The Center of the World by Andreas Steinhöfel: The Review

(In which I list the reasons why I can’t get enough of this book.)

***

I have been spouting portions of this book for the last two consecutive entries in this blog. And there’s a reason. This book was just amazing. I think so because:

1. It deals about an unusual family.

Phil’s homosexuality has been known to his family since he was nine after he passed the fairy test and they accept and love him for he is. It actually reminds me of a Glee episode.

Kurt Hummel: Dad. I have something that I want to say. I'm glad that you're proud of me. But I don't want to lie anymore. Being a part of the Glee Club and football has really shown me that I can be anything, and what I am, is, I'm gay.

Burt Hummel: I know.

Kurt Hummel: Really?

Burt Hummel: I've known since you were three. All you wanted for your birthday was a pair of sensible heels. I guess I'm not totally in love with the idea, but, if that's who you are, there's nothing I can do about it. And I love you just as much. Ok?

Phil himself doesn’t care of how other people will see him, which is a good manifestation of self-acceptance. The novel describes in detail how Phil deals with his unusual family – he’s never known his father, his mother was the town whore, his sister was perceived as an animal whisperer and a botany enthusiast which translates to being a complete freak and they’ve got two lesbian lovers as closes friends – and how he loves all of them all the same.

The unusualness lies in the presentation of a somehow normally complex social unit. There isn’t a perfect or a normal family – the one without issues. Or maybe I’m the only one who thinks so because I have a complicated clan as well. But this type of characters brings the story a closer-to-life feel.

2. It has other forms of complexities.

Aside from the basic character backgrounds, the story is also filled with psychological and philosophical episodes. Each character is presented through the lenses of Phil and the development occurs with the help of his memory and his connection with every important aspect in his life – both living and inanimate. One striking factor is his conversation with his doll, Paleiko and the usual dose of philosophical advices and lectures from Mr. Handel.

3. It’s about one of the most cliché topics in fiction – love.

The story revolves around human relationships and Phil’s love for the people who matter – his mother Glass, his twin sister Dianne, their closest friends Tereza and Pascal, his bestfriend Kat and his boyfriend Nicholas. But it’s not just a story about love. Juxtaposed with it is the realization of one’s self as well as defiance and betrayal.

4. I love the center of Phil’s world.

We all have different centers of our world. A person’s world might compose of just a thing, a person or a group of people. It might be a place. If one’s too obsessed the place or thing might also be positioned in the center of something, say, a house. Okay, that’s weird.

But the center of Phil’s world is worth the title. And I share the same thoughts as his.

Sometimes it was easy to escape from reality. I could totally cut it our for days, sometimes for weeks on end. The books I borrowed transported me into adventures that were as vivid and different form one another as the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, and always had the same effect: they enveloped me like a protective cloak and hid me from the Little People, from the world out there. This was the reason I loved the library. For me it was the center of the world.
– page 134

Currently reading

That Mean Old Yesterday by Stacey Patton

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

(In which the lonesome and kind-hearted deserve refuge.)

***

I have been reading this book before Christmas and another season is already approaching yet I haven’t even finished half of it for lack of time. It is about the daughter of a drunkard and a romantically unfortunate (at least for now) Delphine Watzka and the German butcher Fidelis. When Delphine met Eva, Fidelis’ wife, she was overwhelmed with admiration for everything she does and she loved Eva as a dear friend. She stayed with her until she finally died and so her children went under the agonizing supervision of Tante, Fidelis’ sister – a pious Lutheran who despised Eva being a Catholic.
What made Delphine’s “married life” (for she has only made a self proclamation that they were married and even bought a ring to save her from utter shame) miserable began right after she discovered her husband Cyprian’s homosexuality one afternoon on a park bench. The proverb “The truth will set you free” seems appropriate as they came to understand each other more after the truth was out. Delphine realized that Cyprian loved her with a love for a sister. And now she has lost Eva and was somehow bound to take care of everything that she has left which includes her sons and Fidelis. And then she has her own life to fix.

I wonder how it is to be there to take care of people yet no one’s there to look after you. And I was in a state of sheer disbelief when she still took Cyprian in her arms and home right after he came from another man’s lap without any questions asked. And then there’s the doubt if she really loved him and until when she can put up with the nights they spent sexually together which happen very rarely and only out of obligation and not will. And how about the days when he travel? She is no dummy not to know what he does but she still hangs on to every moment she has with Cyprian as if they were true manifestations of the self-same love she has for him.

