2011 in Books Not Published in 2011 (Part 3) “The El Bimbo Variations” by Adam David (2010). Raymond Queneau’s “Exercises in Style” has been translated to numerous languages, not including, not surprisingly, Filipino. But not to worry: Adam David proudly presents “The El Bimbo Variations,” the closest thing—probably the only thing—Philippine literature has to a local version of Queneau’s masterpiece of verbal smithing. In it David subjects the famous first line of the Eraserheads song “Ang Huling El Bimbo” (“Kamukha mo si Paraluman nung tayo ay bata pa.”) to different sorts of formal treatments. Often he takes his cue from the work his literary forebear put in “Exercises in Style,” but he also includes new forms and techniques of playful textual manipulation interspersed with ingenious graphic material made in collaboration with illustrator Josel Nicolas and inspired by Matt Madden’s own tribute to Queneau, the graphic novel “99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style.” Finding a more entertaining collection of renditions of a single line from a song will likely be an exercise in futility. “Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo” by Will Self (2005). J. G. Ballard’s disturbing novel of automotive paraphilia, “Crash,” is recalled in “Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo: A Manual,” a fantastical yet sometimes all-too-real tale of a family man gone astray. It is the first of two short stories by English enfant terrible Will Self collected by Penguin UK as part of its series of 70 super-slim editions published in celebration of its 70th anniversary. The other is “A Story of Europe,” the tale of a toddler in London and a German businessman. It’s laden with wordplay, but it’s unnerving enough to warrant a comparison with any piece of New Yorker short fiction by Shirley Jackson. (Reviewed here.) “Mr. Thundermug” by Cornelius Medvei (2007). Fables, by conventional definition, is chock-full of animal characters. More often than not these animals talk, but they do only on their own plane of understanding and interaction, divorced from human comprehension and interference. Cornelius Medvei’s debut novella has for its main character a talking animal, a baboon inexplicably gifted with language—that most human of human abilities—and burdened with the reality of a mostly shortsighted society. But “Mr. Thundermug” is less a fable than an allegory, touching upon the elusiveness of intelligent conversation and emphasizing the importance of standing up for oneself even if one can hardly stand erect. (Reviewed here.) “Icarus at the Edge of Time” by Brian Greene (2008). This boardbook with words by popular astrophysicist Brian Greene and pictures by the Hubble Space Telescope reworks the Greek myth of Daedalus’s disobedient son into a futuristic tale that substitutes Icarus’s wax-bonded wings with a snazzy micro-warp-drive engine and couples its source’s lesson in overambition with an introduction to time-space dilation. Turns out rocket science makes much more sense when it’s outfitted with art direction by book designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd. (Reviewed here.) “Smaller and Smaller Circles” by F. H. Batacan (2002). The geometry implied in the title of this Palanca award winner hints at a case of asphyxiation waiting to happen. And it’s not a question of whodunit so much as an examination of a system oblivious of its own disease that this crime novel chooses to tackle. Shut the windows; this book is so invested with a perpetually gloomy atmosphere that reading it might bring about a thunderstorm.  Previous: 2011 in Books Not Published in 2011 (Part 2)

2011 in Books Not Published in 2011 (Part 3)

“The El Bimbo Variations” by Adam David (2010). Raymond Queneau’s “Exercises in Style” has been translated to numerous languages, not including, not surprisingly, Filipino. But not to worry: Adam David proudly presents “The El Bimbo Variations,” the closest thing—probably the only thing—Philippine literature has to a local version of Queneau’s masterpiece of verbal smithing. In it David subjects the famous first line of the Eraserheads song “Ang Huling El Bimbo” (“Kamukha mo si Paraluman nung tayo ay bata pa.”) to different sorts of formal treatments. Often he takes his cue from the work his literary forebear put in “Exercises in Style,” but he also includes new forms and techniques of playful textual manipulation interspersed with ingenious graphic material made in collaboration with illustrator Josel Nicolas and inspired by Matt Madden’s own tribute to Queneau, the graphic novel “99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style.” Finding a more entertaining collection of renditions of a single line from a song will likely be an exercise in futility.

“Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo” by Will Self (2005). J. G. Ballard’s disturbing novel of automotive paraphilia, “Crash,” is recalled in “Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo: A Manual,” a fantastical yet sometimes all-too-real tale of a family man gone astray. It is the first of two short stories by English enfant terrible Will Self collected by Penguin UK as part of its series of 70 super-slim editions published in celebration of its 70th anniversary. The other is “A Story of Europe,” the tale of a toddler in London and a German businessman. It’s laden with wordplay, but it’s unnerving enough to warrant a comparison with any piece of New Yorker short fiction by Shirley Jackson. (Reviewed here.)

“Mr. Thundermug” by Cornelius Medvei (2007). Fables, by conventional definition, is chock-full of animal characters. More often than not these animals talk, but they do only on their own plane of understanding and interaction, divorced from human comprehension and interference. Cornelius Medvei’s debut novella has for its main character a talking animal, a baboon inexplicably gifted with language—that most human of human abilities—and burdened with the reality of a mostly shortsighted society. But “Mr. Thundermug” is less a fable than an allegory, touching upon the elusiveness of intelligent conversation and emphasizing the importance of standing up for oneself even if one can hardly stand erect. (Reviewed here.)

“Icarus at the Edge of Time” by Brian Greene (2008). This boardbook with words by popular astrophysicist Brian Greene and pictures by the Hubble Space Telescope reworks the Greek myth of Daedalus’s disobedient son into a futuristic tale that substitutes Icarus’s wax-bonded wings with a snazzy micro-warp-drive engine and couples its source’s lesson in overambition with an introduction to time-space dilation. Turns out rocket science makes much more sense when it’s outfitted with art direction by book designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd. (Reviewed here.)

“Smaller and Smaller Circles” by F. H. Batacan (2002). The geometry implied in the title of this Palanca award winner hints at a case of asphyxiation waiting to happen. And it’s not a question of whodunit so much as an examination of a system oblivious of its own disease that this crime novel chooses to tackle. Shut the windows; this book is so invested with a perpetually gloomy atmosphere that reading it might bring about a thunderstorm. 

Previous: 2011 in Books Not Published in 2011 (Part 2)

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  1. buy-steroids-uk--co reblogged this from aldrin
  2. sedricke said: The Batacan book will look so gorgeous in a movie, too. Bakit hindi uso sa Pilipinas ang mag-adapt ng libro to the big screen?
  3. velvetrobots said: That “El Bimbo Variations” looks mighty interesting.
  4. aldrin posted this

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