Customer Reviews

Dogeaters

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

A thoroughly enjoyable book, Dogeaters provides a fascinating view of Filipino culture under the Marcos regime. Hagedorn attempts to define and give an understanding of Filipino identity, how it is constructed on an individual level as well as on a national level. While reading the book, one comes to understand the problematic nature of living under a dictatorial regime by witnessing a multitude of characters escaping into the fantasy worlds created by drug use, a romance with the West (especially movies), and sleep.

While the book can be a difficult read at times, this struggle seems intentional. Hagedorn presents the reader with a fragmented novel, one told by multiple narrators (at times it is unclear who exactly is the narrator), one without a disjointed plot progression, and one replete with a dizzying cast of characters and events. It is through these difficulties that one may face in understanding character relations and plot that Hagedorn allows the reader to identify with the Filipino people. Citizens of the Philippines in the middle of the twentieth century faced profound hardships in the construction of identity. So too may readers of Hagedorn's novel find it difficult to identify with characters in the book, the events in the book, and the very nature of Filipino culture as expressed in the book.

Overall this book is an engaging read, providing both entertainment and enlightenment for the reader. One comes to a greater understanding of what may be called the Neo-colonialism of the West, or the imperialistic subjection of a people to the consumerism, materialism, and capitalism that so dominate the culture of the West. Furthermore, one sees that indigenous culture often falls prey to these influences. I highly recommend Dogeaters to any reader, but note that it would have to be given an "R" rating were it a movie, so reader beware!

Dogeaters, by Jessica Hagedorn, is an exploratory look at Phillipene culture. Set during the Ferdinand Marcos reign, the book focuses on the stories of many, seemingly unrelated, characters from all facets of life. Though the story does not come together as cleanly at the end as an Agatha Christie piece, the characters lives are interwoven enough to give the reader some sense of closure at the books conclusion. Disjunction, as mentioned, is the basic theme of the book. We have no consistent source of narration, as Hagedorn employs third and first person POV's throughout the book, giving her reader an intended sense of confusion about whose story it is that we are reading what the point of it is. Through the use of several points of view, and the use of made-up news articles, and of course the many different characters, Hagedorn gives us a sense of the confusion and separation that the Phillipene people experienced during this tumultuous time. We are meant to see the ways in which the nation reacted to the end of colonialism and the rise of a dictatorship, we are given a picture of a country searching for some sort of identity. An example of the disjunction apparent within the text would be the stories of Rio and Joey. Rio, the closest thing we have to a main character, is the daughter of a wealthy employee of the richest man in the Phillipenes. Her life is contrasted throughout the book with that of Joey, a male prostitute/drug addict, who is trying to survive in continuous near poverty conditions. It is interesting to say the least. I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in untypical and exploratory novels. It is and engaging read, and is interesting enough to keep most anybody's attention. It might be frustrating to people who enjoy plot driven stories however, because what makes Dogeaters work is the vividness of its characterizations.

First: yes, this is somewhat fragmented-- there are multiple points-of-view and the style changes with the characters. I guess it is postmodern, but that term is so offputting to most readers these days that I use it reluctantly. It's really no more difficult to follow than the postmodern techniques we're all used to with dream-sequences and flashbacks on such shows as "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos."

Second: the writing is sure of itself, a tour de force.

Third: the subject-- Manila and the Philippines in troubling times-- is, in a sense, the true protagonist.

Summary? It took me a long time to get through this, but that is more a reflection of me than it is a rebuke on the book. I admired it greatly and was often struck by the insights, the writing, the intimacy with all the people in the society-- from senators and society people to male prostitutes. Because I have little time to read, I prefer novels to short stories (i.e., a longer story I can pick-up and put-down over the course of a few weeks) and in some respects this was almost more like reading thematically related short stories.
Because of my own limited time to read, I would forget some of the subtle clues connecting the chapters.

The book would benefit from a different kind of reading. But it has an almost Tolstoyan scope to it.

There is some amazing writing here-- much of it is very funny. It is often poignant and always, always very very vivid.

