A review by rubiscodisco
Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
3.0
I actually liked this book. As a crime novel, I feel that it functioned really well in the elements that matter a lot: It had a good plot, the pacing did not drag at all after the arrival of the main characters. It is very good at portraying the difficulty of conducting an investigation in the corrupt infrastructure of the Philippine bureaucracy, and the conditions that the urban poor of Metro Manila have to face daily. The setting was done by somebody with a good familiarity of the city, so somebody who lives in Quezon City will feel very much at home with the landmarks mentioned.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This is going to be super nitpicky, but I'm a bit dissatisfied with the characterization and narration in the book. Some scenes, when the author drives home a point, say that the mood of the room is this way, or that a character is holding such an attitude, or that somebody must be viewed as heroic, it is done with a heavy hand - it gets implied three or four times in the text just to make the reader get it.
I'm also just a bit miffed by coding one of the characters as gay and effete to further reinforce the fact that the character is flawed. Flamboyantly colored hair, shiny manicured nails, these details are portrayed as affectation and a reflection of the person's vanity - but it also slides the character into the territory of being coded gay. In fact, in the end, when that character is shown at the peak of their efficiency and finally becoming heroic, it is telegraphed in the fact that they lose their care for these things. I might just be reading too much into it but it's a bit unsettling.
Perhaps my biggest critique of the book is on the matter of its perspective. Smaller and smaller circles was first published in 2002 as a novella by the University of the Philippines Press before it was rewritten and published as a full length novel in New York by Soho in 2015. I read the 2015 version and not the 2002 novella, and I would love to read the 2002 novella to compare.
In the 2015 version, the main characters listen to R.E.M., studied and work in Ateneo, and have studied abroad. They are the eyes through which the reader sees the events of this book, and they are palpably western. This is not a bad thing in itself certainly, especially in the 2015 book sold for western readers, but it does make me wonder how different the novella was and whether it had the same lens. I feel like the author doesn't sufficiently address the tension of this: investigators of a western, affluent background rooting around in the dumpsites of Payatas. The poverty is well shown, but the clash and contrast of the two cultures I'd have liked to see more.
Every novel has themes that it tackles: nationhood, gender, good and evil. Something. In this book the author writes about justice, corruption, the defenselessnes of the weak, and poverty - but there is something missing in how they write about class and elitism. The poor and the rich are there, and the characters have to navigate among both worlds, so in a way it is addressed. But then the main characters, and the "good guy" supporting characters live in an ivory tower. Atenista. All educated abroad. Saenz doesn't even like to listen to Mozart, presumably because such an operatic taste is too common, and prefers the more arcane pieces of Bach. Joanna is introduced as an essentially virtuous character and then her French degree is triumphantly mentioned. When the two meet, the two Filipinos speak in French. This is the sort of thing should clash with the environment of common old Quezon City, but it's never addressed. This might be something that would go over the head of a western reader, but to this Filipino reader, at least, the books seems too unaware of its own elitism.
SPOILERS AHEAD
This is going to be super nitpicky, but I'm a bit dissatisfied with the characterization and narration in the book. Some scenes, when the author drives home a point, say that the mood of the room is this way, or that a character is holding such an attitude, or that somebody must be viewed as heroic, it is done with a heavy hand - it gets implied three or four times in the text just to make the reader get it.
I'm also just a bit miffed by coding one of the characters as gay and effete to further reinforce the fact that the character is flawed. Flamboyantly colored hair, shiny manicured nails, these details are portrayed as affectation and a reflection of the person's vanity - but it also slides the character into the territory of being coded gay. In fact, in the end, when that character is shown at the peak of their efficiency and finally becoming heroic, it is telegraphed in the fact that they lose their care for these things. I might just be reading too much into it but it's a bit unsettling.
Perhaps my biggest critique of the book is on the matter of its perspective. Smaller and smaller circles was first published in 2002 as a novella by the University of the Philippines Press before it was rewritten and published as a full length novel in New York by Soho in 2015. I read the 2015 version and not the 2002 novella, and I would love to read the 2002 novella to compare.
In the 2015 version, the main characters listen to R.E.M., studied and work in Ateneo, and have studied abroad. They are the eyes through which the reader sees the events of this book, and they are palpably western. This is not a bad thing in itself certainly, especially in the 2015 book sold for western readers, but it does make me wonder how different the novella was and whether it had the same lens. I feel like the author doesn't sufficiently address the tension of this: investigators of a western, affluent background rooting around in the dumpsites of Payatas. The poverty is well shown, but the clash and contrast of the two cultures I'd have liked to see more.
Every novel has themes that it tackles: nationhood, gender, good and evil. Something. In this book the author writes about justice, corruption, the defenselessnes of the weak, and poverty - but there is something missing in how they write about class and elitism. The poor and the rich are there, and the characters have to navigate among both worlds, so in a way it is addressed. But then the main characters, and the "good guy" supporting characters live in an ivory tower. Atenista. All educated abroad. Saenz doesn't even like to listen to Mozart, presumably because such an operatic taste is too common, and prefers the more arcane pieces of Bach. Joanna is introduced as an essentially virtuous character and then her French degree is triumphantly mentioned. When the two meet, the two Filipinos speak in French. This is the sort of thing should clash with the environment of common old Quezon City, but it's never addressed. This might be something that would go over the head of a western reader, but to this Filipino reader, at least, the books seems too unaware of its own elitism.