Dogeaters

Jessica Hagedorn escribe muy bien. Excelentemente, incluso a un nivel de 4,5 o 5 estrellas. Resulta sorprendente la cantidad de estilos, registros, vocabularios y planteamientos que es capaz de manejar con soltura y gracia, en ese sentido no hay nada que reprochar. También es destacable lo bien que diseña personajes y como les dota de una voz propia en la historia desde el minuto uno. Sin embargo, "Comeperros" en todo momento me ha dado la impresión de que, más que ser una obra única, se hubiera tratado de los capítulos supervivientes de una saga perdida en algún incendio lamentable, con los que algún alma generosa ha creado una suerte de Silmarillion filipino, con historias y personajes desdibujados aquí y allá, saltando adelante y atrás en el tiempo, siendo tremendamente difícil para mí ordenar las tramas en mi cabeza o sencillamente recordar de qué personaje estaban hablando. He cerrado el libro sin que me quede claro la relación que podía haber entre muchos, si es que la había. Y todo ello ha causado que lo que podría haber sido una grata lectura, o incluso más que eso, se haya convertido en una tarea tediosa, excesivamente exigente, que no he podido disfrutar.

Le doy el aprobado por lo primero que he dicho: Hagedon escribe muy bien, y cada trama, por su cuenta, hasta podría brillar. Pero en su conjunto, este libro es un cóctel hecho sin ningún criterio a la hora de escoger los ingredientes. Posiblemente le dé otra oportunidad a la autora, pero no puedo recomendar este libro en conciencia.

It came as ZERO surprise to me to find that that Marlon James named this as one of his 10 favourite books and described it as "Possibly the most brutally, hilariously accurate portrait of post-colonial Jamaica I’ve ever read. And it’s a novel about the Philippines", because his (much later) work A Brief History of Seven Killings is basically this, but with all the elements readers found incomprehensible dialled up to 11, set in Kingston instead of Manila, an unnamed singer instead of unnamed President/First Lady, and three times longer.

In other words, this was a walk in the park to follow if you're comparing it to Seven Killings, but it's still worth keeping a list of characters (and something to translate Tagalog/Spanish phrases) on hand as you go...

My very first time to read a novel by Jessica Hagedorn (born 1949), a Philippine-born American novelist, playwright, poet and multimedia performance artist. I purchased my copy of this book in 2010 but postponed reading this several times because of what a friend said that it is similar to Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado (2 stars). That this and Syjuco's are both composed of short stories or vignettes with no cohesion because of the absence of unifying theme. That both are trying hard to be seen as postmodern writings only failing in the end.

I agree and disagree.

I agree because like what I mentioned in my review of Ilustrado, Dogeaters is also composed of short stories culled into a book. The only difference is here, one recognizable story is contained in at least one chapter so it is easy to follow the plot and it is enough for me to remember the character and the event before another story and characters are introduced. However, there are so many of them that it would have been better if I got myself a pen and paper and jotted down the names of the characters before moving on. Also, as more interesting characters came in, I forgot already the previous ones (like Andres and Trinidad) and when they returned towards the end, I had to think hard on which chapter I first encountered them. I was also looking for the denouement that will tie up the loose ends in the last chapters just like what F. Sionil did with his Gagamba: The Spider Man (2 stars) but there was none. Hagedorn of course, this being a postmodern, probably did not want this to be predictable and so she left the characters as they seem to appear like in frozen in still pictures. That's what's life is, anyway. We when part with someone, we don't necessarily have to formally say farewell. Sometimes we don't have a chance. Sometimes it is better to just leave without saying goodbye.

The other similarity between this and Ilustrado (2 stars) is that Syjuco and Hagedorn are both Filipino-Americans and they exploit the Philippines to their benefits (write a novel, gain popularity and undoubtedly make money) by writing a book and release it in the US to be read primarily by the American. I mean if you are a foreigner and if these books are the only ones you read about the Philippines, you would get the idea that our country is full of crooks, prostitutes, corrupt politicians, underground syndicates, showbiz-crazy dimwits and religious fanatics. There are nothing positive depicted in these books about the Philippines and the Filipinos. It is as if, Hagedorn and Syjuco, now both US based are ingrates of the land of birth and they use what little they knew or heard of the country to shock their American friends.

However, Dogeaters is a notch better than Ilustrado because it is better-written as it is easier to understand and her characters are definitely more memorable. Hagedorn has this ability to create pictures in your mind and being a Filipino it is not difficult to do so. I was born in the 60's and Hagedorn left the Philippines a year prior to my birth year (1964) so I still had the chance to see a movie at Odeon and other first-class movie houses along Taft Avenue. I was already a young man when the Marcos couple was ousted from power by the People Power Revolution in 1986.