Hagedorn's take on my country is eye-opening, witty, and true. We read the book for a student forum in Wesleyan University, and we could not stop talking. Topics like power, post-colonialism, Filipinos' penchant for movies and pageantry, historical narratives, and the Philippines' "halo-halo"-ness were brought up and talked about earnestly. Everyone, including those who are not of Filipino descent, enjoyed the book's juiciness and intelligence. READ THIS BOOK! It's one of those books (like Master and Margarita)that you can read again and again and still come off with something entirely new. If Jessica Hagedorn would visit our university, I would graduate happy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! While some may complain that Hagedorn's Dogeaters is too fractured to enjoy, I found this fragmentation an asset to Hagedorn's overall message. Through this fragmentation, Hagedorn illustrates that fractured identity that Phillipinos have struggled with throughout history. The Phillipines has never had a strong national identity, and Hagedorn illustrates this beautifully through her many plot twists. Hagedorn also shows that because of this lack of identity, life has become virtually unbearable in the Phillipines, and as a result people resort to many forms of escapism. This can be seen through the frequent use of drug use, and the idolization of public figures. Hagedorn also shows the strong destructive influence of the west, and capitalism, into Phillipino society.

However, a word of warning before reading this book: While the fractured plot definitly serves a purpose, it is quite confusing. The many characters seen with no introduction can be quite confusing. However, if you're up for a challenge, Dogeaters is a profound, enlightening, yet disturbing, read!

If you liked the movie MAGNOLIA you will love this book. Intertwining the lives of fourteen (sometimes seemingly unrelated) characters, author Jessica Hagedorn weaves a narrative portrait of Marcos-era Philippines with bold images of sex, drugs, dreams, and corruption. Readers take a ride with characters like pretty boy prostitute Joey Sands who sleeps his days away and gets high all night with wealthy johns he picks up at the gay disco. In just pages, Hagedorn switches gears with a look into the lives of adolescent, sexually-repressed girls Rio and Pucha Gonzaga. And interspersed with these plots Hagedorn shares telling clips from the fictional METRO MANILA DAILY and CELEBRITY PINOY; or interviews with The First Lady; or sexcapades of moviestar Lolita Luna; and the list goes on...the reader better keep up with the pace... The effect of this collage style is an overall cinematic and surrealistic quality in the novel. Movies and dreams, which are the "opiates of the people," underscore the book's escapist theme. The one fault of the book, however, is that it is not a movie. A reader should know before taking the plunge that the "escapism," so well explored in this novel, is for the characters only. DOGEATERS demands a lucid, careful reader for full appreciation. This is no brain candy.

People condemned colonialism as being the exploitation of one country by another. The dominant power sucked the resources out of the weaker one, paying only a little back in terms of some technology and a semblance of law and order. But I think now we have realized that that economic bloodsucking was only one of the evils of the imperial experience. More subtle, but maybe longer lasting, was the degrading of the self among the dominated. The ruled felt powerless, they felt their whole culture had failed them and offered nothing of a future, while the West (almost always the dominating powers) remained glamorous, powerful, sexy, and almost unreachable. The dominated peoples shucked off their traditions, rejected their pasts, and tried to become Western. If this is only partly true, it is truer of the elites, who could aspire to local power if they mimicked the real rulers. In the post-colonial era some countries adopted Western institutions to benefit themselves, while others took only the outward forms of the West and used them in corrupt ways. If these remarks hold any relevance to post-colonial society, they are even more true of the Philippines, where America held out a vision of "Americanization"---democracy, education, and pop culture---which could not be delivered in reality in a Southeast Asian peasant society that had lived under loose Spanish control for over 350 years before the Yanks arrived.

DOGEATERS is an achingly realistic portrait of Manila society, where nobody wants to be what they are and everyone wants to be somebody else. Identity comes from trashy Hollywood and Manila movies, soap opera is life. The shopping-obssessed elite rejects everything in their own land. The demi-monde leers around every corner. Phoneyness is next to godliness. The riffraff rule. Everyone survives on the edge. Marginal men become mainstream. Snowy Christmas scenes and "Jingle Bells" greet a holiday, but it's all "out there" somewhere; Manila remains hot and humid, home to a Malayo-Polynesian tradition that is walled off and laughed at by the would-be foreigners that dwell in the vast city. Imelda Marcos, a character in the book, collects her shoes and puts up huge "cultural" monuments that commemorate herself. She has no clue about and no sympathy for the problems of her nation. A thinly-disguised Benigno Aquino gets assassinated and everyone betrays everyone else. Everyone turns out to be marginal in the end.

