the demon lover by elizabeth bowen

i felt that this story was able to set that scary atmosphere right from the beginning. in the first paragraph, it already gave away hints that something supernatural was in the midst. i was curious to know what that supernatural creature would look like. would it be a ghost, a monster, or a demon? i didn't really know. and the letter made everything seem mysterious. how exactly did it get there? and the message was quite scary, too, if you'd think of it. the message was short, but the person who wrote it really made a statement by just writing that letter and placing it on that table. it was a very sly move. obviously, it was mrs. drover's former lover. maybe she had feelings for him, but the passage of time eventually let those feelings fade. or maybe, thery weren't even real. and at the time when the story was unfolding, there were no feelings to speak of anymore. there was actually fear already and maybe bitterness. i think he didn't treat her very nicely. and she didn't have particularly beautiful memories of him and them together. and the "mystery guy," the former lover and soldier, had a domineering disposition. at least that's what i sort of deduced from the way he behaved with mrs. drover (when she was single) and the way he came back. it's like telling her that hey, i'm back, and we made a promise remember? be true to your word. although the message didn't blatantly include threatening phrases, the scary way of presenting should have been enough to freak mrs. drover out. also freaking her out could have been the former lover's way of delivering revenge against mrs. drover. she got married when he was on duty somewhere, remember?

i also vividly imagined the house. the dust and the old things. the isolation. in the end, mrs drover rode a taxi which made a turn 'round the bend when she didn't even tell the driver which way she wanted to go. the ending was scary. was the driver the demon lover? and where were they heading? it was a deep and scary plunge into the unknown. also, was mrs drover sane at that time? or maybe she was just hysterical? either way, it was a very scary experience for her. and for the readers who had been with her.

the falling girl by dino buzzati

this is my favorite short story! i liked the simple way it was written. i especially like the first paragraph where the writer set the atmosphere to be particularly serene. i could imagine the sunset and the party people at the bottom of the skyscraper. i could also visualize the girl in her simple dress, breathing in the air and closing her eyes before making the plunge, and momentarily her feet would be dangling in the air. i thought it was cute :) i also found interesting the people who would invite her to stop and drink. in real life, i think they represent those people who care to a certain extent. they would encourage girls to somehow fix their lives but wouldn't really go so far as to impose something on them. in the story, the people just invited the falling girl, but they really did not pull her back into the building. and the rest who just watched the falling girl were like those who condoned whatever it was she was doing. some even viewed it as a spectacle. more of my rantings on the possible symbolisms in the story are on the yahoogroups. i don't want to elaborate on them anymore. i think the story is too cute. i also particularly like the ending where the couple was talking and the woman said that at least, at the bottom part of the building, there is this advantage of hearing the thud. in my head i heard thud. bottomline is i really like the story!

the rocking-horse winner by dh lawrence

at first, i thought i wouldn't like it since sometimes very small and faded letters turn me off. but when i read the first sentence, i thought the story would be interesting. and it was. paul, the boy in the story, was one of the few fictional kids who actually did something to help their parents. most kids merely wished they could do something. well, maybe eventually they would do something, but that would probably happen when they're grown-ups already. but in this story, the kid gambled and won and most of the cash he got went right straight into his mother's purse.

i found it freaky, too, in a way. in the first paragraph, it was mentioned that there was a tension between the mother and the kids that they acknowledged but nevertheless kept mum about. and that was freaky, since we are all used to mother loving the kids very much. and the kids adoring their mother, looking at her with innocent and pleading eyes while she tells stories. but in the story, there was no display of affection whatsoever. but rather, there was cold war.

i also sort of feel that the story revolved around the mother. she was the subject of the first paragraph, and the last statement in the story was also about her. she actually started everything. she needed money, and so his son went hysterical in getting it for her. in the end, she was greatly encumbered. she had lost a son, and the money meant absolutely nothing to her anymore.

