What do you think?
Rate this book
Tiempo Muerto
Two women meet on the island where they shared a childhood. One is looking for her mother, the other her yaya. One is an Overseas Filipino Worker, the other an heiress. In an old bahay na bato haunted by scandal and tragedy, secrets and ghosts, the women find their lives entangled and face the challenge of refusing their predetermined fates and embracing their open futures.
275 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
18 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Caroline S. Hau
18 books32 followersCaroline S. Hau is a Professor with the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
September 6, 2020
“…our stomachs understood the difference between pain and hunger. We knew what it was like, year after year, to walk the purgatory between life and death.”
––––––
The lives of two women from two drastically different worlds unravel where they all began in Caroline Hau’s TIEMPO MUERTO.
Racel is an overseas Filipino worker in Singapore who goes home to the feudal island of Banwa to find her missing mother, the long-time helper of the Agalon family. Lia, the family’s unica hija, escapes back to Banwa after a scandalous marriage in Singapore and eventually joins the search for her missing yaya.
I love how the characters were written. The two characters Lia and Racel often bleed into each other, even if the only thing they shared was their childhood. At the same time, it feels like they are in this never-ending tug of war game, with neither unwilling to yield during their stay inside the old Agalon house.
I enjoyed Lia’s “evolution.” I wouldn’t call her a class traitor, though. Her idea of paying for the sins of her lineage – to sift through her family’s archives, listen to the stories of the Bagwan families, and write about these – didn’t sit well with me. But I think this still perfectly captures her character arc, the person who desperately wants to change course because she doesn’t want to live a life full of guilt for being complicit.
Hau’s background as an academic and social scientist is evident in her prose. Rich with details that mirror reality, it reads like an ethnographic paper on many areas in the Philippines scarred by centuries of feudalism and the violence that inevitability comes with it. Banwa, the sugarlandia of the Agalons, might as well be Negros, or Tarlac, or even Sitio San Roque in Quezon City, which says so much about Philippine society and its penchant for firmly holding on what should be basic necessities from those who worked hard.
I started reading the book wanting to know what happened to Racel’s mother. Halfway through, I was curious whether the Agalon house is really haunted. I finished TIEMPO MUERTO believing that ghosts, real or imagined / literally or figuratively, are necessary because they are sometimes the only way to people to acknowledge, if not repent, past wrongdoings.
––––––
The lives of two women from two drastically different worlds unravel where they all began in Caroline Hau’s TIEMPO MUERTO.
Racel is an overseas Filipino worker in Singapore who goes home to the feudal island of Banwa to find her missing mother, the long-time helper of the Agalon family. Lia, the family’s unica hija, escapes back to Banwa after a scandalous marriage in Singapore and eventually joins the search for her missing yaya.
I love how the characters were written. The two characters Lia and Racel often bleed into each other, even if the only thing they shared was their childhood. At the same time, it feels like they are in this never-ending tug of war game, with neither unwilling to yield during their stay inside the old Agalon house.
I enjoyed Lia’s “evolution.” I wouldn’t call her a class traitor, though. Her idea of paying for the sins of her lineage – to sift through her family’s archives, listen to the stories of the Bagwan families, and write about these – didn’t sit well with me. But I think this still perfectly captures her character arc, the person who desperately wants to change course because she doesn’t want to live a life full of guilt for being complicit.
Hau’s background as an academic and social scientist is evident in her prose. Rich with details that mirror reality, it reads like an ethnographic paper on many areas in the Philippines scarred by centuries of feudalism and the violence that inevitability comes with it. Banwa, the sugarlandia of the Agalons, might as well be Negros, or Tarlac, or even Sitio San Roque in Quezon City, which says so much about Philippine society and its penchant for firmly holding on what should be basic necessities from those who worked hard.
I started reading the book wanting to know what happened to Racel’s mother. Halfway through, I was curious whether the Agalon house is really haunted. I finished TIEMPO MUERTO believing that ghosts, real or imagined / literally or figuratively, are necessary because they are sometimes the only way to people to acknowledge, if not repent, past wrongdoings.
July 30, 2020
Ang aklat ni Caroline Hau na "Tiempu Muerto" ay masasabi kong isang napka-'Filipinong' nobela. Sa panganib na mapangalang masyadong nasyonalista, masasabi ko na isa itong kwento na nakakapaglarawan sa mga pangyayaring at suliranin na matatagpuan sa malagim na kasalukuyan ng Pilipinas. Isa tayong bansang pinaghili sa kasalanan ng ating mga ninuno, sa kanilang pagkukulang, at sa kanilang kasakiman. Kasaamang Ipinagmana. Ang puwang sa mga matataas na uri at "mabababang" uri, ang mga mayayaman at maralita. Kung paano lahat tayo ay taong magkasamang nagdurusa at kumakailangan sa isa't isa.
Masasabi ko na walang motibo o tema o moral ang librong ito. Atlis, hindi siya inilalahad ng simplihan sa harapan ng mambabasa. Nasa diwa na ng mambabasa kung anong mapupulot niya sa nobela. Pero sa kadalubhasaan ni Caroline Hau at sa pagkatalik niya sa mga pangyayari sa bansa natin (naglagay pa nga siya ng sanggunian at bibiliyograpiya sa huling bahagi ng libro), siguro alam niya na kung sinumang makabayan at makataong Pilipino ay makakapulot ng mahalagang aralin sa pagbabasa niya niyo. Kung paano nakakahamak lamang ang status quo ng ating bansa. Kung paano isang kasalanan ang panatiliin nang ganito ang kalagayan ng bansa. Kung paano ang mga kasalanan ng ating mga ninuno ay ang mumulto sa atin sa huli kung hindi natin tanggapin at gamitin upang baguhin ang bahay kung saan lahat tayo'y nakatira.
Sa pamaraan ng dalubhasang paggamit ng wikang Ingles at Kanluranang mga tekniko sa pagsulat, nakapaglikha si Caroline Hau ng isang mahalaga at napaka-Filipinong nobela na mahalagang pagisipan at pagmunimunihan.
Kasamaang Ipinamana: ang mga kasalanan ng mga ninuno natin ay ang magmumulto sa atin sa huli, kung hindi natin pinagaralan at nilagpasan.
Masasabi ko na walang motibo o tema o moral ang librong ito. Atlis, hindi siya inilalahad ng simplihan sa harapan ng mambabasa. Nasa diwa na ng mambabasa kung anong mapupulot niya sa nobela. Pero sa kadalubhasaan ni Caroline Hau at sa pagkatalik niya sa mga pangyayari sa bansa natin (naglagay pa nga siya ng sanggunian at bibiliyograpiya sa huling bahagi ng libro), siguro alam niya na kung sinumang makabayan at makataong Pilipino ay makakapulot ng mahalagang aralin sa pagbabasa niya niyo. Kung paano nakakahamak lamang ang status quo ng ating bansa. Kung paano isang kasalanan ang panatiliin nang ganito ang kalagayan ng bansa. Kung paano ang mga kasalanan ng ating mga ninuno ay ang mumulto sa atin sa huli kung hindi natin tanggapin at gamitin upang baguhin ang bahay kung saan lahat tayo'y nakatira.
Sa pamaraan ng dalubhasang paggamit ng wikang Ingles at Kanluranang mga tekniko sa pagsulat, nakapaglikha si Caroline Hau ng isang mahalaga at napaka-Filipinong nobela na mahalagang pagisipan at pagmunimunihan.
Kasamaang Ipinamana: ang mga kasalanan ng mga ninuno natin ay ang magmumulto sa atin sa huli, kung hindi natin pinagaralan at nilagpasan.
May 26, 2020
"(We) live in the stories they tell of this island and of the people who have worked, suffered, and died in it. They endure, they remember. The gifts of other people's stories become my gifts in turn, stories I will pass onto others, so that we may not forget. Such an expansive world, yet we cross mountains and seas in order to gain our footing, solid and true against the wind and rain, on the ground we tread and the ground we will have trodden."
I went into this book already impressed with the author Professor Caroline Hau, since I've read a few of her academic papers concerning Filipino identity, culture and literature. I found her style in essays verbose but without ever losing sight of her arguments and points in the entirety of the content. For her first ever novel Tiempo Muerto, she almost applied this same kind of approach, which to me enabled her prose to breathe in some places yet also lose air in others. The novel had also undergone what I believe to be thorough and credible research pertaining to key events based on real-life people and situations which, for the sake of creative license, Professor Hau had merely allusioned to rather than specify. Tiempo Muerto can be read as historical fiction in scope because of this, and there are even a few of the underlying themes which delved on Philippine politics and its systematic corruption and abuse of power, particularly among aristocrat families who engage in nepotism and unethical policies to this day.
Before that meaty portion of the narrative was explored, Tiempo Muerto is first and foremost a character study about two women. The premise of the story concerned their starkly distinct lives from one another yet some of these experiences and struggles tend to overlap nevertheless. We have Racel, an overseas Filipino worker who had to go home because her mother Nanay Alma disappeared and no one knows the circumstances surrounding it. Over several years, Racel and her mother have grown distant, almost like strangers to one another, so in her personal mission to understand what happened and where the old woman could have gone, she uncovered certain details that she was never told in the obligatory letters they had exchanged, like any parent and grown daughter would do. Interestingly enough, her chapters are written in first-person whereas the other heroine of this novel is in third-person. This small discrepancy didn't take away anything, because both POVs worked within the limits of the perspective offered.
