“I was hoping I can finish this short book for one day, unfortunately I volunteered last night's Green Intensity. There are invited bands like Kamikazee, Sponge Cola and Secondhand Serenade sponsored by our school, Globe TeleCom and Magic 89.9. Since I'm not a party animal or a noise fanatic, all I did last night was to read this book with the intense noise of the band, but I fall chatting with my friends.
This book was set in the mid 90s with the growing word, teen-ager and society. While reading this book, I can't help but to be scared of the past and vomit until I realized that some old people outshone there past with beautiful markings. But a book as a part of art had its own characteristic of being timelessness, there is no death to books but to be revived and loved by the new generations.
Teen-ager are usually a group of teens who are in a society. What I mean of a Society is high-toned, high-priced, high-spirited and hifalutin people, for short rich. And gangster are for people who don't have higher social status in life. I think until now, people are still using this kind of words but not as vulgar as Nick Joaquin's books plus people are still categorize by there social status.
Our own generation were lucky enough and our parents were family oriented, I don't mean that our grandparents were non-family oriented, but I mean our parents knows what is right and what is wrong in our current status with the society. We were also given a chance to mingle with the other people freely. Candido's Apocalypse is a story of a young teen-ager who search for his own identity.
Bobby Heredia, a 17 year old kid, a stowaway and a kid who thought that he knows everything. His eyes started to see naked people when he thinks that his name should be somewhat derived to a calendar name. Like the old times when your grandparents named your mom or dad with names in the calendar, they represents who you are and the shadow that lurks inside you. So his shadow was Candido, a boy who wants to be free and he can see people naked and can read the thoughts of others.
Candido always describes things as offkey and overacting to everything a person reacts to a certain thing. In fact he believes that everything should be done the way he thinks. So one day he decided to leave the burlesque mansion because of his depressing situation of being Candido, until he came back home and his situation is getting worst. He can't see people naked but he sees them without a skin! Nick Joaquin's interpretation of the odd body system of human makes me vomit and frightened of my own body.In the end he realizes that he needed companion to live in peace, with God, family and friends.
Compared to his other short stories, there are sentences or maybe the first half part of the book was lost in translation. It makes my minute of reading confusing and I thought of myself stupid like Bobby. But in the end, he added God as the solution of the story making it more profound to read but weird since if you're going to read the whole story only his grandmother was a religious character and you won't expect something too religious that will be pop in the end.
In some point, the story was hilarious when Bobby imagined his own grandmother naked and when he saw her walking in the stair without clothes. Lol! Don't mention that he can also see skin diseases of commoners walking from side to side, can't help be to laugh. My own interpretation of his eyes is that it shows he need freedom of expression, he can heard people thoughts, he judges people first without knowing them until he realized he or she was different. Another major problem of the book is the shifting of the 1st person narration, sometimes his mother will be the narrator or sometimes their maid. Lastly I want readers to read it slowly as possible while Bobby is in search of his own persona.
Rating - Candido's Apocalypse by Nick Joaquín, 4 Sweets and the eyes that can see naked people. (So far I've read 2 books of Nick Joaquin and I find him interesting in his own way of writing. Can't wait to grab another Nick Joaquin books soon. Complimentary copy from Anvil - http://www.anvilpublishing.com/ and special thanks to Fanta and Gege of Flips Flipping Pages.)
Challenges:
Book #18 for 2011”
KwesiFriends wrote this review Saturday, January 29, 2011.
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