Status Updates From But for the Lovers

i genuinely don't believe i can finish this soon it's just exhausting to read

“Conquest had no conscience, pillage had no passion, genocide had no genes— yet it all siftef back to a kind of regeneration. Killing was mindless, just as compassion was not constructive: life just was, would always be. Vanity only embroidered, imposed an esthetic on it.”

chapter 15: logging this because this chapter made my jaw literally drop at that sudden anachronism - so beautiful, unexpected, devastating, and hopeful all at the same time. a reminder of how good literature can feel like a punch to the gut. manila, i love you already, always have, and nolledo makes me love you more.

im dragging my feet sorry I've been more absorbed in Nana which i will log right after this

hey so by the way. What the fuck

dizzying lovely prose. you really shouldn't attempt this book yet if you aren't prepared for it. it's quite dense and loves its breadth of vocabulary. also whenever street names, places, or historical figures ik get mentioned, i get sooo unreasonably excited ahdhhd that one hidalgo mention of osmeña and quezon and the flag law repealment—

Deogracias ain't gonna let anyone have fun in the bushes and that, along with the Prologue, is one of the most anti-climatic things in this novel