Lia Agalon, the other side of the coin, was a wealthy heiress from a famed family in the Philippines, sired by a glamorous socialite who married a man who was as crooked as one can expect a prominent figure in business and politics to be. When the book started, Lia just got divorced from her Singaporean husband and also estranged from her only daughter Natasha. Looking for an anchor and harbor, she returned to the Philippines. She, too, has a stake in the missing Nanay Alma. Lia and Racel somewhat grew up together since Rachel's mother was Lia's caretaker. Their relationship can be considered sisterly, but as they soon found their footing in two worlds that were never supposed to meet, the women might as well be acquaintances who merely shared a few memories about the town of Banwa--and the secrets and strife which engulfed its people and self-appointed vassals.
"It doesn't surprise me Nanay has been martyred and canonized over and over. The thought that she might be dead has a way of reshaping people's memories and the stories they tell. They're intricately designed cloths while mine is plain and monochrome."
A lot about Tiempo Muerto reminded me of a modern-day Victorian novel. The prose's tone fits that quite well especially when the story not only expounded on family genealogy, crises, and interconnected histories, but it also created this semi-paranormal layer concerning ghosts, whether real or imagined. The old Agalon house was established from the beginning as a haunted place, and several scenes hinted that Racel and Lia's ghosts are hardly just symbolic. We never truly learn, and perhaps it never mattered. What was so engaging about this book was how Hau took her sweet, laborious time fleshing out the two women as individuals, and made readers care about their woes, secret fantasies and most of all their memories from childhood that were at once bittersweet and incontestably traumatic. Both were survivors of hardships that spanned across decades and woven into Banwa's own rich history in which it endured the colonial times, the Commonwealth era including World War II and Martial Law. Racel had a very engrossing chapter where in she recounted her fragmented memories about Marcos time where her favorite teacher was 'salvaged'. Later on she would also reveal the first and perhaps even the last time she and her mother shared something horrific that it deepened their filial bond.
Even though Racel felt most real and recognizable in the things she endured as someone who worked hard to bring herself out of poverty, it's ultimately Lia whom I considered warmer and more sympathetic, even in her moments of self-defeat and pitiful choices. That's not to say I cast aspersions on Racel; I don't believe anyone can for there is steel in her bones and ice in her veins, but Lia's story appealed to me more mainly because she came from a place of privilege and was therefore burdened by the compliance she cannot seem to fully free herself from. Now an adult woman who has faced the music regarding a lot of her choices in life, Lia was bound to come home to the country she's been sent away from because her father can afford it. In America she fell in love and made most of her freedom, but she's also a person who merely grew to love her chains, and the story of Tiempo Muerto was the great unraveling in which she must trace where those chains come from. While Racel came to terms that she never truly lived beyond her duty as a good daughter and provider so she must find happiness defined more by her heart and not just pragmatism, Lia had willfully allowed her destiny dictated by the whims of people who never saw her anything more than just an extension of their legacy and pride, and now it's time to take control.
"I had assumed that the years ahead would weave themselves according to a fixed design. Now I find myself reeling new colored threads onto their spools, and the thought that other designs are possible scares me as much as it excites me."
"She has spent so much of her time on this island being afraid of ghosts, only to realize that the years abroad and elsewhere had turned her into one. Let the ghosts colonize Banwa. She would join them in a different project of haunting. She would atone for her sins, or the sins of her family, knowing that the understanding she sought was not the same as the rationalization and justification, much less forgiveness. She would start by calling her daughter."
Both women learned something beautiful about themselves in examining the defects and jagged pieces of their lives, and it's in this truth that they must carry on separately, with Racel rekindling a childhood love and planning for a new future that's no longer built in self-effacing solitude, and Lia dedicating herself in pursuing writing which was by picking up what her mother started in college, with the sole purpose of hopefully piecing together a complete narrative about her family, the so-called 'Masters of Banwa', warts and all.
The ending for Tiempo Muerto can be taken as evasive or ambiguous, although I'd like to think that the journey was what counted more rather than any destination, because it didn't feel to me as if the story was truly over for Racel and Lia, hence that last scene. I enjoyed everything about this novel in ways I never expected; I commend Professor Hau for the leisurely time she took so she can offer a very nuanced portrait of her characters, two women who came from differing economic backgrounds and personal experiences. The best moments of the novel came from the historical fiction it was penned in. Hau never dropped names explicitly, but I can make educated guesses about certain figures in politics that she based a few of the circumstantial characters from. On the downside, I was left with a few questions in between readings during my almost four-month stint, and sometimes most of the chapters seemed too indulgent in content for the sake of character study, but I actually am a fan of rigorous exploration of characters, so this didn't bother me.
Overall, Tiempo Muerto was an impressive feat and a welcome addition to contemporary Filipino fiction.
RECOMMENDED: 8/10
Read more of my review in:
I went into this book already impressed with the author Professor Caroline Hau, since I've read a few of her academic papers concerning Filipino identity, culture and literature. I found her style in essays verbose but without ever losing sight of her arguments and points in the entirety of the content. For her first ever novel Tiempo Muerto, she almost applied this same kind of approach, which to me enabled her prose to breathe in some places yet also lose air in others. The novel had also undergone what I believe to be thorough and credible research pertaining to key events based on real-life people and situations which, for the sake of creative license, Professor Hau had merely allusioned to rather than specify. Tiempo Muerto can be read as historical fiction in scope because of this, and there are even a few of the underlying themes which delved on Philippine politics and its systematic corruption and abuse of power, particularly among aristocrat families who engage in nepotism and unethical policies to this day.
Before that meaty portion of the narrative was explored, Tiempo Muerto is first and foremost a character study about two women. The premise of the story concerned their starkly distinct lives from one another yet some of these experiences and struggles tend to overlap nevertheless. We have Racel, an overseas Filipino worker who had to go home because her mother Nanay Alma disappeared and no one knows the circumstances surrounding it. Over several years, Racel and her mother have grown distant, almost like strangers to one another, so in her personal mission to understand what happened and where the old woman could have gone, she uncovered certain details that she was never told in the obligatory letters they had exchanged, like any parent and grown daughter would do. Interestingly enough, her chapters are written in first-person whereas the other heroine of this novel is in third-person. This small discrepancy didn't take away anything, because both POVs worked within the limits of the perspective offered.
Lia Agalon, the other side of the coin, was a wealthy heiress from a famed family in the Philippines, sired by a glamorous socialite who married a man who was as crooked as one can expect a prominent figure in business and politics to be. When the book started, Lia just got divorced from her Singaporean husband and also estranged from her only daughter Natasha. Looking for an anchor and harbor, she returned to the Philippines. She, too, has a stake in the missing Nanay Alma. Lia and Racel somewhat grew up together since Rachel's mother was Lia's caretaker. Their relationship can be considered sisterly, but as they soon found their footing in two worlds that were never supposed to meet, the women might as well be acquaintances who merely shared a few memories about the town of Banwa--and the secrets and strife which engulfed its people and self-appointed vassals.
"It doesn't surprise me Nanay has been martyred and canonized over and over. The thought that she might be dead has a way of reshaping people's memories and the stories they tell. They're intricately designed cloths while mine is plain and monochrome."
A lot about Tiempo Muerto reminded me of a modern-day Victorian novel. The prose's tone fits that quite well especially when the story not only expounded on family genealogy, crises, and interconnected histories, but it also created this semi-paranormal layer concerning ghosts, whether real or imagined. The old Agalon house was established from the beginning as a haunted place, and several scenes hinted that Racel and Lia's ghosts are hardly just symbolic. We never truly learn, and perhaps it never mattered. What was so engaging about this book was how Hau took her sweet, laborious time fleshing out the two women as individuals, and made readers care about their woes, secret fantasies and most of all their memories from childhood that were at once bittersweet and incontestably traumatic. Both were survivors of hardships that spanned across decades and woven into Banwa's own rich history in which it endured the colonial times, the Commonwealth era including World War II and Martial Law. Racel had a very engrossing chapter where in she recounted her fragmented memories about Marcos time where her favorite teacher was 'salvaged'. Later on she would also reveal the first and perhaps even the last time she and her mother shared something horrific that it deepened their filial bond.
Even though Racel felt most real and recognizable in the things she endured as someone who worked hard to bring herself out of poverty, it's ultimately Lia whom I considered warmer and more sympathetic, even in her moments of self-defeat and pitiful choices. That's not to say I cast aspersions on Racel; I don't believe anyone can for there is steel in her bones and ice in her veins, but Lia's story appealed to me more mainly because she came from a place of privilege and was therefore burdened by the compliance she cannot seem to fully free herself from. Now an adult woman who has faced the music regarding a lot of her choices in life, Lia was bound to come home to the country she's been sent away from because her father can afford it. In America she fell in love and made most of her freedom, but she's also a person who merely grew to love her chains, and the story of Tiempo Muerto was the great unraveling in which she must trace where those chains come from. While Racel came to terms that she never truly lived beyond her duty as a good daughter and provider so she must find happiness defined more by her heart and not just pragmatism, Lia had willfully allowed her destiny dictated by the whims of people who never saw her anything more than just an extension of their legacy and pride, and now it's time to take control.
"I had assumed that the years ahead would weave themselves according to a fixed design. Now I find myself reeling new colored threads onto their spools, and the thought that other designs are possible scares me as much as it excites me."
"She has spent so much of her time on this island being afraid of ghosts, only to realize that the years abroad and elsewhere had turned her into one. Let the ghosts colonize Banwa. She would join them in a different project of haunting. She would atone for her sins, or the sins of her family, knowing that the understanding she sought was not the same as the rationalization and justification, much less forgiveness. She would start by calling her daughter."
