reading again, specifically philosophy texts. I had to bite and replied via Yahoo Messenger with a hash definition of ‘a priori’ (throwing in ‘a posteriori’ for good measure). He thanked me politely enough. I found the entire thing rather intriguing. Civil servants reading Schopenhauer! There was hope for this country yet.

The next day he sent another message to ‘Read Or Die’ saying that he’d also started reading the Marquis de Sade and then followed it up with a polemic bemoaning the inadequacies of English-Filipino dictionaries. I sent a brief reply saying that this could possibly be addressed by mass circulation of translated texts but wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen. He made some sort of derisive rejoinder–I’d begun to notice that he was rather touchy and unpredictable–and then asked for my email and MySpace page. I didn’t reply.

That’s when he started flooding. He kept sending ‘Hey, Read or Die’ messages and ‘Why aren’t you answering me? Are you feeling threatened?’ I deleted the messages as they came because my inbox had very limited capacity, and honestly, only an idiot would take the bait this time around.

The next day he seemed relatively calmer and told me about his band and said in a self-mocking tone that for some reason he’d started thinking of me as the the Jack Kerouac to his Neal Cassady. I didn’t reply. Despite the underlying mockery, I thought the comment must either point to an incredibly naive and romanticized view of the Beat poets or to an equally incredible conceit (Neal Cassidy was Jack Kerouac’s psychedelic muse, Ginsberg’s ’secret hero.’) He recommended several books for Read or Die to read–aside from his obvious partiality for skid row writers with destructive personalities and European philosophers with more of the same, his taste also seemed to run towards biting suburban American novels with soft and dry cores, like ‘Bridges of Madison Country.’

He spammed me again later that evening with more demands and goading sarcastic comments. I turned off my phone. The next afternoon he ventured with an almost timid question asking me if I’d read Nietzsche and if so which books would I recommend. I should also have ignored this, but I found him interesting and quixotic and sad despite his rudeness and high-strung temperament. I replied with “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and “Beyond Good and Evil.” He asked me why I did not pick something like “The Gay Science” which was purportedly symptomatic Nietzsche. I said that I hadn’t chosen the books I did based on whether or not they are ‘representative,’ but on the basis of philosophical and aesthetic continuity. He asked me who Zarathustra was. I replied and recommended a few books on German history and philosophy and left it at that. He didn’t, of course.

”Wow,” said Anon. “You’ve even read Nietzsche? You must be a famous professor, writer or columnist. Or somebody really old, which is why you take so long to reply, your fingers must be rheumatic.”

I did not reply.

Anon continued: “You must be all of 60, I’d say. Why aren’t you replying Ms. Read or Die? Have I offended your refined intellectual sensibilities again with my lower-class boorishness? Somebody like you who’s read German philosophy and has the luxury to found a book club for equally privileged bourgeois kids… I wouldn’t be surprised. How old are you?”

I wondered where he got the energy to write polysyllabic texts.

”You must be horrendously ugly as well. Buried in your books.”

Well, I was only human. I replied that I was not elderly, rich, refined or privileged. I also didn’t know about being ugly.

Anon shot back with a rather nasty query about what sort of milk formula my parents fed me so that I would have developed a penchant for the canon of German philosophy.

I didn’t reply.

“My dear Ms. Read or Die,” Anon sneered. “Cat got your tongue again? Please spare the time to talk to me and bridge the gap, however fleeting, between the working class and the upper class.”

”I don’t know why you keep harping on the question of our respective backgrounds, Mr. Pseudo-Semi-Proletarian,” I sneered back. “Please keep your illusions to yourself. As for mending the class war, if you’d read Marx–which I assume you have since you’re so obsessed with your social condition–you would know that’s rank heresy. You should be shot in the head. Good day.” My fingers were starting to hurt.

”Pseudo?” howled Anon. “I’m a true-blue-dyed-in-the-wool peon, Ma’am. I was a gasoline boy, sold sweepstakes tickets, worked in a farm, subsisted for a while as a gutter poet, took out an eleven-year research fellowship in Alcoholism, and am now staring at a bleak, pathetic and altogether boring future as a cog in this accursed government machinery. But you wouldn’t know that, of course. What’s your name?”

Didn’t reply. He went on to talk about classical music, jazz (inclusive of malicious asides regarding Steve Cooke) and why am I not replying, was I guilty, was I threatened.

Anon: Forget about being Jack Kerouac. You are clearly Tinker Bell to my Peter Pan. Hey, Tink. Are you there?

