Pia’s Reviews > A Natural History of Empire > Status Update

The Agonies of Fray Salvador. Amazingly well-written. However, there’re more shortcomings by its awkward combination of 1) conceptual ambition, 2) blatant derivativeness, 3) non-committal authorial self-insert and lastly 4) half-baked academic fight in the footnotes. The last point bring the most distasteful as the narrator’s POV is half of a two-sided argument but is still the weaker half

Then Cruel Quiet. Components are cliché. Execution was great

Halfway through, all of the stories are well-written but everything has been a bummer. Filipino Literary fiction that tackles capital-h History in its themes tends to stupefied in cynicism. Its limiting

A Natural History of Empire. This is the first short story set in the Filipino-American War and told from the perspective of the damned monstrous colonizers that I stomached reading through—even with depictions of slaughter & torture. The reason for this is its center is a Filipino traitor, and how their treachery ultimately tipped the tides against us, and caused out defeat. A cunning mind, a demonic soul.

The Fingers of Sta Juana. Fuedal relations, so-called-passions, during the period of society they were produced. I liked the style of Sy’s writing, it elevates what would be a standard crime of passion story (although content-wise that is still what it is).