the boy was a fascinating character. but what fascinates me more are the things he does. he rides the rocking horse and it takes him to luck. and afterward, he will know which horse will win. i wonder what this event represents. is another psychological concept involved in the story? is the boy sort of psychic? and why did he die? i also felt that the boy was making up for the absence of the father in the story. i don't know, though, if that was what he meant to do. he also could have just made a move because he was tired of hearing the noises in his house. and yes, i think there was something sexual about the way he rode his rocking horse. in sex, or even masturbation, there is a climax, while in riding the rocking horse, the boy would reach the climax when he would find out which horse is going to win.

i liked the story. it's one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for classics.

shatterday by harlan ellison

this story is so cool! it was made into one of the first episodes in twilight zone and bruce willis also starred in it. this was the opening narration, which i got from wikipedia: "Some push for what they need; some push for what they want. Some people, like Peter Jay Novins, just push. If they do it hard enough and long enough, something might just push back... from the Twilight Zone." it really suits the story, which is unique and quite freaky. it made me think, what if that happened to anyone? worse, what if that happened to me? haha! but beyond that supernatural vestige and the literal existence of two beings that are the same, there is a deeper, abstract meaning. i think that was well delved into by the group assigned to this. they researched about psychology which, i believe, played a big part in this story. what unfolds in the story, mainly the separation of peter from jay novins or the other way around, may be the representation of what was actually happening to peter jay novins at the moment. he was undergoing a transformation from bad to good.

the story was actually very psychological. he was defeating the bad in himself, and in that sense, he was both a loser and a winner. but i think he was essentially a winner, for he managed to defeat what it was that actually deserved to be repressed or gotten rid of. and then there was the usual triumph of good over evil made unusual by the situation in the story.

harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut

this is a fascinating story about equality. it was rather politically-charged. i think it was trying to mock those forms of government that demanded everyone to be equal and that property to be evenly distributed among all men. i found in a website that it was actually criticizing egalitarianism. here it was assumed if such ideology prevailed, bad things are bound to happpen.

i guess what we can deduce from the story is that inequality isn't always bad. it actually helps a society operate well. i mean, if everyone is equal, we will all be doing the same thing. we will just be mediocre at doing things. there is no room for competition, which is a driving force. there is no room for excellence, brilliance and productivity. it will all be about backwardness. whereas if there were, for lack of a better term, inequality and competition, then people can excel in different things. more and more ideas will come out in the open, and some of them, in one way or another, will probably contribute to the betterment of the society. i may sound idealistic here but i think that was basically what it was trying to say.

the part hazel exemplified stupidity seemed to be a fitting ending. it sort of makes one feel the hopelessness of it all. i found the story really cute and, at the same time, thought-provoking.

the portable phonograph by walter van tillburg clark

this is not one of my favorite stories but i think it's also good. the story is very interesting. it makes us think if such will happen in the future when the world is almost devoid of humanity and things that we hold so dear to our human hearts. i think greed was dominant in the story. doctor jenkins undeniably exemplified it. he was very hesistant to bring out his phonograph, one of the very few remnants of a glorious, civilized past. he really was very protective of it. but one cannot exactly persecute him for having his bouts of paranoia. i think that was justifiable. given the number of people left (from six billion down to four!) it's normal to presume that these people will eventually become more savage in looking out for themselves. earth was stripped of most of the things it boasted, and the competition among these people became more intense. it's like a survival of the fittest. there prevailed a sense of loss and uncertainty and, consequently, the urgency to carve your own niche, to once again provide yourself a blanket of security. and indeed, desperate times call for desperate measures. and i think doctor jenkins understood that. it's really possible for the men to have the tendency to want what he possessed. after all, there weren't anything like those anymore. and the saying desperate times call for desperate measures also applies to doctor jenkins who so ardently clung to his lead pipe for dear life. also, i think doctor jenkins' possessions like the books and the phonograph stood for the beautiful things in life: music and literature. art. coolness!

