mjmilbrand02f2

This is my 3rd book by Edgardo Reyes who recently passed away. Since he is one of my favorite local authors, I stopped all the books that I was reading to give way to this. I am his fan. This is my humble tribute to him. Laro sa Baga (Playing With Fire) is a story of a young man called Ding who is physically blessed, i.e., tall, good-looking, well-endowed yet emotionally unstable, i.e., immature, self-centered, irresponsible and childish. Although he is just a high school graduate, he gets employed and earns money because of his artistic side: he is a portraitist, copywriter, design artist, clothes designer and even an interior decorator. He loves having sex with good-looking and curvaceous women especially those with nice, clean, rosy feet (he has foot fetish). He only wears briefs in bed when he sleeps at night. The story basically revolves around the women who he loves. There is his godmother Ninang Carmen whose sensitive parts he touched when he was sleeping beside her and he was still an "innocent" child. His childhood friend, orphan Dee, who he devirginized when she was just 13. His employer, the mysterious Castillian beauty and a single parent, Mama who used him as drinking buddy when she could not sleep in her hotel room almost every night. This employer also left her a child, Teng who Ding took care from childhood until the time that she was devirginized by his landlord's son. There is his lawful wife, Sesmi who was a child rape victim and who because of that traumatic experience got crazy and attempted to castrate Ding when their marriage was going down the drain. Also, there is the weed-user lounge singer Edith who was about to come home from Japan as overseas entertainer when Ding decided to leave her. There are many other girls - waitresses, sauna bath attendants and bar girls - who had flings or one-night stands with Ding but they are too many to mention here. What I really liked about this book were the storytelling and the short witty dialogs that were also the ones that made me enjoy his two other books - my earlier reads - Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag and Mga Uod at Rosas. However, I am not giving this 5 stars (the rating that I gave to "Kuko") because of the theme. I am not squeamish about sex in novels and I know that Reyes wrote the story that used to be serialized in a daily (newspaper) to earn a living. You see, at some point during the Martial Law era here in the Philippines (1972-1983), President Marcos used sex to divert the attention of the suffering masses. Filipinos languished in poverty but escaped to the fantasy world by going to movies showing uninhibited sex scenes called pene (short for penetration) or read dailies with stories full of explicit and disturbing sex details accompanied by photos showing bare women and men. I also enjoyed the playful stream-of-consciousness that Reyes employed especially in the scenes where Ding was in trouble or lost. For example, he made my day this morning while reading the part where he was, for the last time, got caught by her Ninang Carmen looking at her crotch. His Ninang Carmen told him to leave and as he was already a grown up man at 30, he felt disappointed and utterly sad because his godmother used to do that to him when he was still a child. He said to himself: "Kidlat, nasaan ka? Hinahamon kita!" (Lightning, where are you? I challenge you!). The line reminded me of the komiks heroes that I used to read when I was a child. Well-delivered punchlines. Very entertaining. Edgardo Reyes, you will sorely be missed by us - your fans! Godspeed, sir.

2022-10-29 03:30