I turned off my phone again.

Received more text messages the next morning, which I again ignored though it was getting harder to send my own text messages, and met a fellow RoD member for lunch, who was witness to yet more messages. Apparently Mr. Working Class had taken a half day from work and biked home and on the way came up with ever sharper and provoking retorts guaranteed 100% to ensure him a fair hearing. This included a vague Marxist critique of Vivaldi and rhapsodies on the jazz canon as well as more sly digs about my status in life and possible intellectual pretensions.

Anyway, you get what we’re up against. If it’s not bleeding heart writers, you have pseudo-proletarian poets who think we’re their ticket to fame (Lord knows where they get the idea). Mia was of the opinion that—from a strictly interpersonal perspective—it was another variation of sexist playground behavior. Get the girl’s attention by calling her rude names, shivering, in the meantime, with the delicious anticipation of having her pull your hair in retaliation. I don’t exactly revel in the attention but I did find this person interesting and wondered how he conducted his real-life interactions. He struck me as abrasive, lonely, insecure and a bit schizophrenic. He’s also terribly articulate (in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a good poet–he did style himself in those terms) and I think his anger at social injustice is very real. There’s also quite a lot of vain grandstanding and self-delusion. All in all, a novelistic package.

I don’t think that I’d like to be his friend, though (least of all a readymade amanuensis/Muse), and I could really do without the provoking messages and constant demands for attention. Ignoring him seems to be a good way to force him to temper himself. He apologized one night for his foul comments and said that he was only trying to get my attention. Well, I don’t know if he’s that desperate for my upper-class conversation or if he sees me, possibly the first female of his acquaintance who’s read his German philosophers (for whom he professes his usual mixture of contempt and ambivalent admiration), as a reflection of his own brilliance. He does seem intent to carve out some sort of half-crazed, half-fantastic, overall debased Beat-Marxist fairytale where rich girl dwelling in ivory tower breathing in the rarefied air of dead books and dead knowledge meets poor boy, the genius poet with a violent and melancholic past. And together they fight illiteracy and capitalistic exploitation.

March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Read or Die, Books, Reading | 11 Comments

Read Or Die Column: The 2007 National Book Development Board Readership Survey

*We’re not posting all our columns to the blog–because we forget, but once (or right after) the online edition comes out I’ll try to re-post the column here. To those asking: the column comes out every Wednesday and Saturday at the Youth and Campus section of Manila Bulletin.

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

by Kristine Mandigma (2/2/2008)

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) presented the results of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey on November 28, 2007 at the Discovery Suites, Pasig City. I attended the presentation as a representative of Read Or Die along with several publishers, educators, librarians, and other reading advocates.

The National Book Development Board is the government agency tasked with strengthening the book industry in the Philippines. Under its Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez and its dynamic Executive Directory Atty. Andrea Flores, the NBDB has expanded its programs to include a strong advocacy for reading. The NBDB Readership Survey is one of their most important projects. A previous readership survey was conducted in March 2003 by the Social Weather Station (SWS)

The survey was conducted as a rider of 65 questions in the June 2007 survey done by the Social Weather Station (SWS). The March 2003 was conducted as a rider of 41 questions. According to a statement issued by NBDB Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, it covered the following topics: reading preferences, patterns of purchase and acquisition, influences on book selection and non-schoolbook readership, and attitudes towards books and reading.

The highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey are as follows. I am replicating—with permission—the contents of the summary issued by the National Book Development Board for the benefit of the general public who may not have access to the survey results (alas, readership surveys are not as exciting as the latest rumors about pork barrel scandals). You may also acquire a copy of the survey as well as the full complement of statistical data at the National Book Development Board Office, 2/F NPO Building, EDSA cor. NIA Northside Road, Diliman, Quezon City.

Highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

The percentage of book readers in 2007 (83%) has decreased as compared to 2003 (90%).

Nearly all (96%) book readers in 2007 read non-school books (NSBs), while only three-fourths (76%) of book readers in 2003 read NSBs.

Among book readers:

Those who have read NSBs in the NCR decreased in 2007 compared to 2003.

All other groups who have read NSBs increased.

Among NSB readers:

Weekly/monthly readers of NSBs decreased in 2007.

Those who read NSBs a few times a year or less than once a year increased in 2007.

Packaging is what is noticed by the highest number, but not a majority, of NSB readers.

The blurb found at the book is also noticed.

Most NSB readers, however, do not notice information such as the NSB publisher, date of publication, author, and whether or not the NSB has several good reviews.

