Solidaridad Soledad Soliman Solosolosol

Gun Dealers' Daughter: A Novel by Gina Apostol
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, my reading experience is an adventure!!!

I was tasked to moderate Gina's another novel, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, but since that book is more confusing and more tricky (with its literary styles), I tried searching for her other works in linear form. After her short story in Manila Noir, this came as another alternative. Bibliolepsy, meanwhile is to be re-released next year, by Soho Press. (view spoiler)[It's first edition was way back 1997 by the UP Press and is now out of print (hide spoiler)]

But then again, this book is not really straight-forward. It composed of puns, reiterating moments, scenes going around in circles, and ending scene with a carousel, taking the circular trip literally and figuratively. The book is about Soledad Soliman and her world revolving around the Alta-de-sociedad of the 70s, with the dictator & his wife on cameo, the latter singing Dandansoy and flexing her aesthetic tastes in music and art. Her parents, Frankie and Queenie, are those visionary businessmen who provides military might, via gun trade. They have a beshie who used to do gangster moves - Uncle Gianni, the soltero who helped Sol recuperate in Europe.

Reading the first part is hard for me, not engaging at times. It only kicked off when she started narrating her piece of story, at around chapter 6. After surviving the first 5 chapters with its confusing POVs, the plot started kicking in. It is not fast-paced, there are parts that circulate. Pages that ruminates. Lines being repeated, or words being reiterated. I liked its lyrical appeal. Also, some scenes are really memorable. The long queue of limousines at CCP because the audiences do not walk, the Philippine Insurgency medallion stirred over a coffee, and the fantasy of Sol and Jed doing the deed while stealing guns.

The ending is not like an action film, but rather an update of these Martial Law babies, and it seemed rather unattached to its full-circle effect. But sometimes this is how our stories play in our mind: sometimes intense, but mostly detached.

I suggest that GenZ should really read this to get our of their petit-bourgeois fantasies and really get a grasp of how the Pinoy society works, especially now that our social climate gets to its primitive dog-eat-dog realm.

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