Both women learned something beautiful about themselves in examining the defects and jagged pieces of their lives, and it's in this truth that they must carry on separately, with Racel rekindling a childhood love and planning for a new future that's no longer built in self-effacing solitude, and Lia dedicating herself in pursuing writing which was by picking up what her mother started in college, with the sole purpose of hopefully piecing together a complete narrative about her family, the so-called 'Masters of Banwa', warts and all.
The ending for Tiempo Muerto can be taken as evasive or ambiguous, although I'd like to think that the journey was what counted more rather than any destination, because it didn't feel to me as if the story was truly over for Racel and Lia, hence that last scene. I enjoyed everything about this novel in ways I never expected; I commend Professor Hau for the leisurely time she took so she can offer a very nuanced portrait of her characters, two women who came from differing economic backgrounds and personal experiences. The best moments of the novel came from the historical fiction it was penned in. Hau never dropped names explicitly, but I can make educated guesses about certain figures in politics that she based a few of the circumstantial characters from. On the downside, I was left with a few questions in between readings during my almost four-month stint, and sometimes most of the chapters seemed too indulgent in content for the sake of character study, but I actually am a fan of rigorous exploration of characters, so this didn't bother me.
Overall, Tiempo Muerto was an impressive feat and a welcome addition to contemporary Filipino fiction.
RECOMMENDED: 8/10
Read more of my review in:
January 14, 2024
I think this ended too abruptly—or maybe I thought it wanted to be the Great Filipino Novel? I think the Banwa house was a missed opportunity; I mean the quite literal haunting was sort of a cop out. Definitely could have given Banwa a bit more of a sprawl (but maybe that’s for a different book). Anyway, I loved Racel at least.
December 16, 2023
Tiempo Muerto succeeded at what My Sad Republic attempted to do. Yet, it is not a replica of anything; it is unapologetically itself.
Set in the fictional island of Banwa somewhere off the coasts of Iloilo and Negros, it tells the story of two characters. One is Racel, the daughter of a domestic helper, and the other is Lia, the daughter of the island's wealthy landlord. Both grew up in Banwa, studied in Metro Manila, and lived in Singapore — Racel as a domestic helper herself and Lia as the wife of a Singaporean heir. And both returned to Banwa to seek Racel's mother and Lia's former nanny, Nay Alma.
The novel manages to touch on multiple themes:
- How natives descended from farmers and weavers become peasants, housekeepers, and then resort staff subject to one family's land ownership and control
- How the rich maintain their power over generations, wearing the hats of landowners, politicians, and businessmen
- How well-off women pawn off their domestic work to less fortunate women, who then leave their own homes and families to the care of others
- How educated Filipinos are forced to seek their fortune abroad, usually as underemployed, abused care workers who still earn more than they would as professionals in the country
- How militants are "disappeared," tortured, and murdered as they campaign for humane working and living conditions and teach children to think for themselves
- How typhoons, volcanic eruptions, and other calamities regularly ravage island communities, but somehow never get mitigated or better prepared for
- How spirits and superstitions color the daily lives of Filipinos, showing how they are haunted by the specters of the past (read: colonizers, feudal lords, and restless ancestors)
I'm sure I missed more, and I'll probably add them as the recollections come. The ending is thought-provoking, with Racel and Lia discovering something other than what they set out to find. However, it (the ending) still leaves much to be desired. I would have preferred for Racel and Lia to process their relationship in some way, and for Lia to experience more of the discomfort that comes with coming to terms with who she is and what she can do to truly make a difference in Banwa.
For now, I will say that if there should be a great Filipino novel of this century, my vote goes to Tiempo Muerto. Read to be radicalized!
Set in the fictional island of Banwa somewhere off the coasts of Iloilo and Negros, it tells the story of two characters. One is Racel, the daughter of a domestic helper, and the other is Lia, the daughter of the island's wealthy landlord. Both grew up in Banwa, studied in Metro Manila, and lived in Singapore — Racel as a domestic helper herself and Lia as the wife of a Singaporean heir. And both returned to Banwa to seek Racel's mother and Lia's former nanny, Nay Alma.
The novel manages to touch on multiple themes:
- How natives descended from farmers and weavers become peasants, housekeepers, and then resort staff subject to one family's land ownership and control
- How the rich maintain their power over generations, wearing the hats of landowners, politicians, and businessmen
- How well-off women pawn off their domestic work to less fortunate women, who then leave their own homes and families to the care of others
- How educated Filipinos are forced to seek their fortune abroad, usually as underemployed, abused care workers who still earn more than they would as professionals in the country
- How militants are "disappeared," tortured, and murdered as they campaign for humane working and living conditions and teach children to think for themselves
- How typhoons, volcanic eruptions, and other calamities regularly ravage island communities, but somehow never get mitigated or better prepared for
- How spirits and superstitions color the daily lives of Filipinos, showing how they are haunted by the specters of the past (read: colonizers, feudal lords, and restless ancestors)
I'm sure I missed more, and I'll probably add them as the recollections come. The ending is thought-provoking, with Racel and Lia discovering something other than what they set out to find. However, it (the ending) still leaves much to be desired. I would have preferred for Racel and Lia to process their relationship in some way, and for Lia to experience more of the discomfort that comes with coming to terms with who she is and what she can do to truly make a difference in Banwa.
For now, I will say that if there should be a great Filipino novel of this century, my vote goes to Tiempo Muerto. Read to be radicalized!
April 25, 2021
The summary of this book is misleading—it's not the story of an OFW domestic helper looking for her mom and an old-rich Visayan heiress looking for her yaya, it's the story of two lost women finding themselves in the midst of history, controversy, and society.
I like what one review here said and I think it sums the book up perfectly: "it reads like a modern day Victorian novel" but placed in the Philippine context. It was definitely an experience—less like reading a novel and more like reading a historical and fictionalized non-fiction book with a story in its heart.
I took my time reading and absorbing this book, thoroughly enjoying all the parallels in the story with current-world Philippines despite it being set maybe in the early 2000s. The writing style is direct and intentional, narrative when needed, and never long-winding even with its longer passages. You could tell that it's truly a book rooted in the heart of the Philippine experience, one that's not all good. By the end, it transforms back into the age-old tale of the rich exploiting and oppressing the poor with power and money in its endless cycle.
Especially reading it now given my country's current socio-political climate, it really makes you wonder if it'll ever end. With stories like these, all we can do is hold on to hope and learn to look up, and by then we can take the next step.
I like what one review here said and I think it sums the book up perfectly: "it reads like a modern day Victorian novel" but placed in the Philippine context. It was definitely an experience—less like reading a novel and more like reading a historical and fictionalized non-fiction book with a story in its heart.
I took my time reading and absorbing this book, thoroughly enjoying all the parallels in the story with current-world Philippines despite it being set maybe in the early 2000s. The writing style is direct and intentional, narrative when needed, and never long-winding even with its longer passages. You could tell that it's truly a book rooted in the heart of the Philippine experience, one that's not all good. By the end, it transforms back into the age-old tale of the rich exploiting and oppressing the poor with power and money in its endless cycle.
Especially reading it now given my country's current socio-political climate, it really makes you wonder if it'll ever end. With stories like these, all we can do is hold on to hope and learn to look up, and by then we can take the next step.
December 26, 2022
I enjoyed Tiempo Muerto in a way that can only be brought about by the familiarity that Filipino literature brings. The feeling of recognising places and words in another language that I almost never see in the books I read is unparalleled.
This was a beautifully written story with so many small details that inspired further research and understanding of historical events/ sociopolitical nuances I never fully understood. It's an important story, and I hope more contemporary Filipino stories will be told.
4.5
This was a beautifully written story with so many small details that inspired further research and understanding of historical events/ sociopolitical nuances I never fully understood. It's an important story, and I hope more contemporary Filipino stories will be told.
4.5
December 23, 2021
Guillotine the rich.
December 24, 2021
When I saw that Hau already has a novel, I got excited that I went straight to the bookstore to buy me copy. I read and liked her collection of short stories, Recuerdos de Patay and Other Stories as it has stories that never left me. Rare are those local authors whose books left imprints in my mind.
This book is aptly titled: Tiempo Muerto means "time-out". Racel, an Singapore-based OFW had a time-out from being an OFW by going back to the Philippines in search for his mother who disappeared without a trace. Lia, the heiress is on time-out from his many commitments, business and otherwise, in search for his missing yaya. The two girls shared their childhood in bahay na bato and in the same place will unfold stories that shaped who they were and who will be in the future. Nothing really fancy in terms of the plot but the alternate storytelling from their respective points-of-view is a common technique. However, unlike for example in Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun that the two narratives merging in the end is the climax of the story, here, it is comes off flat and almost uneventful. It's like having two separate vines, finally intertwined in the end having no real purpose at all.
What I liked about this book is its seemingly hopeful attempt to do an Isabelle Allende what with the story with the ancestral house as background and the magical realism composed of spirits and superstitions. It also uses Filipino phrases that gave credence and authentic local color to the narrative. Lastly, having one of the islands in the Visayas as the backdrop of the stories highlighted the rich history of the banwa and the Visayas as a whole.
Like Allende's The House of the Spirits, Tiempo Muerto was a successful debut of the author as a novelist. However, I still prefer her as a short story writer. Or maybe write some of novels and my opinion could differ.
