Jay
Erwin Castillo writes clearly enough that his prose is quite cryptic yet metaphorical in essence. This is funny considering The Firewalkers and the supplemental, companion piece The Watch of La Diane are two functionally different stories yet inherently share the same DNA: an outlaying of the extents to which the West has influenced and assimilated itself into the Filipino.
But the way each story treats this assimilation is radically different. Firewalkers examines a character's place in the aftermath of the Philippine-American war, while La Diane is a shorter story that whittles away at a Filipino immigrant's days in America (and in a way, his physical and spiritual death as a Filipino).
To say this book confuses me occasionally is an understatement. Castillo writes the same way inner monologues in Disco Elysium go unfiltered when you max out the "Inland Empire" trait: it's incredibly and swathingly poetic, but also disrupts the reader's ability to place themselves in the moment where the character is because Castillo's characters often begin to feel some kind of omniscience as they monologue further and further.
I had fun, but holy shit does this get jarring. La Diane especially has the insane crudeness that is subtly embedded in The Firewalkers but is comparatively untempered while also feeling a lot more romantic about things.
Erwin Castillo writes clearly enough that his prose is quite cryptic yet metaphorical in essence. This is funny considering The Firewalkers and the supplemental, companion piece The Watch of La Diane are two functionally different stories yet inherently share the same DNA: an outlaying of the extents to which the West has influenced and assimilated itself into the Filipino.
But the way each story treats this assimilation is radically different. Firewalkers examines a character's place in the aftermath of the Philippine-American war, while La Diane is a shorter story that whittles away at a Filipino immigrant's days in America (and in a way, his physical and spiritual death as a Filipino).
To say this book confuses me occasionally is an understatement. Castillo writes the same way inner monologues in Disco Elysium go unfiltered when you max out the "Inland Empire" trait: it's incredibly and swathingly poetic, but also disrupts the reader's ability to place themselves in the moment where the character is because Castillo's characters often begin to feel some kind of omniscience as they monologue further and further.
I had fun, but holy shit does this get jarring. La Diane especially has the insane crudeness that is subtly embedded in The Firewalkers but is comparatively untempered while also feeling a lot more romantic about things.