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52nd out of 63 books
—
8 voters
Eating Fire and Drinking Water
"I was someone hungry for stories; more specifically, I was someone who craved after facts. I was, you see, a person with no history. Lacking this, I developed a curiosity about other's people's stories. . . ."
Clara Perez is a reporter on a small South seas island. An orphan raised by nuns, she is a young woman with origins shrouded in mystery. Full of idealistic ambition,...more
Clara Perez is a reporter on a small South seas island. An orphan raised by nuns, she is a young woman with origins shrouded in mystery. Full of idealistic ambition,...more
Paperback, 350 pages
Published
January 26th 2011
by Ballantine Books
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I really enjoyed Chai's first book 'The Last Time I Saw Mother', so I was pleased to find a copy of her second book. Although there are some similarities between the two - first person female narrator, complex family dynamics and a past full of secrets - the story is also political. Set on an island in the South Pacific, Chai is very deliberate in never giving the actual name of the country or the dictator (whom she calls El Presidente). It's a very interesting choice, but for those who are fami...more
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Arlene J. Chai was required reading in grade school and I was supposed to write a book report on The Last Time I Saw Mother but I never finished it (business as usual, haha). Both her novels have been sitting at the back of my bookshelf for like 10 years, though, and I'm kind of in a Read All The Books In My Bookshelf campaign.
Re: Eating Fire and Drinking Water - I had a hard time ploughing through part 1 because I had a lot of issues with the writing and the perspective shifts, but I guess hist...more
Re: Eating Fire and Drinking Water - I had a hard time ploughing through part 1 because I had a lot of issues with the writing and the perspective shifts, but I guess hist...more
Amazing! I read Chai's first book, The Last Time I Saw Mother, before but I enjoyed this one far far far far better than that! In this second novel, everything seemed to scatter everywhere at first, but the author, Arlene J. Chai, adroitly gathered each piece and formed a marvelous whole! - a marvelous story of relationships, history, politics, revolution, etc. Yes! Chai captured these pieces and put them inside a small book! - There's no such thing as a small story! Though there was a part that...more
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Set against the backdrop of an emerging rebellion, a struggling young reporter rushes to a fire in a small street in the city to write about what happened. Little did she know that the circumstances of her birth are intertwined with the story she would be writing.
So goes the story of Clara Perez. Written in the first person, this book tells stories within a story. I would like to remark again on the author's brilliant recollection of historical events that was the background of this novel, and s...more
We were required to read this book. Some parts were dreadfully boring, while some were really interesting. What's cool is Chai mixed the bad parts and good parts to make a whole ultimately better than the parts. She laid out individual stories with seemingly no connections to one another, but she was able to intertwine them. She also added lots of unexpected twists. Chai also evoked a lot of emotions in me. She was able to make me love and hate characters. It's a good read. :D
http://softbound.blogspot.com/2012/01...
While there are plenty of novels that told the story of people’s lives during wars and revolutions, Arlene J. Chai’s Eating Fire and Drinking Water, however, tells the story of how characters lived at a time when a revolution is yet to begin.
While there are plenty of novels that told the story of people’s lives during wars and revolutions, Arlene J. Chai’s Eating Fire and Drinking Water, however, tells the story of how characters lived at a time when a revolution is yet to begin.
this is a really moving book... i can't imagine living in such times...i hope i wont experience those tragedies...it almost made me cry,...but the way things are right now here, i guess events like those narrated in this book can happen...
The use of the Marcos era as a backdrop was interesting but there were just too many stories in this book that didn't seem to connect.
This book made me realize that I don't know much about my country's history. haha.
I liked this book--didn't quite make 4 stars. Some scenes were very shocking, but I enjoyed the book overall. Very slow to begin with, though, with a lot of seemingly superfluous characters. However, they all come together nicely. It was a fictional respresentation of what life in the Phillipines were like in the 1970s and 1980s...
I got a glimpse of my country's history, which, apparently, I wasn't aware of. Haha.
A splendid storyteller...
Jun 18, 2013
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May 17, 2013
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Arlene J. Chai (b. 1955) is a Filipino-Chinese-Australian who migrated to Australia with her parents and sisters in 1982 because of the political upheaval. She became an advertising copywriter at George Patterson's advertising agency in 1972 and has been working there since. It is there that she met her mentor Bryce Courtney, who continuously inspires her to improve her work.
She won the Louis Bra...more
More about Arlene J. Chai...
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