This book is aptly titled: Tiempo Muerto means "time-out". Racel, an Singapore-based OFW had a time-out from being an OFW by going back to the Philippines in search for his mother who disappeared without a trace. Lia, the heiress is on time-out from his many commitments, business and otherwise, in search for his missing yaya. The two girls shared their childhood in bahay na bato and in the same place will unfold stories that shaped who they were and who will be in the future. Nothing really fancy in terms of the plot but the alternate storytelling from their respective points-of-view is a common technique. However, unlike for example in Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun that the two narratives merging in the end is the climax of the story, here, it is comes off flat and almost uneventful. It's like having two separate vines, finally intertwined in the end having no real purpose at all.
What I liked about this book is its seemingly hopeful attempt to do an Isabelle Allende what with the story with the ancestral house as background and the magical realism composed of spirits and superstitions. It also uses Filipino phrases that gave credence and authentic local color to the narrative. Lastly, having one of the islands in the Visayas as the backdrop of the stories highlighted the rich history of the banwa and the Visayas as a whole.
Like Allende's The House of the Spirits, Tiempo Muerto was a successful debut of the author as a novelist. However, I still prefer her as a short story writer. Or maybe write some of novels and my opinion could differ.
September 2, 2024
Tiempo Muerto succeeds at what many gothic novels fail to do: tackle multiple issues and give each one its fair due. In less than 300 pages, Caroline Hau manages to weave a compelling tale that feature land-grabbing and the abuse perpetuated by the landed class, how the rich maintain their power and wealth over generations, how the Philippines is bled dry of its skilled workforce who are forced to go abroad by economic circumstances, the desaparecidos, the blend of superstition and colonization that colors our past and influences our future, and how natural disasters regularly batter our country and yet somehow the government is never prepared for them.
The synopsis is misleading. Yes, on its surface, this is indeed the story of an OFW domestic worker and an Ilongga heiress searching for the same woman—the OFW's mother, who was once the heiress's yaya—after she has gone missing in a typhoon. (Funnily enough, as I write this review, Tropical Storm Enteng batters the northern half of the Philippines, with PAGASA predicting that it'll strengthen into a typhoon by Wednesday or Thursday.) But as you continue reading about their journey, you begin to realize that this microcosm of a story is reflective of the modern day Filipino experience as a whole. The Philippines is a nation that can never be truly free of its past, both colonial and otherwise, and that can mean both good and bad things. In the end, the one thing all Filipinos of all backgrounds can do is to never, ever forget where they come from, and what it took to get us here.
"The gifts of other people's stories become my gifts in turn, stories I will pass on to others, so that we may never forget."
The synopsis is misleading. Yes, on its surface, this is indeed the story of an OFW domestic worker and an Ilongga heiress searching for the same woman—the OFW's mother, who was once the heiress's yaya—after she has gone missing in a typhoon. (Funnily enough, as I write this review, Tropical Storm Enteng batters the northern half of the Philippines, with PAGASA predicting that it'll strengthen into a typhoon by Wednesday or Thursday.) But as you continue reading about their journey, you begin to realize that this microcosm of a story is reflective of the modern day Filipino experience as a whole. The Philippines is a nation that can never be truly free of its past, both colonial and otherwise, and that can mean both good and bad things. In the end, the one thing all Filipinos of all backgrounds can do is to never, ever forget where they come from, and what it took to get us here.
"The gifts of other people's stories become my gifts in turn, stories I will pass on to others, so that we may never forget."
August 22, 2021
"Such an expansive world, yet we cross mountains and seas in order to gain our footing, solid and true against the wind and rain, on the ground we tread and the ground we will have trodden."
This is a ghost story—of the specter of colonialism and feudalism, of migrant workers at the edge of society, of the poor and the oppressed in the eyes of the state, and of actual ghosts.
Tiempo Muerto is a story of two women, both searching for a person and for their place in this world. But more than that, it is a story of class divide, revolution, and land reform.
STP HST!
This is a ghost story—of the specter of colonialism and feudalism, of migrant workers at the edge of society, of the poor and the oppressed in the eyes of the state, and of actual ghosts.
Tiempo Muerto is a story of two women, both searching for a person and for their place in this world. But more than that, it is a story of class divide, revolution, and land reform.
STP HST!
December 28, 2021
Tiempo Muerto is a beautiful story that explores many themes concerning social issues we face, even today. Hau has marvelously woven stories of women and history, as well as included a dash of horror made more terrifying in its real implications than what is expected from the paranormal. We also had fun discussing it in book club, the different mother-daughter relationships providing avenue for us to talk about our own relationship with our mothers, figuring out that we are all products of our time.
March 17, 2021
Oo, giit ng Tiempo Muerto, hinuhubog tayo ng dugo at ng kasaysayan. May mayayabong na lilim ang nakaraan, mga punong malalalim ang ugat na hindi natin matatakasan. Subalit ano ngayon? Bagaman sumusunod sa hubog na inilalatag ng nakaraan ang ating mga buhay, lagi't laging may pagkakataong baliin ang inaakalang tadhana.
Tungkol ang Tiempo Muerto sa nagbabanggaang kasaysayan ng dalawang babae, sina Lia at Racel, na minsang nagsalo sa pagkabata sa isang pulong binabalikan nila ngayon matapos ang mga buhay na puno ng dahas at kabiguan. Sa pamamagitan nitong kuwento tungkol sa mga nawawalang ina, may malinaw na sipat ang libro tungkol sa karanasan ng mga migranteng Pilipino at may matibay ring pagpoposisyon hinggil sa politikang humuhubog sa tadhanang pangingibang-bayan ng napakarami sa ating mga kababayan. Bagaman nakulangan ako sa pagtatahi ng kuwento ni Lia, buong-buo rito ang salaysay ni Racel, na siyang hinala kong totoong bida sa kuwento.
Mataginting ang tinig ni Hau sa nobelang ito. Napakadaling basahin ng mga talatang tatangayin ka mula Singapura hanggang Amerika pabalik sa kanayunan ng Panay habang naghahabi ng isang salaysay ng mga paglayo at pagmamahal. Mabagal mag-alab ang kuwento subalit tiyak na malululong ka sa gilas ng pagkukuwento.
8.5/10
Tiempo Muerto ni Caroline Hau (Ateneo Press, 2019)
Tungkol ang Tiempo Muerto sa nagbabanggaang kasaysayan ng dalawang babae, sina Lia at Racel, na minsang nagsalo sa pagkabata sa isang pulong binabalikan nila ngayon matapos ang mga buhay na puno ng dahas at kabiguan. Sa pamamagitan nitong kuwento tungkol sa mga nawawalang ina, may malinaw na sipat ang libro tungkol sa karanasan ng mga migranteng Pilipino at may matibay ring pagpoposisyon hinggil sa politikang humuhubog sa tadhanang pangingibang-bayan ng napakarami sa ating mga kababayan. Bagaman nakulangan ako sa pagtatahi ng kuwento ni Lia, buong-buo rito ang salaysay ni Racel, na siyang hinala kong totoong bida sa kuwento.
Mataginting ang tinig ni Hau sa nobelang ito. Napakadaling basahin ng mga talatang tatangayin ka mula Singapura hanggang Amerika pabalik sa kanayunan ng Panay habang naghahabi ng isang salaysay ng mga paglayo at pagmamahal. Mabagal mag-alab ang kuwento subalit tiyak na malululong ka sa gilas ng pagkukuwento.
8.5/10
Tiempo Muerto ni Caroline Hau (Ateneo Press, 2019)
January 13, 2020
it didn't go the way i was expecting it to, but i like to think i got something out of the read anyway.
July 30, 2022
Mahalaga sa nobelang TIEMPO MUERTO ang banggit sa mga lugar dahil dito, ang espasyo ay di lang espasyo. Ang mga ito – Isla Banwa, Mt. Balaan, Siyudad ng iloilo, Maynila, at Singapore- ay daluyan ng mga relasyong pangkapangyarihan at pumapasan sa matagal nang kasaysayan ng ganitong mga ugnayan. Piksyonal ang pangunahing tagpuan na pinangalanang Isla Banwa pero sa ganitong pagpapangalan, tila pinahihiwatig ang layong makapag-alok ng isang mikrokosmo ng buong bayan. Hindi man tuwirang sinasabi ni Hau (dahil malamang na magiging over generalization naman ito kung kanyang sasabihin), pero ito ang kabuuang nahinuha ko sa akda: na ang Pilipinas ay isang malaking asyenda. O sa historikal na latag, dito sa sinaunang kultura at sistema ng asyenda nag-uugat ang politika ng bansa, kasama ang kasalukuyang politika. At kahit mangibang-bansa ang mamamayan nito sa panahon ng globalisasyon, sa Singapore halimbawa bilang OFW, ay pasan-pasan pa rin niya hanggang kabilang ibayo ang asyenda.
