kent_alvarus's review
4.0
"Ang responsibilidad ng isang tagapagsalaysay: kung kailan ibubunyag ang lihim ng bawat kuwento. Nang hindi nagagalit ang kanyang mga tagapakinig o mambabasa. Kung paano pahahabain ang panahon upang bigyan sila ng higit na mahabang oras para makaintindi, makapag-isip, hindi tulad ng de-numerong panahon ng mga orasan. Ang responsibilidad ng pagkilala ng kani-kaniyang kakayahan na umintindi, ng bawat tagapakinig o mambabasa. Ang responsibilidad na tanggapin ang lahat ng papuri at lahat ding panlalait na itatapon sa kaniya."
#AngSandaliNgMgaMata (lit. The Moment of the Eyes) attempts to encapsulate everything #Bikolano: history, folklore, culture, traditions, faith, and ways of life. The depictions of rurality amid the resistance during the Japanese occupation, and community development after the war, which are encountered therewith by generations of the Nueva family and their townsfolk in Sagrada, were greatly delivered with the usage of historical facts and local folklore as devices for laying the story. The manner of writing that is in classic suave Tagalog teams with the author's technique of explicit "pabitin" laying of scenes which entices the reader to read further.
It also tackled several types of love: faded, failed, unrequited, secret, filial; though in such aspects, the emotions failed to cross into me. (It's probably me, I don't know.)
This tackled everything Bikolano, except for one–food. I know it was set in not-so-good times (with the war, the disarray in the epic, and the contemporary problems) but I was kind of expecting from it the inclusion of the Bikolano cuisine (with peppers and coconuts and what) as mediums of laying the other scenes. Such element would've made the novel "everything" Bikolano. (Just my cents.)
#AngSandaliNgMgaMata (lit. The Moment of the Eyes) attempts to encapsulate everything #Bikolano: history, folklore, culture, traditions, faith, and ways of life. The depictions of rurality amid the resistance during the Japanese occupation, and community development after the war, which are encountered therewith by generations of the Nueva family and their townsfolk in Sagrada, were greatly delivered with the usage of historical facts and local folklore as devices for laying the story. The manner of writing that is in classic suave Tagalog teams with the author's technique of explicit "pabitin" laying of scenes which entices the reader to read further.
It also tackled several types of love: faded, failed, unrequited, secret, filial; though in such aspects, the emotions failed to cross into me. (It's probably me, I don't know.)
This tackled everything Bikolano, except for one–food. I know it was set in not-so-good times (with the war, the disarray in the epic, and the contemporary problems) but I was kind of expecting from it the inclusion of the Bikolano cuisine (with peppers and coconuts and what) as mediums of laying the other scenes. Such element would've made the novel "everything" Bikolano. (Just my cents.)
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