the tiger's bride by angela carter

a great adaptation of the fairy tale 'beauty and the beast.' i could imagine in my head the creatures, things and the places the author described in great detail. that's one of the great assets of the story. the description is really able to sustain the attention of the reader throughout the literary journey, so to speak. although it was supposed to be a horror story, it did not scare me. i just found it rather bizarre why the beast wanted to see the girl naked. and in order to fully understand this part of the story, i think it necessary to delve more into the personality of the beast. in the original story, the beast, before he became one, was actually a handsome prince. and being rich, part of the royal family, and wanted by practically every female in his kingdom, he probably was surrounded by beauty. until this curse had befallen him. i think when he became a beast and retreated to a place full of weird and ghastly creatures, he was sort of forced to part with beauty or things that were beautiful. i think he missed beauty. and when he finally did have something beautiful, like the girl, he wanted to revel in her beauty. to look at her body so fresh and red, like a fine fruit picked during springtime. but why did he want beauty to see him naked should she refuse to show her undressed body to him? maybe he said it so she would all the more comply with his request? haha i am making assumptions here.

i also like the girl in the story. she was portrayed very strongly. i think she was fiercely independent but caring. she truly cared for her father and she did not seem to show any sign of blatant protestation when he sort of gave her away to the beast. that was very admirable of her. but at the same time, very irritating. i mean, why the hell would you allow yourself to pay for something you didn't do? it would have been okay if it involved a very important issue, one that's a matter of life and death. but no, it was just gambling all along! and i like the way the girl showed defiance. she stayed at the beast's house even when she could already join her father. i think that was her way of telling him "you don't deserve me." so.. go girl! haha

a clockwork orange by anthony burgess

pardon me if i would once again use the word interesting for this one. i mean, it really was interesting. the language itself is enough to prove that point. and even if the language, at first, could fool one into thinking that if he went on reading the book he wouldn't understand a single thing, actually becomes comprehensible once you get used to it. it's really nothing like anything i've read. politically-charged and really cool at the same time. the ending made me think: is badness just some phase we all go through as kids? is it true that eventually we get tired of it and start thinking of a better future? because that, i think, was what the ending implied. and i think alex is really cool. a genuine music freak with an astute mind but decided to channel his brilliance through violent means. he just happened to really be interested in violence and all those bad things people associate the youth nowadays with. he may be the embodiment of everything negative about the world's perception of the youth. and the issue about the free will, i think that yes, free will had essentially been taken away from him. he may have had a choice to inflict harm upon others, but then again, something was already implanted in his mind that compelled him to be actually be innocuous. it's like using torture in interrogation. it's like the interrogator will ask a person questions, and the former will then insist that the latter has the option whether to answer or not. but when the person does not answer, his ass will then become a hapless victim to belligerence. so yeah, i find it absurd that some people think alex had free will.

also, this book is trying to forward the message that we are natural, like oranges (coincidentally, i also found out that orang means human in malay), and therefore we shouldn't be treated as robots or mere subjects that can be controlled. treating us like mechanical creatures is something truly inexcusable. at least that's what this book, i think, is trying to say. the reason why i thought of that is because the ludovico method, in the end, didn't even work. alex was able to overcome the artificial hatred toward violence. and afterward, he naturally got tired of violence. he grew up, so to speak. i think what this is trying to say is that people do change. it's a natural process and it will only work that way. you yourself, and not anybody else, should be the catalyst.

but then again, i think there is a controversial side to this story. it makes me think of the issue of freedom choice vs. security. i mean, was it really ultimately wrong that his will was taken away from him, given the fact that he was a true blue scoundrel who was always out there doing God-knows-what? it's really somewhat debatable, too. i think in the end, in the context of a formal debate, the government's move can actually be justified. but for me, i think it's really bad to take away someone's will. it's like incinerating a God's greatest gift. haha.

