On Leonie Swann's "Three Bags Full"

            When their weed-dealing shepherd died on what seemed like a contrived death, the smartest sheep of Glenkill, Miss Maple along with her flockmates are up to their toes in finding the perpetrator to make sure justice is exercised. But how hard can it be especially if one is of their kind, a mere sheep?  Along with her admirable flock Mopple The Whale: the memory sheep, Sir Ritchfield: an old ram who’s hard of hearing and has a poor memory but regarded as a leader, Othello: a black Herbridean four-horned ram who used to work for a cruel clown in a circus, Zora: a Blackfaced sheep with penchant for looking into the “abyss”, Melmoth: Sir Ritchfield’s twin brother, Maude: a sheep with a great sense of smell, Miss Maple sniffs into trails that leads to various clues about their murdered shepherd, George along with clever observations about the people of Glenkill. 

          Though I am never the sort who would bother to pore over a mystery novel (unless of course if it was literally shoved in my face with a gun aimed at point-blank), I enjoyed it. It was a mystery novel that did not fall short on being funny, fluffy and thought provoking. I like how each sheep is gifted with a certain streak yet is still quite vulnerable if it is to venture out all on its own. I was lucky to find this book by German writer Leonie Swann during my excursions to bookshops in the Philippines (October 10-22) and ridiculously priced at 50 pesos (that’s a dollar plus in Brunei currency).  The 2^nd book hasn’t got an English translation yet but I am already on my toes for it. I would highly recommend this book to those who admired E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” or to those who just have the thing for mystery, talking animals and philosophical observations. Read it and you’ll never look at a flock of these quadrupeds the same way again. Ever!

*** 

 

‘ The story does not go on’, said Melmoth. “A story always ends just when it comes to the end. Like a breath. Now. But life went on, over hills and dales, away from the roads, along salty beaches and shimmering rivers, in the misty mountains where the goats of Wicklow graze, passing through many flocks, like passing through snowflakes, all the way to the North Sea where the world ends, and on and on – and I just followed life winding endlessly away, like a mouse running through grass.’

One May Eve

Let us undo these strands that knotted by itself the moment we whispered cool breaths into each other’s dry mouth. Take the next flight home and leave me with nothing but a pen and paper, pairing vowels and consonants, gathering them like constellations which I will seek out in case it gets too dark.

Because you probably won’t remember. 

It was one May eve when it happened and it needed no magic, no science, nothing needing of knowledge and years of hard study like a college degree. It was a force of earth that gave us a push and suddenly swung us into bed. There were no required rules of tongue and hand games but just the pure and raw want to collapse into each other’s trembling arms and drown out the voice of God who watched us in silent anger as we, now like Adam and Eve heeding the serpent’s wisdom, gyrate to the rhythm of the planets, chests heaving with the silent pull of the supermoon that candled the evening as we fuck our mouths and brains out. I am at once in the midst of sin as I always am, nothing different from how I threw myself a year ago, forever ago. It was just you and me, suddenly metamorphosed into winged creatures sans the halos. And we do not despair, do not regret, do not blow each other’s guts out and begged for love. “There was no love!” I shouted loud enough for my central nervous system to catch it. And yet something inside me stirred. It could’ve just been a laugh rising from the pit of my stomach, a much needed punctuation to complete this lie.

    

 May 10, 2012

painting: Marc Chagall's "Lovers in the Moonlight"

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

The news about the Woodpecker Lazarus broke out just in time as Gabriel Witter (15) mysteriously disappears. While the sighting of the mythical bird threw the entire town of Lily, Arkansas abuzz, the Witter’s over the loss of their beloved Gabriel are thrown out of their peaceful and normal lives as they struggle to cope up with this heartbreaking news. Meanwhile, Benton Sage was sent to Awasa, Ethiopia for his first missionary work. Realizing that he wasn’t cut out for this he begged to be sent back home where a very disappointed family awaits him. Benton Sage soon kills himself (on Christmas day) leaving his roommate, Cabot Searcy, in a religious quest to bring light into Benton’s self-murder and into a misguided quest that will only lead him to a crime he didn’t intend to commit. These are two different stories one will find skipping in and out of from John Corey Whaley’s first book of fiction “Where Things Come Back”. I have often wondered the relevance of Cullen Witter’s story that of Benton Sage’s. It wasn’t until I approached its last few pages that I found out about its relevance. The ending, though predictable, was at least the kind that did not leave you guessing or devastated at all. It was the kind of that evokes a smile as one closes the book. I enjoyed it and felt myself holding back tears as I approached its final chapters.

A few years from now I will surely forget what it’s all about just as I am now slowly losing some whos, whats, whys and wheres but I know I’ve read a beautiful story. And what comes from this is a lesson that one must carry around in life: everyone is entitled to second chances, that blind faith is dangerous and that one must keep a pocketful of hope in the midst of despair. But of course you must read it yourself to understand.