Scribbler's Top Picks 2010 (Part 2)

Okay, so here's the long overdue Scribbler's Top 5 Picks for 2010-General Fiction. For Scribbler's Top 5 YA Picks for 2010 click here







1. Blindness (Jose Saramago) - The book that inspired the motion picture starring Julian Moore an Mark Rufallo, here comes the story of the doctor who was hit by the epidemic of "white blindness" and his wife who surprisingly retained hers despite the fact that the whole city was already infested by the plague. Here is the testimony of man's cruel nature, of his abuse to another man and the savage injustice imposed by one t another and of the proverbial "resonating voice in the wilderness" that delivers hope and salvation. his is a statement to Saramago's genius.


2. Ilustrado (Miguel Syjuco) - The debut novel by the Filipino author that catapulted him to the who's who of literary circle. Long before it was published, Ilustrado had been making noise bagging the coveted Man Asian Literary Prize and the local Palanca Award. Revolving on the story behind the death of the Lion of Philippine Literature, the story retells the three hundred long and bittersweet years of Philippine history--from Spaniards to post-colonial republic--through the story of the protagonist Miguel Syjuco (yes, the author's namesake). Although I could have used a different ending ( I already had empathized with the young Miguel to learn that he was just a projection, oh man!), this was a good and darkly humorous story. Caveat: dictionary, a must!

3. The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night Time (Mark Haddon) - This is an extraordinary account told on a first person perspective by an autistic narrator Christopher John Francis Boone. It started when one night the young Christopher found a dead dog lying on the neighbor's front yard with a garden fork sticking out of its stomach. He wanted to find out who did the murder, following the method of scientific deduction of his favorite character, Sherlock Holmes. His investigation, though, would lead him to deeper secrets that loomed their family and the touching narration of Christopher's character will surely open the eyes of the reader to the richness of human sympathy.

4. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Haruki Murakami) - This is my first book of Murakami and I should say that his take on this novel is nothing but avant-garde. Told in a first-person narrative, it has two distinct tones: one vivacious, witty and humorous while the other was melancholic or even phlegmatic. Think of Harry Potter as against A Little Princess. Like there were two personae in one body, whose separate account were simultaneously happening without one realizing the existence of the other--well, not until the grandiose climax where, in my personal opinion, Murakami had fallen short. But the extraordinary and highly inventive style of Murakami compensated for the ending and Murakami's style had me curious to read more of this artist's work.

5. 2666 (Roberto Bolaño) - Published posthumously (more than a year after the author's death), 2666 is an excruciating narrative of a writer's exploits, history and literary works told in five parts. Heavy in descriptions and slow in pace, the book is what is considered to be Bolaños's masterpiece although readers may find themselves tiring with Bolaños's sometimes complex structure and extremely long sentences (I had to read one paragraph composed of more or less twenty lines but was, in fact, only one sentence), the beauty of this work lies with highly evocative characters who were well-tuned with who they are and what they desired to become.


Well, they all have their own merits and I should say, although these books are extremely different with each other, they share a common quality: truth. And I absolutely recommend them either for leisure reading or academic analysis.