Overall, the percentage of NSB readers increased from 68% (76% of 90% book readers in 2003) to 80% (90% of 8% book readers in 2007).

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey says that Filipinos are starting to read non-school books at an earlier age.

NSB readers are starting to read a year younger.

From 17.2 years in 2003, the average age of those who start to read NSBs decreased to 16.4 years in 2007.

The readers of non-schoolbooks in classes ABC began doing so at an older age compared to 2003. However, readers of NSBs in classes D and E started to read NSBs at a younger age in 2007.

What do Filipinos read?

For both 2003 and 2007, the Bible is the most popular non-schoolbook read. Romance books come in second.

Top scorers in the popularity of NSBs are:

Bible (67%) (38% in 2003)
Romance (33%) (26%)
Cooking (28%) (7%)
Comic books (26%) (0%)
Religion/Religious/Inspirational (20%) (9%)

Why do Filipinos read?

As in 2003, the main reason for reading non-schoolbooks is still for information, or to gain knowledge.

However, more NSBs are reading NSBs for enjoyment in 2007, compared to 2003.

Whose books do Filipinos read?

In 2007, 46% of readers of non-schoolbooks read NSBs by Filipino authors only.

43% read NSBs by both Filipino authors and foreign authors.

9% read NSBs by foreign authors only.

In the rural areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino and foreign authors increased significantly (20%+) in 2007.

In the urban areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino authors only increased slightly (5%+) in 2007.

Means of acquiring books

NSB readers in 2007 acquired the NSBs they read by:

Receiving the books as gifts (42%)
Borrowing from others (41%)
Reading books from the library (27%)
Buying (19%)
Renting (18%)

Among all groups of NSB readers, receiving NSBs as gifts and borrowing from others are the most prevalent.

In what language do Filipinos prefer to read books?

Tagalog (Read: 50%) (Preferred: 32%)

English (Read: 35%) (Preferred: 15%)

Cebuano (Read: 5.97%) (Preferred: 4.6%)

Bisaya (Read: 5.73%) (Preferred: 4.41%)

Ilocano (Read: 4.72%) (Preferred: 4.1%)

Arabic (Read: 1.98%) (Preferred: 1.94%)

Ilonggo (Read: 1.18%) (Preferred: 0.91%)

Source: 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

In conclusion

The summary outlined above gives us a pretty descriptive picture of the state of reading in the Philippines. While questions have been raised about the sampling methods and the structure of survey questions along with the terminology used by the SWS (the unfortunate use of ‘Tagalog’ for one), the study itself yields interesting results.

According to Dr. Linda Luz Guerrero, Vice President of SWS and presenter of the survey results, Filipinos read an average of three books a year. That is not so much interesting as very sad. A couple of people questioned this claim, citing the phenomenal popularity of Harry Potter. I don’t really see the connection, unless it’s discovered that those three books that Filipinos read annually are all Harry Potter titles, in which case it would also be kind of funny. Furthermore, while the resurgence of reading brought about by Harry Potter should be celebrated, especially after the release of Book 7, a number of critics have rightly pointed out that reading Harry Potter doesn’t automatically turn people into readers.

Ron Charles wrote about Pottermania and the ‘death of reading’ in an article in the Washington Post. I think it’s an interesting viewpoint. While a lot of fans and reading advocates marvel at the fact that Harry Potter makes young people read through the sheer magic and pull of its storyline, and that it has become a unique phenomenon in the sense of uniting readers all over the world together, awaiting every new installment with a fervor that no author has generated since Charles Dickens with his considerably less media-oriented reading public, Ron Charles points out that such a unity “has almost nothing to do with the unique pleasures of reading a novel: that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves — without a movie version or a set of action figures. Through no fault of Rowling’s, Potter mania nonetheless trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide.” He emphasizes the importance of a ‘real engagement’ with books that can never be conditioned by marketing hysteria and that the practically monomaniacal obsession with Harry Potter by its readers may have paradoxically created “the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.”

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if for most young Filipinos, those three books would indeed turn out to be Books 1-3 (or 4-7) of the Harry Potter series. Or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or the first three installments of Precious Hearts’ delightfully intriguing Stallion series. I know dedicated readers who are serial monogamists. They can subsist happily on a steady supply of a certain kind of story. While I would personally recommend a more balanced diet, as long as they’re not pointing at the sky and screaming about Dark Marks and trying to off each other through pointing wands, I’m okay with it. Reading is reading, as Dr. Ned Roberto—professor at the Asian Institute of Management and the resource person tasked with interpreting the survey results from a market-oriented perspective—pointed out. 83% of the population read books. It’s not a sign of the apocalypse. Let’s set aside distinctions between functional literacy and true literacy for now. Eight out of ten Filipinos read books. Compared with other Asian countries, that’s a respectable statistic.

