Fascinating, multifaceted, episodic, complex, confusing, dark, depressing. ( )

Quite a frenetic and schizophrenic book. I can see that Hagedorn was attempting to create an intricate picture of the mostly seedy underbelly of Manila but it felt a bit crowded. For example, there is a kind of *gasp* moment near the end that I just shrugged at because I couldn't remember why that character was important. I don't know that it benefited from its large cast of characters. I also don't like feeling cheated at the end and I felt a bit of that reading the two conflicting accounts of what occurred.

Thankfully Hagedorn does spend a little more time with Rio and Joey, probably the two more saner characters in the book. Still, I have to think Hagedorn is trying to say something when 90% of the supporting cast consists of druggies, thugs, colonial elitists, corrupt politicians, loveless neglectful family members, and shallow, vapid women. The book reads more like interweaving vignettes than a novel, and while that makes for exciting reading I do wish Hagedorn spent more time developing Joey and Rio.

I think this book would improve with a second reading, if only because this time I'd be more familiar with the characters and be able to remember them better by the book's end.
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Must amend the above based on something I just read out of Lisa Lowe's [b:Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics|2781|Immigrant Acts On Asian American Cultural Politics|Lisa Lowe|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1161517783s/2781.jpg|6704] which I think is a great way to look at the troublesome format of the book: Dogeaters offers scenes, dialogues, and episodes that are not regulated by plot, character, progress or resolution. Both the gossip [tsismis] it features and the format of the novel itself move in a horizontal, or metonymic, contagion rather than through the vertical, or metaphorical, processes of referentiality and signification. Spontaneous, decentered, and multivocal, gossip is antithetical to developmental narrative. It seizes details and hyperbolizes their importance; it defies the notion of information of property" (115). And later: "The association in Dogeaters of insurrection with gossip may refer implicitly to a history of guerrilla strategies that were not centrally organized and to different modes of political practice that have been obscured by the stage of oppositional party nationalisms" (119).

So my demand for more character development can in one sense be seen as a reaction to my looking for a western developmental plotline in a non-western text. Regardless, I still want to read more about Joey and Rio. :) ( )

An interesting mix of voices, languages, and stories. Rio's is the most compelling voice, but other characters fill in the mosaic that Hagedorn creates. ( )

After putting this book off for nearly five years, I finally picked it up and found myself enjoying it even more than I expected. The novel is fast-paced and rich with imagery from Philippine pop culture and 20th century history, filled with a well-realized cast of characters. I felt so at home reading the book! ( )