Sa asyenda tayo nagmula, ngunit hindi kailangang dito rin tayo magtapos. Litaw ang malakas na impluwensya’t tradisyon ng NOLI at FILI sa nobelang TIEMPO, i.e., may pagtalunton sa pinag-uugatan ng sakit ng lipunan at sa huli, may iaalok na pag-asa, ngunit ang pag-asang ito ay laging nasa malayong hinaharap. Hindi ko maiwasang tingnan ang paralelismo nina Ibarra at Elias kina Lia at Racel, na dalawang tauhang babaeng kapwa produkto ng asyenda – ang una ay senyorita nito, at ang ikalawa ay katulong na anak ng katulong nito. Ang takbo ng buong nobela ay salitan ng mga punto de bista ng dalawang pangunahing tauhang babae, na kapwa inilarawan sa paraang simpatetiko, subalit halatang na kay Racel ang mas mabigat na pagkiling sapagkat sa kanya ibinigay ang punto de bistang unang panauhan. Bukod sa pagiging parehong babae , na kapwa taga-Isla Banwa, at kapwa inalagaan ng tauhang si Alma Jacob (ang nawawalang ina at yaya), ay wala na yatang kahit anong pagkakatulad na puwedeng magtahi sa identidad ng dalawa. Bagamat may inilaang dalawang mahalagang gampanin sa dalawang ito (at dito pumapasok ang sinasabi kong impluwensya ng NOLI ni Rizal) sa pagbabago ng kasaysayan ng Isla Banwa: kay Racel nakaatang ang pag-oorganisa ng pagkilos ng mga tao mula Singapore hanggang Mt. Balaan, na sa hinaharap ay inaasahang babalikwas sa binabalak na pagtatayo ng resort ng panginoong maylupa; samantalang kay Lia nakaatang ang pagsusulat ng kasaysayan ng kanyang pamilya at ng Isla Banwa. Dito sa huli, nakita ko ang munting pag-aalay ni Hau sa kurso ng Malikhaing Pagsulat. Kahit pa ang trophy wife na si Angela ang siyang nakapagtapos sa naturang kurso (isinulat niya ang kasaysayan ng Isla Banwa bilang requirement sa isang Creative Writing class), pero walang pagmamaliit o pagkutya akong nakita sa banggit na Creative Writing na dating tinatawag na Imaginative Writing sa unibersidad. Sa halip, may pahiwatig sa bisa at ambag nito, at sa posible pang maging ambag nito sa pagbabago ng lipunan. Kung tutuusin, napatunayan na ni Hau ang kakayahan niya sa pagsulat ng kritisismo sa kanyang naunang NECESSARY FICTIONS, ngunit kung bakit kailangan niyang isulat bilang nobela ang TIEMPO MUERTO, at sa ganito ring gana, kung bakit ang NOLI at FILI ay kailangang maging nobela.
Sa asyenda tayo nagmula, ngunit hindi kailangang dito rin tayo magtapos. Litaw ang malakas na impluwensya’t tradisyon ng NOLI at FILI sa nobelang TIEMPO, i.e., may pagtalunton sa pinag-uugatan ng sakit ng lipunan at sa huli, may iaalok na pag-asa, ngunit ang pag-asang ito ay laging nasa malayong hinaharap. Hindi ko maiwasang tingnan ang paralelismo nina Ibarra at Elias kina Lia at Racel, na dalawang tauhang babaeng kapwa produkto ng asyenda – ang una ay senyorita nito, at ang ikalawa ay katulong na anak ng katulong nito. Ang takbo ng buong nobela ay salitan ng mga punto de bista ng dalawang pangunahing tauhang babae, na kapwa inilarawan sa paraang simpatetiko, subalit halatang na kay Racel ang mas mabigat na pagkiling sapagkat sa kanya ibinigay ang punto de bistang unang panauhan. Bukod sa pagiging parehong babae , na kapwa taga-Isla Banwa, at kapwa inalagaan ng tauhang si Alma Jacob (ang nawawalang ina at yaya), ay wala na yatang kahit anong pagkakatulad na puwedeng magtahi sa identidad ng dalawa. Bagamat may inilaang dalawang mahalagang gampanin sa dalawang ito (at dito pumapasok ang sinasabi kong impluwensya ng NOLI ni Rizal) sa pagbabago ng kasaysayan ng Isla Banwa: kay Racel nakaatang ang pag-oorganisa ng pagkilos ng mga tao mula Singapore hanggang Mt. Balaan, na sa hinaharap ay inaasahang babalikwas sa binabalak na pagtatayo ng resort ng panginoong maylupa; samantalang kay Lia nakaatang ang pagsusulat ng kasaysayan ng kanyang pamilya at ng Isla Banwa. Dito sa huli, nakita ko ang munting pag-aalay ni Hau sa kurso ng Malikhaing Pagsulat. Kahit pa ang trophy wife na si Angela ang siyang nakapagtapos sa naturang kurso (isinulat niya ang kasaysayan ng Isla Banwa bilang requirement sa isang Creative Writing class), pero walang pagmamaliit o pagkutya akong nakita sa banggit na Creative Writing na dating tinatawag na Imaginative Writing sa unibersidad. Sa halip, may pahiwatig sa bisa at ambag nito, at sa posible pang maging ambag nito sa pagbabago ng lipunan. Kung tutuusin, napatunayan na ni Hau ang kakayahan niya sa pagsulat ng kritisismo sa kanyang naunang NECESSARY FICTIONS, ngunit kung bakit kailangan niyang isulat bilang nobela ang TIEMPO MUERTO, at sa ganito ring gana, kung bakit ang NOLI at FILI ay kailangang maging nobela.
June 1, 2025
"Their names and faces have changed over the years, but that is only because people take to the mountain again and again for different reasons—to avoid tribute and taxes, forced labour, or the law; to practise old and new religions; to escape injustice; to found new communities; to resist and challenge the state—wherever the need arises."
Caroline Hau's evocative yet precise prose, clearly influenced by her social science background, meticulously unfolds the narratives of Racel, an OFW whose mother once served the powerful Agalon family of the fictitious island of Banwa as a domestic worker, and Lia, the daughter of the Agalon patriarch, whose scandalous affair leads her back to Banwa in search of old family items and documents. Racel's mother goes missing after a terrible storm hits Banwa, prompting Racel to embark on a journey to find her mother within the rain-worn hacienda of the Agalons and the surrounding villages of their former workers.
The narrative offers no explicit resolution, leaving much unsaid. In their respective searches across Banwa, Racel and Lia gradually uncover layers of themselves, their pasts, and confront the hidden traumas beneath their facades. Caroline Hau skillfully interweaves the personal with the historical, using the island of Banwa as a lens to explore and integrate stories of Spanish colonialism, Japanese occupation, and American control over the Philippines, and their profound effects on the island. The novel also delves into the impact of Martial Law, the famines in Visayas, and the "dead seasons" that nearly decimated Banwa's population, narrating the island people's stories of resistance, suffering, and persistence—echoing the often-overlooked histories of the Visayas amidst a largely Luzon-centric national narrative.
My only gripes include the resolution of Lia's story at the end, the use of English as the primary medium of writing when the use of language has been a recurring theme throughout the story, and the large themes of colonialism and history being left in the air. If one comes from a dynasty of blood-thirsty landlords-turned-statesmen-turned-businessmen who have exploited a people and their land for generations, how would one person react under the weight of that guilt?
Other than these gripes, Tiempo Muerto presents a powerful narrative of the personal intertwined with intergenerational trauma that spans the length of an entire country's history. It also presents a narrative about the OFW and questions its idyllic position in the country, and narrativises the stories of the women and men and who enter that line of work without idealising or trivialising the roots of their choices.
Caroline Hau's evocative yet precise prose, clearly influenced by her social science background, meticulously unfolds the narratives of Racel, an OFW whose mother once served the powerful Agalon family of the fictitious island of Banwa as a domestic worker, and Lia, the daughter of the Agalon patriarch, whose scandalous affair leads her back to Banwa in search of old family items and documents. Racel's mother goes missing after a terrible storm hits Banwa, prompting Racel to embark on a journey to find her mother within the rain-worn hacienda of the Agalons and the surrounding villages of their former workers.
The narrative offers no explicit resolution, leaving much unsaid. In their respective searches across Banwa, Racel and Lia gradually uncover layers of themselves, their pasts, and confront the hidden traumas beneath their facades. Caroline Hau skillfully interweaves the personal with the historical, using the island of Banwa as a lens to explore and integrate stories of Spanish colonialism, Japanese occupation, and American control over the Philippines, and their profound effects on the island. The novel also delves into the impact of Martial Law, the famines in Visayas, and the "dead seasons" that nearly decimated Banwa's population, narrating the island people's stories of resistance, suffering, and persistence—echoing the often-overlooked histories of the Visayas amidst a largely Luzon-centric national narrative.
My only gripes include the resolution of Lia's story at the end, the use of English as the primary medium of writing when the use of language has been a recurring theme throughout the story, and the large themes of colonialism and history being left in the air. If one comes from a dynasty of blood-thirsty landlords-turned-statesmen-turned-businessmen who have exploited a people and their land for generations, how would one person react under the weight of that guilt?
Other than these gripes, Tiempo Muerto presents a powerful narrative of the personal intertwined with intergenerational trauma that spans the length of an entire country's history. It also presents a narrative about the OFW and questions its idyllic position in the country, and narrativises the stories of the women and men and who enter that line of work without idealising or trivialising the roots of their choices.
September 11, 2021
Two women on the opposite ends of the class stratum find their way back from Singapore to an island in the Philippines where their shared past proves to be shaping their uncertain future. Racel, a domestic helper, is looking for her mom; heiress Lia is looking for her maid who practically raised her.
Despite being an agricultural country, I knew very little about the intricacies of sugar production. Thanks to my Development Studies cognate courses in college, I had a fair idea about the plight of our sugar workers but it was very topline - this novel helped me know better about what the headlines and market data we see actually mean to the people on the ground, like how these determine whether they will have food on the table or if their families will starve.