so yeah. i really, really like this story :) the language is cool. and i like alex!

getting better by tara sering

the fact that it was discussed in a literature class was something new to me. i really don't remember discussing chic lit in high school, or anything not critically acclaimed for that matter. we all learned though, despite its superficial veneer and the negative comments hurled at it by other writers, that it was something we could delve into. if we look at the characters, we'll see that they are downright interesting, and that at some point, we've already encountered them in different places. we've seen some of them in the clubs, or perhaps heard of them frequenting such places. we've heard our mothers talking about them when the subject 'office life' is brought up. and maybe we've seen them, chatting away in delight, standing next to us while digging into racks of clothing at a famous ukay-ukay branch. see, they're everywhere. those characters we are familiar with made us relate to the story. it's as though it's something close to you, something unfolding right before your eyes. heck, you may even feel that you're part of it. and that's one of the good things this story was able to establish. the witty, semi-tagalog lines made it all the more realistic. i also think that it's an intelligent in a sense that the author was able to satirize the society in which the story took place. my opinion is that the author, intentional or otherwise, poked fun at society's ways and what they worry about merely by bringing them up and making them a big part of the whole story.

let's not deny that chic lit was borne out of the desire to earn money, to actually get people to pay for it. but if literary snobs would only go beyond that image, i'm sure they wouldn't be harmed. i mean, it's all good fun, what have you got to lose? chic lit novels can also be considered good books so long as they are able to entertain. that's why literature emerged in the first place. people told stories and listened to them for entertainment.

at this point, let me digress: i recommend this book. it's a fun read :)

happy endings by margaret atwood

i think atwood has a point here. in all stories, it's true that everyone dies in the end. and yes, the beginnings are always exciting, but they aren't exactly the reason why we read stories. we read because we want to know what happens. we want the story to be eventful. we want to be entertained. also, this is metafiction. it's quite cute. stories that fall under metafiction are cute. and a bit weird, too. i don't know why, but it's quite creepy, too. it reminds me too much of reality. the things she wrote are really what happens. we've known people who are just like john and madge. we might all end up like them, too. i've also read atwood's other compositions. i say they're very original, like this one. i haven't really read anything like it. it's good that she used this device to relay a message to the people, especially to writers. her advice may come in handy anytime.

smaller and smaller circles by fh batacan

indeed, the philippine literature has come a long way from being just about life in the province and love in the time of war. and it has been strongly affirmed by the arrival of this novella which is, interestingly enough, also by a female writer. people have learned to broaden their horizons by accepting the fact that even females can write well.

first of all, the thing that impresses me most about this book is the fact that it is the first of its kind. female-authored, mystery novella set in places i am considerably familiar with. it fulfilled the missions of good story: to entertain and, sometimes, to make one think. but i've read a lot of mystery novels that involved serial killers and a roadmap to be drawn by the investigator. it was nothing new to me. i think it was just like those of sheldon's, and other authors, but with more interesting characters and more familiar places. but just because i compared it to the murder stories i've read before doesn't mean i think it belongs in the wastebasket. i think it's good:) i particularly like the parts where the author told the stories of the mothers, how they were struggling with life, and how they learned about the deaths of their respective sons. it was something we filipinos arguably living in a matriarchal society can identify with. i also like the characters. they were noteworthy, indeed. they're very interesting. men probably want to be like father gus and women probably want to be like joanna bonifacio. they are such extraordinary human beings. how can i forget them. also, i think it's sort of political. it exposed what's rotten in our country: the way of thinking. even if there are already a lot of advancements in our country, and gay people are slowly becoming accepted, there is still a certain part of the society that grapples with backwardness. and that certain part is the government. okay, maybe not the entire government, but a branch of it. isn't it any wonder why those scientists the government rejected before are gaining fame and money overseas? on a different note, i also wondered why people in the novel looked like they didn't exert a great deal of effort in order to save the last victim. with all the clues they had at the time, i think it would have been very possible to salvage that poor kid. so there. interesting story, at par with some of the novels involving murder that i've read.

