Happy midweek everyone! Woah. I hope that the rest of the year will usher in more blessings and good news for everyone. I hope everyone will be happy and healthy, in body, mind, and spirit.

With the midweek comes a fresh WWW Wednesday update, my first this year. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
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What are you currently reading?

Despite entering the second month of the year, my current reading goal is unchanged. In the proverbial love month, I will still catch up on books released in this decade that I have yet to read. I didn’t realize that I have quite a lot. Currently, I am reading Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois which happens to be her first novel. Before publishing her debut novel, Jeffers was a prolific poet. I first encountered the book in 2021, shortly after its release. The book received quite the recognition, with many a literary pundit and reader calling it their best if not one of their best reads during the year. This naturally piqued my interest, hence, its automatic inclusion to my reading list.

A couple of years later, I am finally reading the book. One of the first things palpable about the book was its length. It is nearly eight hundred pages long, making it my second longest read this year, so far; only Stephen Markley’s The Deluge is longer. Anyway, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois follows two plotlines, at least from what I can glean. The prominent plotline commenced in late 20th century Georgia (the American state) and chronicled the story of Ailey Garfield, a young and intelligent but precocious girl. The second plotline, it seems, charted the story of Ailey’s ancestors, starting with her ancestors from the village called Creek; the village then turned into a plantation and then grew into a rural town now called Chicasetta. I am just a quarter into the story so I have quite a lot more to read. I will be sharing more of my impressions in this week’s First Impression Friday update.

What have you finished reading?

At 880 pages long, my longest read this year is Stephen Markley’s The Deluge. Honestly, reading the book this year was without design. I didn’t have any iota about who Markley was nor had I encountered his works previously. However, I kept encountering his latest novel, The Deluge, especially toward the end of 2023. It was cited by several prestigious literary pundits and publications as one of the best reads of the year. It was even praised by THE Stephen King. It piqued my interest but I soon forgot about it until I again encountered the book during a random trip t to the bookstore. I guess it is fate so I relented. I bought the book and made it part of my current reading journey despite its length.

The Deluge started in the present, particularly in 2013 when a renowned scientist, Tony Pietrus, examined deep-sea methane molecules. So yes, the book, it seemed, was heavy on science which did not deter me. As the story moved forward, so did time. It slowly progresses to the future, and with it is the changing landscape of the United States; the caveat though, is while the story is set mainly in the US, the message it carries resonates on a global scale. Without giving much away, the story focuses on the politics of the environment. Climate change is the heart and soul of the book which introduces an eclectic cast of characters including eco-terrorists, environmental activists, and a bunch of politicians. It is the stereotypical American novel, with its scathing commentary on politics. As environmental activists go head-to-head against the red tape of politics, the consequences of climate change are felt everywhere in the United States. Time is ticking and should we fail to address these concerns immediately, the grim portrait painted by The Deluge will definitely materialize, sooner than later. As a work of literature, The Deluge is a compelling and thought-provoking read.

From the United States, I traveled (literature-wise) to a place that is more familiar to me: my country. Over the past few years, one facet of my reading journey I have been improving is my foray into Philippine literature. Last year, I read four works written by Filipino writers, the most I read in a year. This year, I am starting early, with Miguel Syjuco’s I Was the President’s Mistress!! The book immediately grabbed my attention upon its release in 2022. I have heard of Syjuco before but I have not read any of his works. This is his sophomore novel, published over a decade after his first, Illustrado.

I Was the President’s Mistress!! is palpably a work of satire that came in the form of interview transcripts. The most substantial of these transcripts came from Nova Vita, the titular President’s Mistress. She wanted to live a peaceful life despite having a huge social media following. However, her world was turned upside down when it was exposed that she was the president’s mistress. I guess to safeguard her own interest, she gave a no-holds-barred interview with Syjuco; yes, he made himself part of the novel, but as an objective interviewer. At first, the intrigue worked. As someone who was monitoring the landscape of Philippine politics in recent years, I immediately saw through the smokescreen, if you can call it that because Syjuco did not bother hiding who or what he was referencing in his story. However, the conversation started to meander when the story started to focus on Vita’s affairs when she was younger. Moreover, her running for political position seemed a little out-of-place and out-of-character. It does not align with what she established in the earlier parts of the story. The story had a lot of potential but Syjuco got waylaid in his execution.

What will you read next?