I will admit, reading has never been a strong point for me, especially novels. True, I read the occasional webcomic and article, but a novel, not really. For HUMALIT however, I was tasked to read about two novels; one local and one foreign. Enter Galaw ng Asoge and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Asoge in English is mercury, a curious metal that actually takes the form of liquid. The novel is a tricky one, very intricate and yet deliberate, just like mercury. The novel is full of signs and symbols used to portray the characters such as the ghost ship in Danakbunga and the eruption of Taal Volcano. Capturing the thoughts of characters and in a way manipulating them to their will. With these events, you somehow relate to the characters as they struggle with their lives as well as get an inkling as to what they are really capable of as well as thinking.
In the other side of things we have The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Díaz's portrait of a society that marries sex and violence with frightening casualness is funny as well as disturbing. Oscar's sister almost expects boyfriends to treat her badly; one brief childhood girlfriend of Oscar's, Maritza, "was a girl who seemed to delight in getting slapped around by her boyfriends", while his mother acquired boyfriends as a young woman only when her breasts became huge. The machismo of second-generation Dominican-American culture is an endless source of anguish to the young Oscar, and you know that his life is going to be brief because he's too gentle for it.
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