EYE OF THE FISH : A Personal Archipelago
by Luis H. Francia (Kaya, 2001),
382 pp.
Cover Design by Sandra Watanabe,
detail from Contemplating Infinito Dios and
Vermeer by Santiago Bose.
$15.95

Available at Asian American Writers Workshop: desk@aaww.org or qbao@aaww.org; www.amazon.com, www.kaya.com

"As engaged as he is intrepid, Luis H. Francia proves a sure-footed guide as he leads us through insurgencies and art exhibitions, cockfights and cabarets. Impressive in its scope and ambition, Eye of the Fish is at once a hugely readable travelogue and an indispensable guide to a fascinating and richly varied archipelago." -Amitav Ghosh, author, The Glass Palace

EXCERPT:
She is married to a man from another SYP outfit. They have a two-year-old boy, Ian. The Anglo name hardly surprises me. A couple dedicated to a nationalist vision of their country, they could easily have given him some revolutionary tag, a name that would have symbolized their struggle for a better future. I think of a couple I once knew, active in a radical anti-Marcos group in New York, who had given their daughter a name that meant "struggle." This sharply contrasting emphasis on personal names encapsulates perfectly the different approaches to the task of revolution. For Ka Cindy and for the guerrillas, trying to make the revo happen is a deadly but often mundane business. It doesn't matter if their children have names like Ian or Gloria rather than Struggle of Freedom—in fact, in the world that they envision, there will be no need for such earnest monikers. People can have any name they want without it having to signify anything other than themselves. On the other hand, while with the guerrillas, I heard no nicknames, not the usual sugary ones anyway. Blessedly there were no Babys, no Boys or Baby Boys, no BingBongs, or BongBongs, no Cherry Pies, Tweetums, Snookys, no Bubbles. (The incessant cooing of such names as we grow up, I am now convinced, has an incalculable effect on our palates, predisposing us towards the sweet. The nicknames also seem to reflect a society's intent on retaining a naiveté in the face of an indifferent, hostile world.) If it was odd calling a grown man in Manila, beer belly and all, by the nickname of Boy, here in the jungle, where survival was an iffy game, such a tag for a well-armed guerrillla would have been ludicrous even if, as was often the case, he were barely a man. (pp. 104-105)

OOV Bookshelf 2001

DECEMBER 2001 FEATURE The Word on Paradise by Alfred A. Yuson Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment edited by Steve Louie and Glenn Omatsu SEPTEMBER 2001 FEATURE Filipinos in the United States by Estela L. Manila The Fall of the I-Hotel by Curtis Choy Warsaw in Asia by Jose Ma. Bonifacio M. Escoda JUNE 2001 FEATURE From America to Africa by Various Authors Willie Wins by Almira Astudillo Gilles Firefly by Various Authors APRIL 2001 FEATURE Coming Full Circle by Leny Mendoza Strobel Eye of the Fish by Luis H. Francia Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz