On the last day of November, on the feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle, the Genoese pilot of the Santa Maria found a current. It led to a vast and peaceful ocean, an ocean whose purring sighs and amber warmth held us firmly in its liquid embrace. The weather was mild, the sea an unbroken stretch of glass. Suddenly, we forgot scurvy and exhaustion, and even the last dreadful sight of the men put ashore in Guam, the ones slain by the cannibal Chamorros. The terrible screams from the beach had carried across the water to the black ships. Oh, the horror!
If only our pilot had not found the current that led us to the shining archipelago! — p. 15, Camarote de Marinero, self’s (experimental, 16th century, mostly epistolary) novel of the Philippines
Self has been working on this novel for ages. Writing historical fiction is hard.
They were not as accomplished at sea voyaging, not like their cousins the Portuguese. Those, perhaps less sure of their ability to hang on to Iberian earth and rock, had begun voyaging a century earlier. Everywhere a Portuguese ship went, that was Portugal. The ship’s deck became Mother. The ports they entered were also Mother. The Mother’s embrace gradually spanned worlds.
In mid-April, Honorato was sent to the mountains. He had just turned 18. Don Geronimo worried because he was tall, because he was good-looking, because he was the eldest and bore the hopes of his parents on his slender shoulders. Hide, his father told him. Get as far away from here as you can.
The new WordPress, and the new MAC operating system, which she installed just this morning, results in a much slower MacBook Air. Go figure.
Nevertheless, she has chosen this afternoon to go over Camarote de Marinero, which no one believes she is still working on, because wtf, doesn’t this woman ever know when to give up?
She is unable to write a synopsis because she just doesn’t know. What’s a synopsis, anyway? In the meantime, at least half a dozen works about Magellan have just been published, mostly by Filipino fiction writers. Oh yay for Philippine history!
Anyhoo, here’s an excerpt from p. 53:
The Archbishop writes to Matias: Inasmuch as there are places in these Islands of Luzon that have not been visited since the Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the natives who are converted pledge allegiance to the King, Our Lord, and I am informed that the natives in the jurisdiction of Ilocos, Pangasinan, Pampanga, Bulacan, Pangasinan, Camarines, Marinduque, Mindoro and the provinces of the Pintados do solemnly swear.
In terms of her reading life, August was the bomb. All the books she read were library check-outs (YAY! Library’s back, it’s back, it’s back!)
She read, in addition to The Charterhouse of Parma: Colonel Chabert, by Balzac; First: Sandra Day O’Connor, by Evan Thomas; and The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste.
Excited to begin a new novel (and discover a new writer). Opening Sentence of In West Mills:
In October of ’41, Azalea Centre’s man told her that he was sick and tired of West Mills and of the love affair she was having with moonshine.
Well! That is some opening.
The author bio on the book jacket says that De’Shawn Charles Winslow is from North Carolina. He is a 2017 graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop.
The Charterhouse of Parma has reached a turning point. Fabrizio is recognized by a former servant as he tries to cross the Po River. From loneliness, Fabrizio tells this servant, right away: I killed a man this morning.
Ludovic promises to help Fabrizio. They manage to evade the police, but during “the long intervals” of hiding, Ludovic decides to make Fabrizio listen to his sonnets.
Who knew this former coachman always had a deep desire to write poetry!
Fabrizio’s reflections on Ludovic’s sonnets:
Their feelings were true, but somehow blunted by their expression, and the verses were scarcely worth transcribing; oddly enough, this ex-coachman had passions and visions that were lively and picturesque; they turned cold and commonplace as soon as he wrote them down.
Poor Fabrizio, hiding in the willows on the banks of the Po River, forced to listen to his companion recite his bad poetry!