a very old man with enormous wings by gabriel garcia marquez

the world had been sad since tuesday. apparently, that line meant nothing. or at least that's what i learned from the discussion. but for some unknown reason, i happened to like it. something inside me went mellow when i read the line. i really like it. haha. this is my second encounter with this story, i understand it much better now. the first time i read it was when i was still a freshman who read things both senseless and scholarly on the internet. i was merely entertained. it was not exactly a learning and insightful process. but now i have thoughts on it. haha. was the old man really an angel? i think we cannot say. in the story, an angel was not really defined. and we, we only know that angels have wings, look serene and whenever they appear they normally explicitly state that they were sent by God. but that's our definition. and it can be a far cry from that of the people in the story. we don't really know because there weren't any clear standards set in the first place. who really is to say, right?

i also agree that this is the story of the people, and not of the angel. i think it reflects a lot of things about people, mostly those that aren't particulary commendable. in this story, it is seen that people are indeed fascinated with things that are bizarre. i mean, a lot of people will pay to see the unusual. that's how a lot of circus people survived. the people in the story are also what we filipinos would call chismosas. any controversial piece of information can easily spread over a large area one minute after it is uncovered. also, people tend to like those they can relate to or identify with. that's how fictional characters get so popular these days. and that's also why they liked the spider girl in the story. moreover, i sort of pity the old man with enormous wings. i think he wasn't an angel but he belonged to a different world. or a group that didn't speak their language. suffice it to say that i think he didn't belong with the local populace. he belonged to a different species that supposedly stuck together, like animals. they probably have their own domain and civilization in this world. it's possible because he spoke a different language and he was different from the people.

i like this story :) i particularly like the last line. it's like he gloriously flew away from the monster of a lady in such an in-your-face-but-im-going-away fashion.

the selfish giant by oscar wilde

my initial reaction was to question how a tale for children can have such religious symbolisms. children wouldn't normally understand those. they wouldn't immediately associate wounds on the palm to Christ and his suffering. but looking beyond that, maybe the 'a tale for children' was meant to be some kind of mockery. you know, for the added effect... like what gabriel garcia marquez did to very old man with enormous wings. though i like oscar wilde very much because he's very witty and i like the way he wrote, i can honestly say that this tale is not one of those which i like very much. it seems ordinary to me. sure, the scenes were clearly described, but for me it wasn't that extraordinary. i don't exactly dislike it either. it was just okay. :) after thinking of the possible symbolisms and figuring out the moral, there was nothing left to ponder...except for the giant and how he and his giant friend spent seven long years together.

but that's just me.

masque of red death by edgar allan poe

this was a story we read way back when i was in third year high school. i honestly didn't read it again when we were tasked to do a reporting on it. but it's okay, i still remembered the gist of it. anyway, i like this. i like edgar allan poe, his deep, ensnaring words and the way he depicted things as if they belonged to a dark, secret world. and in that sense, this story was no different from the others he had written. it was dark in a sense that the element of horror was in it. there was the presence of the supernatural. it was scary the way the grandfather's clock would remind them that time was running out. the feast they were having, i think, came to represent life. and every hour sadness would fall upon them, and people would drop whatever it was they were doing to revel in it. i think that somehow, such gesture that acknowledged the passing of time, the getting closer to the end, came to represent death. whenever someone dies, we become sad. we sort of stop--that is, take the time to visit the dead and offer condolences to remaining loved ones. in the story, every chime would tell us that a certain period of time had passed. and after a number of chimes, the masque of the red death came. kinda reminds me of getting old. death usually comes to people after they had spent a great deal of time in this world.

the story reaffirmed what we already know: that death does not discriminate. both the rich and the poor die. in this life, we all work to achieve. but in the end, we all die regardless of how much we have. what a great irony.