What I have in my mind right now as I continue to flip the pages was the hope that Delphine marry Fidelis someday and have a normal life. Besides, they were two lonely souls. Well, it’s too early to tell, I know.

Currently Reading:
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

Pornography, Art and the English Hayden Kho

(In which the painter in me speaks.)

***

The moment I began to be more familiar with the horribly disfigured John Ashe from Harrison’s novel, I couldn’t stop myself from comparing him with the Phantom of the Opera not only because both half of their faces was hideous but also because of the darkness in them. Erik’s was passionate and murderous; Ashe’s was passionate and lecherous. I am still uncertain whether I consider Ashe murderous. But I blame him, albeit incompletely, for Suzannah’s misfortune and death.

***

What convinced me to buy this book is its inclination to art and artists, particularly painters in which I was restrained for being in a long time. As the secrets become known to me, an old debate among artists, and non-artists, rose again:

When is a work art and when is it considered pornography?

In our third year in the high school for the arts, we had a chance to have an exclusive nude painting session done not at our studio but in a private residence. The mere fact that it was done outside the school’s premises gave the experience a spirit of illicitness but it was nonetheless thrilling. We have painted her – our very professional model – the same way we do a bunch of fruits in a basket, only we are not allowed to touch our sitter.

When we got back to our dusty studio the next week, our professor asked our opinions –the only three girls in the group.

“How did you feel during the session?”

I was asked first. “Nothing,” I answered, “we’re artists anyway.” The other guys chuckled at the sound of the self proclamation. I looked back at them and we shared a moment of silent laughter through eye contact. We’re artists.

The other girls were asked too and replied the same way. Whether it was done to make our comments unified so as not to make a fuss or it wasn’t really a big deal for them as it was for me, I don’t know.

We studied each others’ works and told some their flaws and accepted our own. We looked at pictures of naked women – some solo shots and some showing them in the middle of busy painters. I noticed at once that the usual poses show women sitting on a bed or a couch with their arms on their sides for support as well as to expose their breasts, with one of their legs over the other to conceal what is necessary; or lying down with their head resting on their palm a-la Kate Winslet in Titanic; (Yes, with the signature necklace.) or just standing against a wall.

Honestly, I don’t find it pornographic, or even insulting, despite my professor’s deeper probing.

“Don’t you find it embarrassing, considering that it’s another girl you’re painting? Don’t you feel as though it was you being painted in the nude?”

All of said no. We reasoned out that it was not really us to begin with and that having them in the center of our attention is not for the sole purpose of staring at their nudity. It was all for the proverbial sake of art. For, as they say, a woman’s body is a timeless work of art. I took that at face value. Besides, those drawings and pictures were not meant to incite lust.

As for John Ashe’s collection of women who interest him, it was pornography. For one reason, the women whose pictures he took manifest an image of humiliation and insult. Although it was a consensus between the photographer and the subject materialized by the camera, I still couldn’t erase from my mind how the writer described what she saw in the woman’s faces. Regardless of whatever pose they were asked to do or roles they were asked to portray by this terribly rich, powerful and ugly man the camera still shows the real emotions beneath the surface. And the pictures could land on anyone’s hands – at the right price – without the negatives. Surely it was just another display of a fetish rather than of artistic expression. Ours, I believe is different. To pose in front of teen-aged painters somehow means a challenge to the inexperienced artists’ thin portfolios. The crowd, composed of disinterested stares and busy, paint or charcoal-stained hands gives less tension that being in an exclusive red room alone with the “artist”.

Ashe’s “interest” again reminded me of another man whose “journal” consists of videotapes of his intimate moments with women – with or without their knowledge.

Fortunately for John Ashe, he has a super discreet secretary and a power so palpable he doesn’t need to exert much effort to make people follow and be quiet. For Hayden Kho however, secrecy has a price which apparently he was unable to pay. Keeping dark secrets the way he did is like putting a living puppy in a thin box – it will always have its way out. Then he’ll wonder how on earth the truth is now ruining around him. (What happened to this poor guy anyway?)

Now, I am not having myself to be taken as a judge, I both dislike these men. As what my co-artist once pointed out, a woman’s body is a work of art, but I dare say that using it as a way to serve man’s baser instincts defies the art that I loved and that’s where another story starts.

A Moment of Pure Innocence

(In which irony is all over the place and multiplication seemed to be more than a fundamental mathematical operation.)

***

My best buddy (BF) and her brother Revo, have been my constant mates in doing routinary things every Saturday after school – strolling around the mall, eating almost the same food at almost the same spots, walk to the FX terminal and talking and laughing about random things.

