Kupitero's Keep Book Review Page

Kupitero's Keep Book Review

Book: Eye of the Fish - A Personal Archipelago

Author: Luis Francia

Publisher: Kaya Press, Inc.- 2001

Address: P.O. Box 7492, New York, NY 10116

Web site: www.kaya.com

Info: 382 pages, soft cover, distributed by Distributed Arts Publisher (www.artbook.com); priced at about $16

A passage from the book:

"The afternoon's languorousness embraces us, holds us captive; we barely talk, content on watching the passing scene. Two tricycles pass by, driven by laughing young men....Dreamy music waltzes into the air...Weaving its way into the corners of this quiet Sunday, the melody coaxes the tree to sway, the church green roof to acquire a deeper hue, and the slice of blue sea in the background to sparkle...Perhaps the dream music has conjured all of this for us. Perhaps the man on the motorbike, who still doesn't reappear by the time we leave, is a messenger from a place that never appears on maps. A fitting prologue to enigmatic Siquijor...Not a cloud in sight...Blue and green...Python licks...Liquid dreams..."

Enough to make you yearn for home, this book is a cross-cultural, all-sweeping, 'insider-outsider' view of the country that is deftly laced with slick poetry in between the lines. The author's 'mestizo' lineage might have helped him a bit in his 'hands-on' sorties - to get to the real state of the nation - specially in the countryside - that may be a bit difficult for locals to achieve. But, credit him for not painting a not-too-grim-yet-not-too-idyllic picture of a country - based on his own personal odyssey of the entire archipelago.

If you're within the author's (plus or minus five years) age, this could well be your own personal scrapbook. It is full of useful insights and detailed descriptions of the country's cultural and social eccentricities. So detailed that they will surely strike fond memories of your growing-up years. .And, perhaps, a guaranteed affinity with the writer - no matter what part of the Philippines you came from.

Buy it, and read it slowly. It may not be better than beer but it can help you also -paradoxically- alleviate your yearning for home.

-Kupitero

note: This review was written originally by this web author in early 2004.

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