I'm about 2/3 through this novel, and I have to say, while I find the structure of it and the narrative interesting, its seams are looking more and more pronounced. As a writer, I really appreciate Miguel sticking to his collaging process all the way through. Still, as I've been waiting or hoping for the disparate threads of narrative to start weaving themselves together into some kind of climactic or culminating revelation or action, I am starting to think this isn't going to happen. Certainly this is one danger of writing fragmentary narrative. As writers, we have to ask what happens when the pieces fit together and create a picture that isn't whole, but remains fragmented. Is this a success or not? Is the term, "success" even relevant here?

Syjuco is successful with conveying to us the noise of human interaction, people constantly talking at one another, or simultaneously engaging in monologues with disregard for what others say. So people in this novel fail to communicate with and listen to one another. How then is it possible to piece together Crispin Salvador's life story from other people's stories, or to really know anyone? I suppose that's the point of the fragments.

I do have to say I am very much enjoying the narrator Miguel recounting his exchanges with Crispin; this is one place where the author Syjuco can "preach" about the state of Filipino literature historically and with new generations of ambitious writers coming up and needing mentorship. Another opportunity for this "preaching" occurs in the narrator Miguel's interactions with the elder writers at the University of the Philippines poetry reading/book launch. This scene is hilarious, and fabulous! Perhaps it's too "inside," meaning only writers who are Filipino (and maybe Filipino American) would experientially know the snark and sniping that our writers have for one another. We are implacable, expecting that one author to author that one book to define us once and for all, and so cutting, negative, and deprecating when a Filipino author fails to produce it based upon our own subjective and constantly changing standards, depending upon mastery of language (And which language best represents us?), and upon the perceived audience. For whom do we write when we are writing our narrative of us?