What is a source of concern and should be further studied is the nature of social shifts in reading habits. People read as a matter of course. What we should address is why they read the way they do. For instance, the number of NSB readers in the NCR has fallen drastically while the number of NSB readers in the Visayas has risen in a similarly dramatic fashion. Given that bookstores and libraries are concentrated in Manila, what are we to make of this? Attendees in the presentation put forth theories which ranged from the tentative to bold assertions about the increasingly hybrid nature of reading materials. Since readers in Manila have more access to a diverse array of (distracting) media—computers, video games, television shows, etcetera—they are not inclined to focus on just one media—in this case a book—to educate or entertain them. While it has been a long-held fear that the advent of the Internet will demolish reading once and for all, Dr. Roberto pointed out that the Internet may only have extended reading in ways that traditional print-bound readers would not have anticipated. And it’s not just the Internet. Reading has become a multi-media platform in other parts of the world. Books are turned into movies and movies are novelized. Novels serialized in the Internet are printed out and become instant bestsellers in China and Korea. Japan, ever the country of novelties, has introduced the cellphone novel. The wired denizens of Manila have yet to catch up on the more interesting trends or—on the part of publishers—to integrate non-book media in a way that will impact their reading, but they are susceptible to the technologies which would make these things possible.

Still, they must be doing something right over at the Visayas. One is inclined to paint a bucolic picture of diligent young readers bent over their books by the flickering light of a gas lamp—and in certain parts of the country this may well be an actual scenario, with less idyllic whitewashing and more focus on the fundamental truth of poverty and social inequality in the regions. Poor students who can’t afford to buy the latest gadgets or to go online whenever they feel like it will have to read more, if only because doing so might secure them better grades and a fighting chance to get into universities in Manila. The role of parents in such a situation is especially acute. Educators have always agreed that reading should start at home, but in the case of lower- to middle-class homes, this acquires an extra and perhaps more urgent dimension. Poor parents are more likely to buy their children books because these are perceived to give them leverage in terms of educational opportunities. In fact, Dr. Queena Lee-Chua—member of the NBDB Governing Board and one of the commentators at the presentation—noted that the NBDB and other concerned reading groups should make it a point to solicit feedback from parents in public schools with regard to how they implement reading in their homes or the relative importance of books in the familial hierarchy of needs.

Another interesting result is the fact that Filipinos—whether in the NCR or elsewhere—do not buy books the read. They get them as gifts. In a lecture on the history of the book in the Philippines last July, Dr. May Jurilla of the University of the Philippines pointed out that books in the Philippines have acquired a decorative, even aesthetic function, which has superseded its more utilitarian applications (i.e., as sources of information). This should explain the popularity of coffee table books in a country where cheap paperbacks rarely sell more than 1000 copies. Filipinos tend to display books—like wedding knickknacks and travel souvenirs—instead of, well, reading them. For some reason, the notion of a book as a decorative item has crossed over to the notion of a book as a worthy gift item, which would then presumably be enshrined as a decoration. Such is the circuitous nature of Filipino cultural exchanges. My mother—along with countless other Filipino mothers—has received several sets of perfectly useful dinnerware over the years. We have yet to touch a single spoon and instead eat off plastic ware. The dinnerware sits in pompous splendor in the kitchen cabinet, like remnants of an obscure shipwreck. In a trip to Barcelona, my mother bought me several huge volumes on Greek prehistory and archeology, which I couldn’t read as comfortably as I would have liked—inasmuch as you could derive relaxation from reading about how to date Mycenean helmets—because she insisted on shelving them inside more glass cases. I imagine the presence of similar glass shelves in similar living rooms all over the country. Come to think of it, this might also be the reason why there’s very little discourse of and about books in this country. I’m speaking in terms of general readership. It’s kind of hard to embark on a literary discussion—outside established if small literary circles—when most of your favorite books are shrink-wrapped.