Naturally, I have a deep hatred for landlords and the Agalons are an accurate representation of the ruling families who deserve the wrath of all the Filipinos they've intimidated, enslaved, stolen from, and even murdered. The stark contrast between the lives they lead versus those of the people who toil on their land is enough to enrage anyone with half a brain. How dare they bask in obnoxious luxury when they are nothing but land grabbers? They act like they're so superior, hiding behind a mask of "prominence" and political power but the truth is that they're capitalizing on stolen wealth and exploitation.
At first, I couldn't spare Lia any empathy because let's face it, she's a rich kid who grew up to be a bored housewife with a husband who's just as privileged as she is and in-laws who probably employed the same tricks (read: human rights violations) as her ancestors to accumulate their own wealth. When I read that her father had banished her to the U.S. for joining a protest against charter change in her third year at the state university, that was the only time I started respecting her character a teeny tiny bit more. (I'm not going to brush aside the fact that she slapped her housekeeper, just like the cruel amo that her father is).
I see so much of the Filipinas I know in Racel who is a dutiful daughter and a hardworking OFW. She deserved so much better and though her relationship with her mother turned rocky at some point, Alma protected her in her own ways. I shudder to think what else could have happened the night Racel was assaulted had her mother not been there to save her.
My most favorite character of all is Mam Tina. She was a true educator, so different from the teachers who enforce the neoliberal education system that our government put in place in favor of globalization. To this day, our armed forces and the private armies of the rich continue to make targets out of the Tinas in different communities - they suffer gruesome deaths for liberating the oppressed through education (read: https://www.rappler.com/nation/school...). There's nothing people in power hate more than workers organizing and fighting for their rights.
In the end, it wasn't even about finding Alma, which was left unresolved. It was about the decisions that Racel and Lia would make based on their history and current situations. For Lia, it's the question of undoing—or at the very least, exposing—the harm that generations of her family have inflicted on the people of Banwa, or continuing to live her sheltered little life, turning a blind eye on the truths she has uncovered. For Racel, it's choosing to move forward with the family she has found in Virgilio and Susanna, while still persevering in her search for her mother and the other desaparecidos of Banwa.
TL;DR, this has all the makings of my favorite Filipino fiction. If you've read The Last Time I Saw Mother, In the Country, or The Quiet Ones, you'll enjoy this too.
Despite being an agricultural country, I knew very little about the intricacies of sugar production. Thanks to my Development Studies cognate courses in college, I had a fair idea about the plight of our sugar workers but it was very topline - this novel helped me know better about what the headlines and market data we see actually mean to the people on the ground, like how these determine whether they will have food on the table or if their families will starve.
Naturally, I have a deep hatred for landlords and the Agalons are an accurate representation of the ruling families who deserve the wrath of all the Filipinos they've intimidated, enslaved, stolen from, and even murdered. The stark contrast between the lives they lead versus those of the people who toil on their land is enough to enrage anyone with half a brain. How dare they bask in obnoxious luxury when they are nothing but land grabbers? They act like they're so superior, hiding behind a mask of "prominence" and political power but the truth is that they're capitalizing on stolen wealth and exploitation.
At first, I couldn't spare Lia any empathy because let's face it, she's a rich kid who grew up to be a bored housewife with a husband who's just as privileged as she is and in-laws who probably employed the same tricks (read: human rights violations) as her ancestors to accumulate their own wealth. When I read that her father had banished her to the U.S. for joining a protest against charter change in her third year at the state university, that was the only time I started respecting her character a teeny tiny bit more. (I'm not going to brush aside the fact that she slapped her housekeeper, just like the cruel amo that her father is).
I see so much of the Filipinas I know in Racel who is a dutiful daughter and a hardworking OFW. She deserved so much better and though her relationship with her mother turned rocky at some point, Alma protected her in her own ways. I shudder to think what else could have happened the night Racel was assaulted had her mother not been there to save her.
My most favorite character of all is Mam Tina. She was a true educator, so different from the teachers who enforce the neoliberal education system that our government put in place in favor of globalization. To this day, our armed forces and the private armies of the rich continue to make targets out of the Tinas in different communities - they suffer gruesome deaths for liberating the oppressed through education (read: https://www.rappler.com/nation/school...). There's nothing people in power hate more than workers organizing and fighting for their rights.
In the end, it wasn't even about finding Alma, which was left unresolved. It was about the decisions that Racel and Lia would make based on their history and current situations. For Lia, it's the question of undoing—or at the very least, exposing—the harm that generations of her family have inflicted on the people of Banwa, or continuing to live her sheltered little life, turning a blind eye on the truths she has uncovered. For Racel, it's choosing to move forward with the family she has found in Virgilio and Susanna, while still persevering in her search for her mother and the other desaparecidos of Banwa.
TL;DR, this has all the makings of my favorite Filipino fiction. If you've read The Last Time I Saw Mother, In the Country, or The Quiet Ones, you'll enjoy this too.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
November 23, 2025in the weeks it took me to read this, the country had been devastated by four typhoons. i bought this the week of typhoon ramil, to which i credit with the waterlogged top section of my copy (poetic for a novel with a plot galvanized by the aftermath of a typhoon to be marked so permanently by an an *actual* typhoon). i had it transported from cubao to quezon city during a particularly rainy night, and in my infinite wisdom, hadn’t thought to cover my bag with plastic, soaking the rest of my items with flood and rainwater. i don’t have any other books marred by flooding; i’m lucky enough to never have been flooded at home. we aren’t immune, however, to brown outs, and it is the black out in my street caused by typhoon uwan to which i owe the completion of this book (i read quite literally the latter half of this in one day).
hau writes with alarming specificity, recounting tales of stag nights and debaucheries as if it were historical accounts (they most likely are). we are reminded, however, that is is a work of fiction when we read lia’s ending. in real life, the progeny of political dynasties are hardly ever penitent, let alone willing to dismantle their family’s legacy and handiwork.
it’s always painful reading filipiniana. the careful distance i keep when reading other difficult historical literature completely disappears. everything is rendered sharp and acute; forget verisimilitude i might as well be reading a biography. i am under no illusions that literature or film or any media can inspire any real political or systemic reform. this is not to challenge or doubt whatever far-left ideology has been baked into these works but simply to point out the limitations of art and literature as compromised goods (intent subsumed by capitalist something something). i’m also uninterested in the truism that ‘reading teaches empathy’ (anyone who is reading this didactically should just read the news). i however believe in fiction’s power to haunt, to weather and endure. like the people of banwa: we remember, and we will tell this story for generations to come.
hau writes with alarming specificity, recounting tales of stag nights and debaucheries as if it were historical accounts (they most likely are). we are reminded, however, that is is a work of fiction when we read lia’s ending. in real life, the progeny of political dynasties are hardly ever penitent, let alone willing to dismantle their family’s legacy and handiwork.
it’s always painful reading filipiniana. the careful distance i keep when reading other difficult historical literature completely disappears. everything is rendered sharp and acute; forget verisimilitude i might as well be reading a biography. i am under no illusions that literature or film or any media can inspire any real political or systemic reform. this is not to challenge or doubt whatever far-left ideology has been baked into these works but simply to point out the limitations of art and literature as compromised goods (intent subsumed by capitalist something something). i’m also uninterested in the truism that ‘reading teaches empathy’ (anyone who is reading this didactically should just read the news). i however believe in fiction’s power to haunt, to weather and endure. like the people of banwa: we remember, and we will tell this story for generations to come.
January 20, 2025
I liked it. Lingaw ra. It's yk about the philippines, feudalism, colonialism, exploitation, corruption, kana--our roots. I feel like it’s not really new to me kay because I’ve read a couple of filipino books na & most of them kind of talk about the same things, same sentiments. Maybe its just the type of Filipino books na I read. For some reason reminiscent si Hagedorn to me when I read Hau.
So this didn't feel new to me, but I feel like if it was the first I read of this I would’ve yk, maybe been changed, radicalized HAHA or idk maybe woulda rated it a wee bit higher. The prose is good though. I like her writing. I think I highlighted some here just for the way Hau used words, v v lovely.
Pero yea, has anyone noticed na there’s a certain way na filipino writers write their novels loike they write kind of the same, not in the sense na they write abt the filipino experience because obviously, (but also aside from putting martial law & the marcoses & the revolution—I have not read a single filipino book that didn’t give ode to that time, it will always be there, ig kay its part of our history)
but yea where was I lyrically (?) their tempo? these books written by filipinos (na mostly nag abroad haha or grew up abroad & back) are kind of the same? or idk I cant quite pin it down—basta naa jud likeness—its like a pattern or like they all came from the same seminar HAHAHSKS
I would say though na, the Philippines has such a rich history- loike I was talking to Avi about it before & I was so shooKt to my core that his country has never once been colonized— pretty virgin country. So yea, because of this rich history, it’s so novel-able HAHA. Loike you can play around with it a lot yun lang. These things I’m typing down r pretty no shite sherlock, pero yea.
So this didn't feel new to me, but I feel like if it was the first I read of this I would’ve yk, maybe been changed, radicalized HAHA or idk maybe woulda rated it a wee bit higher. The prose is good though. I like her writing. I think I highlighted some here just for the way Hau used words, v v lovely.
Pero yea, has anyone noticed na there’s a certain way na filipino writers write their novels loike they write kind of the same, not in the sense na they write abt the filipino experience because obviously, (but also aside from putting martial law & the marcoses & the revolution—I have not read a single filipino book that didn’t give ode to that time, it will always be there, ig kay its part of our history)
but yea where was I lyrically (?) their tempo? these books written by filipinos (na mostly nag abroad haha or grew up abroad & back) are kind of the same? or idk I cant quite pin it down—basta naa jud likeness—its like a pattern or like they all came from the same seminar HAHAHSKS
I would say though na, the Philippines has such a rich history- loike I was talking to Avi about it before & I was so shooKt to my core that his country has never once been colonized— pretty virgin country. So yea, because of this rich history, it’s so novel-able HAHA. Loike you can play around with it a lot yun lang. These things I’m typing down r pretty no shite sherlock, pero yea.