My first Hagedorn and I think I will rest for sometime before I pick up another book of her. I heard that this book is her best so I am not expecting the others to really blow me away.

I read this for my Women Writers Literature Class which I took for an exposure to women minority authors, whom often get overlooked in typical literature classes. I enjoyed this book and while some people didn't enjoy that it jumped around a lot, I like it because it was able to keep me from getting bored and added another element to the book.

interesting. i just noticed that it has the subtitle contemporary american fiction. i'm a little disappointed. i thought it was an insightful but harsh critique of filipino society - and it's cultural colonization by the spanish and americans. how we subconsciously rank ourselves in the global context. nevertheless, my favorite filipino author. unromanticized filipino.

[Revised, pictures and shelves added 7/5/22]

Remember Ferdinand Marcos, dictator of the Philippines, and his wife Imelda with her mansion closets filled with 3,000 pairs of shoes? This novel, published in 1990, came out of that era. Of course it has to reflect the clash of classes – the ultra-rich and the have-nots. So we have one set of characters who are super-wealthy; tied to the dictator and his cronies, the businessmen, the generals and the high administrative officials who have mansions, luxury cars, lavish parties, servants and beauty pageants. The Mrs. loves beauty pageants just about as much as she loves shoes.

(Newsflash! This just in…they're back! The new president of the Philippines in 2022 is Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., born 1957, the only son of Ferdinand and Imelda.)



And then we have the downcast folks. There’s a particular focus on a group of men whose mothers, often prostitutes who died young, and were brought up by a Fagin-like character who taught them how to be pickpockets and thieves. Now that they are older they are bisexual gigolos, drug addicts and some-times DJ’s or waiters in fancy clubs.

All the rich men have mistresses, of course, (or boys) while the poor folk try to grab whatever trickles down their way. Politics and violence interfere – political assassinations touch some of the characters and some run away to join the anti-Marcos guerrillas in the hinterland.



All these folks, rich or poor, are portrayed as fast-living, fast-talking wheeler-dealers. They have nicknames like Baby, Girlie, Boom Boom, Boy Boy. [The new President goes by the name Bongbong.] They speak the national language, Filipino (formerly called Tagalog), which is blended in with pidgin Spanish, English and Portuguese.

We learn a lot about how much the culture is influenced by American culture and by the diaspora of Filipinos to the US and worldwide. Almost every page has some Tagalog expressions and, while you can understand some of them in context, a glossary would be helpful for so many unfamiliar words, di ba? A lot of local color of Manila and the Philippines in the 1980s, fast-paced and a good read.



The author (b. 1957) wrote a half dozen novels and plays, most focused on Filipino culture like this one, but it appears she stopped publishing after 2011. Dogeaters is her most widely-read novel and it won some awards and was also made into a play. Born in Manila, she moved to the US as a teenager and became an American citizen.

Top photo of Marcos, Jr. from upi.com
Manila skyline with shantytowns from theguardian.com
The author from spendidtable.org

A complex web of characters and stories that clash and intersect in unexpected ways to form a postmodernist representation of Manila in the 50’s. The writing is vibrant and the format which consists of first person and third person narration, as well as newspaper clips, multi-lingual dialog and personal notes/letters, makes for an interesting reading. The fragmented points of view of dozens of characters (some of which make a brief appearance that doesn’t seem to have any purpose) and the introduction of dramatic subplots like a political assignation that really goes nowhere, made it hard to follow and therefore tough to fully enjoy. It seems like every time I started to get into it - a character that resonated or a scene that pulled me in, it was disrupted by some other storyline, memory, or new character that took the plot in a different direction. I wish Hagedorn would resist the temptation to pour so many ingredients into her work and just let the core flavors patiently simmer.

Hagedorn describes this book as a love letter to her country. While she certainly is a gifted writer, I can't say that I enjoyed this book. She paints the picture of several different characters and it was difficult for me to keep track of them all. Even more, she paints a realistic picture of the Philippines: there is wealth and then there is extreme poverty. And the poverty that she depicts is brutally painful to read. While I appreciated learning more about the reality of the Philippines, this was a difficult book to read. And in many ways, because this book is more about the country than the characters, I had a difficult time relating to any of the characters in the book. Ria stand out to me as the most memorable, but there weren't many portions of the book featuring her perspective.

For more go to www.justicejennifer.com