August Book Reviews
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Celeste Cedric A. Viajar
3/25/2024
FRIDA KAHLO: AN ILLUSTRATED LIFE
– by María Hesse, Achy Obejas (Translator)
Genre(s): Non-Fiction, Biography, Graphic Novel, Feminism, Art
First Published: October 1, 2016
Page Count: 156 pages
Notable Quote: “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”
SUMMARY Retrieved from Goodreads.
This translation introduces English-language readers to Kahlo’s life, from her childhood and the traumatic accident that would change her life and her artwork, to her complicated love for Diego Rivera and the fierce determination that drove her to become a major artist in her own right.
REVIEW
Often, we feel detached from things or people we are not familiar with. But when, for instance, we finally take that first step of getting to know what is unfamiliar, and find that it evokes thoughts and emotions we find out we do admire – thoughts and emotions we otherwise would not have known, we think: I could have lived this long, not knowing this feeling. And my life would not have been the same.
Such was the case with Frida Kahlo: An Illustrated Life by Maria Hesse and translator, Achy Obejas. Both written and illustrated by the author, it gives a striking narration of the artist’s life, abounding in a direct and veritable recounting of the events from before Frida’s fatal injury, to the in-between where she unlearned what she knew, and after, when she lived on as one of the most impactful artists of the twentieth century.
Rather, it was due to how, with each page turned, her situation got so much worse. But the courage it took, and which she made use of, to live through those situations did not evade me. In fact, there was nothing that I could have noticed more.
LA VITA NUOVA “THE NEW LIFE”
– by Dante Alighieri
Genre: Poetry, Classic Literature
First Published: December 31, 1291
Page Count: 63 pages
Notable Quote: “I have set foot in that region of life where it is not possible to go with any more intention of returning.”
SUMMARY Retrieved from PoetryInTranslation.
Composed around 1294, in Italian, the Vita Nuova tells the story of Dante's encounters with and love for Beatrice, culminating in her early death and its effect upon him. Utilizing and developing the conventions of Courtly Love, in a mixture of prose and verse, Dante deepens the emotional content of the genre, while pointing the way towards the intellectual and spiritual journey of the Divine Comedy.
REVIEW
For those who are meaning to read more classic literature but do not know where to begin, Dante Alighieri’s La Vita Nuova is a good choice for a first-read. [insert more]
SURGEONS DO NOT CRY
– by Ting Tiongco
Genre: Medicine, Nonfiction
First Published: January 1, 2008
Page Count: 178 pages
Notable Quote: "Whereas the present dominant world looks at disease as a personal event, the Filipino looks at the disease as a social event."
SUMMARY Retrieved from Goodreads.
In Surgeons Don't Cry, Ting Tiongco recounts his ten-year development as a doctor and a surgeon at the UP-PGH. These stories are based on events that actually happened through the haze of forty long years and gilded by a respect and fondness for an institution that molded the writer to be what he is today. They are all told in deepest gratitude even if up to this day, memory has not lapsed uncritically.