June 28, 2025
This is much less plot-driven/plotless than the summary led me to believe, although that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've always much preferred character-focused stories. I believe the best way to describe it would be that the circumstances (aka the alleged plot) simply allows us a way to gain some insight into Racel's life. The focus of this is on Racel (and sometimes Lia, but ultimately it is Racel who commands most of the attention), and her finding herself against the backdrop of her childhood and the external forces that are the Agalons. More specifically, it follows an ordinary woman's life in the Philippines' sociopolitical current, immersed in her culture, etc. It’s almost as if it’s about the country & the island of Banwa (although fictional) as it is about her.
One thing to note is that others have mentioned that the conclusion may be weak — this opinion isn't wrong if you decide to focus on the mystery that is the haunting and where Racel's mother has disappeared to, but I believe that these elements aren't really the key focus of the story, and so the 'cop-out' of sorts doesn't detract too much from the book. In the end, they're not really something that requires a solid conclusion (especially regarding the question of Racel's mother). I do wish there was a little more emphasis on Mount Balaan in the first half, though. I would recommend this if you are looking for something with an emphasis on Filipino culture. Overall a very intriguing read and I much enjoyed it.
One thing to note is that others have mentioned that the conclusion may be weak — this opinion isn't wrong if you decide to focus on the mystery that is the haunting and where Racel's mother has disappeared to, but I believe that these elements aren't really the key focus of the story, and so the 'cop-out' of sorts doesn't detract too much from the book. In the end, they're not really something that requires a solid conclusion (especially regarding the question of Racel's mother). I do wish there was a little more emphasis on Mount Balaan in the first half, though. I would recommend this if you are looking for something with an emphasis on Filipino culture. Overall a very intriguing read and I much enjoyed it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 16, 2022
This is one of the best novels I’ve read lately. It speaks of social issues, such as the plight of workers and the oppression they face from landowners, the consequences of migration, and the root cause as to why Filipino diasporic communities have formed all over the world. Here, the rich do as they please and act like gods. They spin stories to haunt the oppressed; they leave corpses to ensure their silence. (Yet they seem to not know that the same stories can be used against them. There will always be a language of resistance, a whole body of myths to be passed down.) They have given themselves the gift of time, without which they could not have acquired such power. The novel also delves into political dynasties, land reforms, and armed struggle in the country.
Racel and Lia, who knew each other from childhood, came back to the island of Banwa to search for Racel’s mother. Before their return, they lived in the same city but their paths never crossed. In Banwa, their search led them to uncovering truths they did not anticipate—a mother who turned out to be a stranger, a family tormented by its past. I like how Racel left, and Lia stayed. I like how there’s no certainty in the end. It was a very engaging read.
Racel and Lia, who knew each other from childhood, came back to the island of Banwa to search for Racel’s mother. Before their return, they lived in the same city but their paths never crossed. In Banwa, their search led them to uncovering truths they did not anticipate—a mother who turned out to be a stranger, a family tormented by its past. I like how Racel left, and Lia stayed. I like how there’s no certainty in the end. It was a very engaging read.
June 1, 2024
I just finished reading this, and the first thing that comes to mind is that it's kind of obvious that an academic wrote it lol.
With that said, it's a compelling and interesting story that ties together threads of feminism, broad and entrenched inequalities both in their stark consequences and in how these play out in intimate settings throughout one's lifespan, and and the encounter of coming to terms with dark histories that actively benefit one of the characters.
Hau ends the novel in a more-or-less satisfying way—I thought I would be disappointed by how it dealt with the characters' inability to find Yaya Alma, but it was written well so that it left me instead with a sense of peaceful resignation. The haunting was definitely a choice, one that I feel could have been built up further by going more into the Banwa house itself; on the other hand, I appreciate how the airy way in which the book dealt with this matched the rest of the story's atmosphere.
P.S. I also appreciate Hau dropping her sources because now I have more things to read haha. Out of this slump I go!
P.P.S. ALSO love Castro's book cover!
With that said, it's a compelling and interesting story that ties together threads of feminism, broad and entrenched inequalities both in their stark consequences and in how these play out in intimate settings throughout one's lifespan, and and the encounter of coming to terms with dark histories that actively benefit one of the characters.
Hau ends the novel in a more-or-less satisfying way—I thought I would be disappointed by how it dealt with the characters' inability to find Yaya Alma, but it was written well so that it left me instead with a sense of peaceful resignation. The haunting was definitely a choice, one that I feel could have been built up further by going more into the Banwa house itself; on the other hand, I appreciate how the airy way in which the book dealt with this matched the rest of the story's atmosphere.
P.S. I also appreciate Hau dropping her sources because now I have more things to read haha. Out of this slump I go!
P.P.S. ALSO love Castro's book cover!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2022
"I turn to where Mount Balaan beckons from a distance and try to imagine the long day's journey that will bring Gil and me there. I had assumed that the island was empty of people, but that is only because I have not thought, I have been afraid, to look and go beyond the balay daku.
There is a village there still, says Gil. Your Nay lives in the stories they tell of this island and of the people who have worked, suffered, and died on it. They endure, they remember. The gifts of other people's stories become my gifts in turn, stories I will pass on to others, so that we may never forget."
What a fitting passage as I close this book today, the same day we commemorate #ML50. All I can say is that I am very excited to read more of Caroline Hau!
And of course, #NeverAgain! #NeverForget!
There is a village there still, says Gil. Your Nay lives in the stories they tell of this island and of the people who have worked, suffered, and died on it. They endure, they remember. The gifts of other people's stories become my gifts in turn, stories I will pass on to others, so that we may never forget."
What a fitting passage as I close this book today, the same day we commemorate #ML50. All I can say is that I am very excited to read more of Caroline Hau!
And of course, #NeverAgain! #NeverForget!
August 7, 2024
initially i was intimidated by the nature of the book. local literature, small font, more pages than i would have thought. i’m happy to say that reading this book was such a fun yet devastating experience. to see the reality of the philippine nation be spun into what reads as a non-fiction historical fiction novel. which is to say that i was wholly engrossed and always wondering about the depth of truth rooted in the characters and their environment. they felt real. they felt like lived stories. one too many underlined sentences.
if anything i think i just wish that racel and lia’s relationship was furthered explored, and that the banwa house horror stories were turned into short stories of some sort.
3.5 stars
if anything i think i just wish that racel and lia’s relationship was furthered explored, and that the banwa house horror stories were turned into short stories of some sort.
3.5 stars
July 14, 2021
This is an interesting piece of literature.
The novel combines a variety of elements—among others: women, workers, colonialism, oligarchy, poverty, feudalism, religion—to form a glazed picture of the Philippines.
Adding to its charm is the way Hau weaves a prose reminiscent to that of the characteristic July weather, fluttering between the scorching sun and leaden cumulus clouds.
It is unfortunate though, how the chapters leading to the ending pale in comparison to the blaze that the first parts possess.
Overall, this is such a good read, and I recommend it to those who want a [temporary] outlet for the hopelessness and rage that amalgamated over the years.
The novel combines a variety of elements—among others: women, workers, colonialism, oligarchy, poverty, feudalism, religion—to form a glazed picture of the Philippines.
Adding to its charm is the way Hau weaves a prose reminiscent to that of the characteristic July weather, fluttering between the scorching sun and leaden cumulus clouds.
It is unfortunate though, how the chapters leading to the ending pale in comparison to the blaze that the first parts possess.
Overall, this is such a good read, and I recommend it to those who want a [temporary] outlet for the hopelessness and rage that amalgamated over the years.
August 7, 2022
4.5, and I’m rounding it up to 5 because of Dr. Hau’s writing that gave so much truthfulness to the setting of establishing political power through generations (might I take a guess on which family, or families, this book based itself on?). Not to mention the difference between Racel and Lia’s stories told in first and third person POV, respectively. I see it as the distance that we have as readers to such characters, despite the success in fleshing out Lia’s character in that manner.
Will definitely wait for her second novel, should she choose to write in this form again.
Will definitely wait for her second novel, should she choose to write in this form again.
August 22, 2025
I was expecting more on the story revolving on the mother. I didn’t expect the direction of the story although I enjoyed the setting - much like Victorian. Also, as an Ilonggo, I was a bit bothered by the spelling of Hiligaynon terms such as using “duman” instead of “daman,” “huo” instead of “hu’u” (although since this is from a conversation, it might be to give nuance to the character?), “tingkiriwi” instead of “tigkiriwi,” among others.
September 22, 2023
4.5 — Surprisingly atmospheric, reminiscent of a Gothic novel. Discusses class, feudalism, diaspora, and history by narrating the family lineage of the Agalons through the contrasting perspectives of the heiress and her help’s daughter. Would definitely recommend this!!!
August 17, 2025
https://chopsueyngarod.wordpress.com/...
Caroline Hau just made that dream come true—in fiction, of all places. Not just in any fiction, but in her very first novel, Tiempo Muerto!
Racel was having her long homecoming, from Singapore to Manila to Iloilo City before the island of Banwa and the balay daku, when she met Digna, her mother’s friend in the Visayan city.
https://chopsueyngarod.wordpress.com/...