I have been used to hearing them talk about mangas. It’s an alternative topic for my best friend’s glorifying speech about Gil Ofarim, on which I prefer the former. Okay, he is hot. But you don’t want to see BF feigning to faint from extreme elation at the sound of his name. Think about high school girls swooning over a campus crush. . . You got it.

But last night, I got myself involved. We were talking about mangas – hentai mangas. Much as I don’t want to disappoint you, I need to make it clear as early as now that I didn’t initiate the conversation. And no, I am not being defensive.

As we were patiently waiting in line for the vehicle that will lend comfortable seats for our aching backs, we exchanged titles of ecchi and hentai mangas as well as the sites where thy can be found. Honestly, I was surprised that they know so much. Talking about senseis eh? The flow of the conversation doesn’t even have the slightest touch of guilt or shame despite the occasional, surprised, suspicious looks we get from passers-by and people in line ahead or behind us at the sound of sentences like:

“Almost all mangas are sex-oriented. I usually feel strange when I stumble upon one that isn’t.”

“I get tired of reading hentai mangas after a long time, as if they don’t affect me as much as the first.”

“It’s so ironic that she still has sex with him in the convent.”

“It reminds me of one episode of Grey’s Anatomy where the Asian doctor has to deal with a pervert patient.”

As members of this present society, we know that the discussion about sex is a taboo (which reminds me of how straightforward one user of Radiusim puts in his status: Missin’ damn SEX! And used it for several days) Whatever. But that time was so guilt free we don’t care. Besides, the conversation took off not for the purpose of shaming ourselves in public but for the sake of fun and active interchange of ideas and opinions. Believe me.

As we get ourselves nearer to the start of the line, Revo expressed his sudden discovery of a brilliant thought.

“You know? I have decided. . . After careful thinking and considering. . . That I don’t want to get married.”

Our gaze darted from the distant buildings to Revo’s East Asian face crowned with a messy, highlighted hair styled in the F4 fashion.

His sister’s face went blank. “What?”

“Yes. Look. Marriage will suck the life out of me and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be burdened with stubborn kids and a nagging wife.”

I was supposed to say “You don’t want to have a wife. Yeah. You never had a girlfriend, right?” But instead I said “What are you going to do then?”

“I will just have to multiply,” he said with a big, meaningful smile.

“Multiply. You mean you are going to raise as many skirts as you can, impregnate women and abandon them?”

“No. When I feel the heat, I’ll just go to H Spas.”

“Heat, huh?” his sister chuckled.

“Or perhaps you can try the Unicorn.” I suggested. I still don’t get his meaning of multiply though.

“Nah. I heard the Unicorn isn’t that recommendable anymore. And besides why would you spend so much in H Spa and Unicorn when you can get some from See You and the Solace College?” BF asserted with a rising-and-falling accent like that of Kris Aquno.

Revo beamed. “Whoa! See You!”

“I heard it has a lot of really beautiful attractions.” I said, with an internal crack! and ouch! in the background.

“You betcha, my dear friend. If you have enough cash, you can get the best.”

“I doubt if they’re safe though.”

“Why do girls do that?” Revo asked with an innocence so weird I want to laugh and say “Duh?!”

“For tuition fees and other expenses,” I answered.

“Ooh! Money really makes the world go round.” He thought intently then suddenly raised his head. Another manifestation of the discovery of a brilliant thought.

“That’s why I really have to be rich.”

It was BF’s reminder that put an end to our discussion. “Hey guys. Let’s stop this. Someone from See You might hear us.”

I sighed and looked back at the line of vans waiting to be filled with passengers. As I was resting my back on the railings, I saw a slim girl wearing a beige sleeveless dress that emphasizes her curves so perfectly well. I motioned BF to come closer and whispered “She’s so slim. I’m envious.”

She took a quick look at her. “Yeah - “

She stopped, moved her head a little bit sideward to get a better look of the girl’s face and suddenly turned her back. She motioned us to huddle.

“That girl was my classmate in high school.”

“So?”

“From what I know, she’s from See You.”

My jaw dropped.

As usual, Revo’s lost in space and asked in a rather late timing. “What’s the matter?”

I grabbed him by the arm and explained. “That girl was your sister’s classmate and she’s from See You.”

“What? You think she heard?”

“Guess. Hint: she’s just two feet behind us.”

“Aw!” the worried look on his face lasted for five seconds and the happy-go-lucky expression reemerged. “Anyway, let’s forget it.”

“Binangonan!”

The barker called out for passengers. We walked straight to the van and didn’t look elsewhere.