To go back to the reading survey, I’m still thinking of ways through which we could effectively synthesize the results in order to map a coherent reading campaign though a more thorough research into Filipino cultural history and behavior with regard to the functions and symbolism of books in our society should also be part of such an enterprise. Filipinos do read. But like everything else in this country—the way we approach politics and revolutions, the way we behave in traffic, the way we pray in churches—the reasons why we do it are probably obscure even to us.

February 9, 2008 | Filed Under Read or Die, Reading | 9 Comments

Reader’s Quirks (Sorta)

I like hardbound books more than paperback books. I can’t help it – hardbound books are easier to carry around because you don’t ever have to worry about their covers getting bent at every slight movement, and you don’t have to fear them splitting at the spines like with paperbacks. Course, they’re heavier, thrice as bulky, and more difficult to stuff in your bag, but they’re hardy enough that you don’t need to.

By this time, you can tell that I’m the kind of person who’d rather endure pain than damage her books. It’s mostly true, though I’ve also been known to dog-ear a few favorites here and there. It’s more like: I want my books to live a long life, so I want to preserve them in their best condition as much as possible. You should see my old shelf – I had my books covered with a towel plus the glass just to keep the dust out. On that same note, it’s also obvious that I’m not the type to eat while reading, or the type to read outdoors unless desperate. I don’t use bulky bookmarks, either; instead I use plain paper (I don’t fold it, goodness, no).

The thing is, I don’t really particularly mind if my books get damaged. I think I may have an obsession for trying to keep them looking new, but when I damage them, I get over it fairly quickly (two minutes). It might be because I used to lend books to classmates as a kid, and they always returned to me all bent and ratty, and they always told me that I gave the books to them in that condition. Excuse me? No way! Hence, the obsession.

I think if I had a reader’s quirk, this would be it, the manic obsession for trying to protect my books. You probably have some, too, like reading your books upside down or something. Share and explain!

If you have articles to submit, please to be e-mailing me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com .

November 13, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Miscellany, Reading | Leave a Comment

Adventurous Me

Admittedly, I’m not a very wide reader, and I haven’t really read many different books in my life. I’m not very adventurous with what I read. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most adventurous, I’d be on a pathetic three.

Anyway, my point is, I’m not widely read, and when I go to bookstores, I seriously don’t know what to buy. Well, I buy it if it’s on sale, or if it’s gay, or it has something to do with main male characters, and if it has as little romance as possible. I’m very loyal to authors. If I know that this so and so author has a book that I’ve liked, I’ll buy his other books, but I’m not the type to pick up a book that’s not familiar to me. (I’ve done so a few times and they mostly all nice, though, like Geisha of Gion, and I think it would be nice if I buy stuff that I choose on my own once in a while, so I can also recommend things to my friends, among other things.)

So anyway, the books that I read are usually recommendations by my friends, Lyn and Pam in particular. I trust their judgment, and they know what I like (crack, main males, crack, crack). I also pick up books that I hear my other friends gush about all the time, or whatever’s familiar. As long as I’ve heard of it before, I have no qualms about buying it, but otherwise, they have to be on sale or very attractive (which means that half of the contents of my book shelf are stuff that you can also find in my friend’s shelves). It usually takes me a very long time to decide if I want to buy something on my own, especially if they’re books that even my very widely read friends are not familiar with. The good thing about it is, my friends are, as I have said, very widely read, which means that I DO get to buy and borrow and read books of different themes. I suppose it’s a vicarious wideness, if I may label it as such.

I don’t know why, exactly, I’m such a chicken about picking up a random book and just reading it. Is it because I don’t want to waste time and money reading a story that I don’t like? I read to enjoy myself, and not really for anything else. I know some of you here read to write, or read to learn. I… just simply do it for entertainment. Of course, there have been many books that I read to gain knowledge from, but mostly it’s just because it’s a good story and I like immersing myself in it. That’s not to say that the way I read is shallow, but it’s more of, I first enjoy it the way I think it should be enjoyed, and breaking the elements down come after I’m done with that (if I want to study it further). Some of you may find my approach very naïve or… dare I say, dumb? though.

If you want your article to be published in this blog, please email me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com

November 2, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Miscellany, Reading | 6 Comments

Shoujo and Sumo!?

If monkeys can draw manga then shoujo heroines can do sumo!? Seriously. Upon the recommendation of many friends who are fans of manga, I had to get my hands on the book “Even a Monkey can Draw Manga” a series of ‘columns’ written by two men trying to explain to readers the formula needed to create a successful manga. And since many RoD people are into shoujo, check out what he has to say about Shoujo comics and Sumo wrestling.

Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga v01 p070

This piece was probably written during the early 90s, when girls were still in a daze over their high school captains and rock stars. And sumo aside, this formula is still being followed in many manga titles today (Mayu Shinjo and Watase Yuu at the front, yo!). There are only a few authors who broke this formula (Tomoko Ninomya?), but I guess pubescent girls like their sumo in their shoujo.

This is just a teaser for this extremely funny book. It even covers other manga genres such as gag and shounen. I’ll be looking into this in a few weeks and see the practical applications of this insane manga manual. For those who aspire to become manga artists, this could be the only book you’ll ever need.

This post was done for the regular Comics/Graphic Novel feature of Read or Die. If you have any suggestions on titles to feature, or if you just want me to post about a particular title or topic regarding comics, feel free to contact me at punkednoodle@gmail.com, or visit my manga website, Otaku Champloo.

October 23, 2007 | Filed Under Reviews, Reading | 1 Comment

Poetry Mondays: The British East India Company also dealt in crack.

An Except from Rudyard Kipling’s The Elephant’s Child

I Keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five.
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men:
But different folk have different views:
I know a person small–
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ‘em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes–
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!

from Just So Stories for Little Children (1902)

October 22, 2007 | Filed Under Reading | 1 Comment

Abridged or Unabridged?

So here’s a question that popped out in my head when I was looking at my copy of The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: Abridged or Unabridged?

When a book has been ‘abridged,’ it basically means that it has been shortened and parts of it have been cut out. Of course, ‘unabridged’ means that nothing significantly lengthy has taken out of the book.

Personally, I prefer the unabridged version unless the book is something that I have to read for school. I’d rather read the book in its complete form rather than miss out on anything. People can edit and translate and make the book more readable, sure, but I don’t like it when whole chunks or chapters of it are removed, no matter how unnecessary people say these parts are. I just—I feel cheated! It’s like eating oreos without the middle, or ending up having to sit with just half your butt on the jeepney seat.

My opinion may be because of past experiences. I first read Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, as well as Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask abridged. I didn’t quite enjoy it as much, given that I thought some of the chapters didn’t connect well enough and I was pretty confused when the characters referred to something that just wasn’t in any part of the book. Don’t get me started on the abridged version of Sherlock Holmes – detective stories with missing parts? Blasphemy!

Since then, I’ve tried my best to keep away from abridged books. ~~I find that their book covers aren’t as pretty, anyway.~~ Of course, I still don’t know if a book is unabridged or abridged if it doesn’t say so anywhere on the book cover in big letters, but here’s to hoping that I didn’t get any abridged books last book fair.

What about you?

If you want to submit articles to the RoD blog, just email me or any of the members so we can put it up for you~ My email address is yukitsuyk@yahoo.com.

October 19, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Miscellany, Reading | 2 Comments

Manga rising from the dead

It’s a rare for us to have a chance to understand the world of manga. Many manga studies in English are available only in comic journals or as expensive books in bookstores. Fortunately, Comipress came up with a translation project for one of the most interesting books on manga studies, Manga Zombie. It’s written by Udagawa Takeo and it details the downward spiral of manga during the 80’s and the lives of the artists who struggled to keep the industry dynamic.

The translation is still in its infancy. The preface gives a primer on manga history and how the level of creativity began to subside and then level out with the emergence of formulaic magazines such as Shounen Jump*. He describes Shounen Jump’s formula as the “Great Two System”, wherein artists are placed in a bind with Shounen Jump and have to perform well in the extremely competitive readers’ survey at the risk of getting fired. Udagawa even adds,

“Their system has leeched the art out of manga. The artists are interchangeable, like spare parts in a machine. But the ‘Great Two’ system offers publishers stability, and all the major companies have adopted it.”

It’s really interesting isn’t it? Many Filipinos have been hooked line and sinker by many stories in Shounen Jump. For us, these stories are refreshing and creative. So for a critic like Udagawa to say that Shounen Jump has killed creativity in the manga industry shows us that there is much more to the industry than the casual reader might think. Udagawa implies the promise of a new world of manga, one emerging from the decay brought on by Jump.

* Note: Shounen Jump is a weekly magazine in Japan that publishes popular mangas such as Yu Yu Hakusho (Ghost Fighter), Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, and Bleach.

October 16, 2007 | Filed Under Reviews, Reading | Leave a Comment

Poetry Monday: Our preacher was on crack, thank you very much.

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1872)

October 15, 2007 | Filed Under Reading | 4 Comments

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