Part Two told us that “hunger brought me to the house of the Agalons on Hacienda, Banwa” (Hau, 75). This is Racel, the bright child whose promises were either dimmed or fired up in the Agalons’ house. “Your mother wanted you to be a school teacher. Ma’am paid for your schooling.” Said Ma’am, opkors, was Lia’s mother.
0 Comments
— Edit
Rate This
Bisaya, Liwayway, Bannawag, Bikolnon—if I want to be reductive, I would say that all these periodicals—dare I say, household staples? How dare I?!—were the brainchild of a successful man—Ramon Roces—behind a successful woman.
But behind the well-known names are the lesser-known ones, behind the mighty accomplisher, the measly achiever. Behind every Lebron, a Bronny; behind an ABSCBN, a Studio 23; behind every Bande a Part, a Film Socialisme; every ‘wag na ‘wag Mong Sasabihin, a You’re Worthy. Behind Bikolnon, Bannawag, Bisaya, and Liwayway—an Aliwan.
Chapter 4 of Tagalog Bestsellers of the Twentieth Century: A History of the Book in the Philippines, Patrica Jurilla devotes to the periodical Aliwan, “dedicated to fiction… published in book form” (106). Not in serialized form like those appearing, or will appear in, Bisaya, Liwayway, Bannawag, Bikolnon. Fiction, not illustrations, nor religious tracts, nor ecocriticism. While the profiteering is expected, Aliwan claimed to serve a “higher purpose”: makapaglathala ng “maniningning na gawa para sa kasaysayan ng ating panitikan at ng ating lahi.” Roces’s Palimbagang Tagumpay, Aliwan’s publisher, desired dallying with dangerous dualities, wanting to eat their cake and have it too, have-nots be bygones, bygones be have-nots. Jurilla annotates: Aliwan attempted to unite the book and magazine forms, commerce and art, not just to be bought (for the Roces’s profit) but also to be displayed on personal household bookshelves (premised on the idea of a reading public—a public that reads so much, bookshelves will be found on their homes; not just a TV, not just a sofa, but a bookshelf). Roces yearned for Aliwan na “maging hiyas ng inyong aklatang pantahanan” (123). Another round: hindi lang lamesita, hindi lang aparador, kundi aklatan.
Raise your hands if you have bookshelves in your apartments, homes, your parents’ homes! We’ve been moving apartments from Baguio to Pasay to Baguio to Kyusi to Elbi and the closest we’ve got to a bookshelf are those Orocan drawers meant for clothes. Or: the cossets we’ve got to bookshelves are closets. In Pasay of all places! In Baguio, two of our last, and our dearest, apartments both had bookshelves in them, the other one so sophisticatedly built into the overall house design a portion of it doubles as half of the divider of rooms.
But Roces’s lip service—or dream, or projection—as Jurilla reports, consists not just in Filipino households having bookshelves, but those bookshelves containing ‘popular’ materials, like his Aliwan fiction. So many layers of familiar ascriptions to popular culture haunt us again here: high and low culture, alta and bakya, Nancy Drew and Kenkoy, and so on. Bookshelves filled not with, or not just with Gelacios and Grundisses and Woolfs and Wendy Browns, Graeber and Lumberas and Bakhtins and Manalang Glorias, but also with Precious Hearts Romances, with Jonaxxes, and Carlo Caparases. What a dream!
Caroline Hau just made that dream come true—in fiction, of all places. Not just in any fiction, but in her very first novel, Tiempo Muerto!
Racel was having her long homecoming, from Singapore to Manila to Iloilo City before the island of Banwa and the balay daku, when she met Digna, her mother’s friend in the Visayan city.
The usual pleasantries, they exchanged, but some in the vernacular so I am more thrilled to type them here, as if doing so would make me understand them differently, suddenly make me understand Bisaya:
Digna: ‘O, kumusta ka?’
Racel: ‘Ari buhi pa man.’
Digna: ‘Nakakaun ka na?’
Racel: Hu’u. Busug pa ako.’
“A flap of printed cotton cordons off the bedroom from the living, dining, and kitchen area. A bookcase of plywood and cinderblocks houses her collection of Precious Hearts Romances (PHRs). Digna shows me the tiled bathroom with a faucet and basic toiled that a neighbor plumber had helped her install” (49-50).
Pa-overread ha: in the process of showing how Digna’s household already has some of the “amenities” of typical city living, Hau also betokens how her character is cultured enough to have reading materials shelved inside their home. See, Pinoys not only read; they also have bookshelves for the various materials they read! Or, the half-empty take: Pinoys not only have bookshelves for the various materials they read; they also—really—read!
Caroline Hau just made that dream come true—in fiction, of all places. Not just in any fiction, but in her very first novel, Tiempo Muerto!
Racel was having her long homecoming, from Singapore to Manila to Iloilo City before the island of Banwa and the balay daku, when she met Digna, her mother’s friend in the Visayan city.
https://chopsueyngarod.wordpress.com/...
Part Two told us that “hunger brought me to the house of the Agalons on Hacienda, Banwa” (Hau, 75). This is Racel, the bright child whose promises were either dimmed or fired up in the Agalons’ house. “Your mother wanted you to be a school teacher. Ma’am paid for your schooling.” Said Ma’am, opkors, was Lia’s mother.
0 Comments
— Edit
Rate This
Bisaya, Liwayway, Bannawag, Bikolnon—if I want to be reductive, I would say that all these periodicals—dare I say, household staples? How dare I?!—were the brainchild of a successful man—Ramon Roces—behind a successful woman.
But behind the well-known names are the lesser-known ones, behind the mighty accomplisher, the measly achiever. Behind every Lebron, a Bronny; behind an ABSCBN, a Studio 23; behind every Bande a Part, a Film Socialisme; every ‘wag na ‘wag Mong Sasabihin, a You’re Worthy. Behind Bikolnon, Bannawag, Bisaya, and Liwayway—an Aliwan.
Chapter 4 of Tagalog Bestsellers of the Twentieth Century: A History of the Book in the Philippines, Patrica Jurilla devotes to the periodical Aliwan, “dedicated to fiction… published in book form” (106). Not in serialized form like those appearing, or will appear in, Bisaya, Liwayway, Bannawag, Bikolnon. Fiction, not illustrations, nor religious tracts, nor ecocriticism. While the profiteering is expected, Aliwan claimed to serve a “higher purpose”: makapaglathala ng “maniningning na gawa para sa kasaysayan ng ating panitikan at ng ating lahi.” Roces’s Palimbagang Tagumpay, Aliwan’s publisher, desired dallying with dangerous dualities, wanting to eat their cake and have it too, have-nots be bygones, bygones be have-nots. Jurilla annotates: Aliwan attempted to unite the book and magazine forms, commerce and art, not just to be bought (for the Roces’s profit) but also to be displayed on personal household bookshelves (premised on the idea of a reading public—a public that reads so much, bookshelves will be found on their homes; not just a TV, not just a sofa, but a bookshelf). Roces yearned for Aliwan na “maging hiyas ng inyong aklatang pantahanan” (123). Another round: hindi lang lamesita, hindi lang aparador, kundi aklatan.
Raise your hands if you have bookshelves in your apartments, homes, your parents’ homes! We’ve been moving apartments from Baguio to Pasay to Baguio to Kyusi to Elbi and the closest we’ve got to a bookshelf are those Orocan drawers meant for clothes. Or: the cossets we’ve got to bookshelves are closets. In Pasay of all places! In Baguio, two of our last, and our dearest, apartments both had bookshelves in them, the other one so sophisticatedly built into the overall house design a portion of it doubles as half of the divider of rooms.
But Roces’s lip service—or dream, or projection—as Jurilla reports, consists not just in Filipino households having bookshelves, but those bookshelves containing ‘popular’ materials, like his Aliwan fiction. So many layers of familiar ascriptions to popular culture haunt us again here: high and low culture, alta and bakya, Nancy Drew and Kenkoy, and so on. Bookshelves filled not with, or not just with Gelacios and Grundisses and Woolfs and Wendy Browns, Graeber and Lumberas and Bakhtins and Manalang Glorias, but also with Precious Hearts Romances, with Jonaxxes, and Carlo Caparases. What a dream!
Caroline Hau just made that dream come true—in fiction, of all places. Not just in any fiction, but in her very first novel, Tiempo Muerto!
Racel was having her long homecoming, from Singapore to Manila to Iloilo City before the island of Banwa and the balay daku, when she met Digna, her mother’s friend in the Visayan city.
The usual pleasantries, they exchanged, but some in the vernacular so I am more thrilled to type them here, as if doing so would make me understand them differently, suddenly make me understand Bisaya:
Digna: ‘O, kumusta ka?’
Racel: ‘Ari buhi pa man.’
Digna: ‘Nakakaun ka na?’
Racel: Hu’u. Busug pa ako.’
“A flap of printed cotton cordons off the bedroom from the living, dining, and kitchen area. A bookcase of plywood and cinderblocks houses her collection of Precious Hearts Romances (PHRs). Digna shows me the tiled bathroom with a faucet and basic toiled that a neighbor plumber had helped her install” (49-50).
Pa-overread ha: in the process of showing how Digna’s household already has some of the “amenities” of typical city living, Hau also betokens how her character is cultured enough to have reading materials shelved inside their home. See, Pinoys not only read; they also have bookshelves for the various materials they read! Or, the half-empty take: Pinoys not only have bookshelves for the various materials they read; they also—really—read!
September 26, 2020
So good!!!!!!!!! I need a film and a revolution!!!!!!!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews