"Macarthur" by Bob Ong

Bob Ong once again gives us an entertaining wake-up call in the dark tale "Macarthur".

Written in 'Taglish' (Tagalog + English, a trademark of the author), Macarthur is a fictional story of four boys living in the urban outskirts. The story follows their troubled, angsty ways, while exploring their soft and broken souls. It eventually arrives at a long climax as one by one, the boys are faced with the consequences of their actions.

Though it does make me smile from time to time, Macarthur lacks the usual light humor I've come to expect from Bob Ong. Over-all, it contains the heavy reality of poverty in the Philippines and everything that comes with it (such as crimes, lack of education, drug abuse, and health problems). The book's main characters (the four boys) subtly appealed to me; in spite of their rough personalities, they held innocence, kindness, and dreams in their hearts. The fact that they were tangled in the web of society made them all the more unforgettable.

This book is definitely an eye-opener, a closer look at the almost-cliche issues of today's society. It takes us not to the facts, not to the statistics of how many people are hungry or how many teenagers are out of school, but immerses us into the lives of those very people. Macarthur, though a work of fiction, is brutally realistic and filled to the brim with subtle emotional appeal that it's guaranteed to stir its readers.

I recommend this book to people 13 years old and above, because of the considerable amount of profanity and disturbing images it creates (though in my opinion, those make the book more realistic). Also, I suggest its readers to ponder on the questions that the characters pose in the story:
> Were they victims of their own mishaps, or were they let down by the harshness of the situations they were in?
> Were they the true problems of society, or was their society the root of their problems?
> How is our own society similar to the one described in the book?

Read it... and be disturbed.

[photo from http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k51/sundaetwirl/165137425l.jpg]


Hyacinth*