DOGEATERS starts off in a brilliant way. The first two thirds of the book is exciting and insightful. If you have ever read Vargas Llosa or Lobo Antunes, you will not find Hagedorn at all difficult. Changing narrators and jumping back and forth is part of post-modern literature. Hey, what's so new about that ? I am not at all Filipino, though I have visited that country. OK, I didn't understand most of the Tagalog words tossed into the text without explanation, but you get the sense even so. In the last third, however, the author runs out of ideas. She can't keep up the momentum created through her intense, accurate description of certain classes of Filipino society. The story becomes diffuse and kind of limps across the finish line like "American Graffiti". Still, for anyone who fancies a novel that really opens up a culture quite neglected and unknown in the West, DOGEATERS is a must read.

Let me preface this by saying that I am Filipino, but have very little knowledge of what life in the Philippines is like, so in many respects this novel breaks new ground for me (although I did recognize much of the Tagalog that Hagedorn uses). That being said, I have to say that this book moves beyond being easily categorized as a transculturation text or something that simply received press because of its introduction of Filipino culture to the American populace (much in the same way that Alvarez and Garcia wrote books that could not be dismissed as simply being Latino-American fiction produced for an ethnic-hungry reading population). The style reminds me of the book "Twelve" in its fast paced movements and I especially liked the way the storylines of all of the characters had a way of intersecting with one another. I loved reading about Joey's character and also liked the way Hagedorn discusses a major problem with many Asian cultures - the problems of navigating the way with which Western culture bleeds into almost every facet of society. Hagedorn writes vivid descriptions of characters struggling with and enjoying the way Western entertainment has become the norm.

Problems with the novel? I guess one major concern is the over-emphasis on explaining what makes a Filipino a Filipino and the constant explanation of every little tidbit of Filipino culture. The way she uses language is well-done and people can understand the Tagalog without any translations, so I wish she had chosen to take a step back and not necessarily explain every cultural tidbit she thought a non-Filipino would not know. If that's what someone wanted they would have purchased a sociology textbook.

In the end, this is an entertaining read that does a good job of playing with narrative forms.

I had to read "Dogeaters" for my American Literature class during my sophmore year of college. Usually when I have to read for class I get bored very easily, but this book completely astounded me for so many reasons. It is a frank and honest description of the Philippines during the Marcos era. The characters, particularly Rio Gonzago and Joey Sands are believeable and frankly portrayed both in negative and positive lights. I was particularly impressed by the way that Joey was portrayed. It is not often that an author's main character is a sympathetic, homosexual, drug-addicted, male prostitute. Yet the reader feels that he is a real person telling his story to those who would pick up the book. Though the final few chapters became a little hard to follow at first, I read the book at least five times, both straight through and also just passages, and finally developed a sense of what was going on. "Dogeaters" is one of the few books that I loved so much that I actually lent it to someone to read.

Dogeaters is a dizzying whirlwind slice of Filipino life. Jessica Hagedorn's post-modern, at times surreal, story is interesting not so much for the characters but the form and structure of her storytelling. Using a mix of points of view, interlacing traditional prose with play dialogue and songs (the kundiman), the fast paced narrative is at times breathlessly exciting- at its worst, it is overwhelming. The book's emphasis on style comes at the cost of an engaging storyline or fully realized characters- none of whom you completely understand or emphatize with. Ms. Hagedorn, with some ingenuity, does manage to illustrate a society caught between two worlds- the colonial, the post-colonial, the East, the West- and people who, despite being connected by sanguine relations (mothers, fathers, the family unit, ancestry, etc.) are more connected by media and technology- a people in love with the glamour of the movies- even though though their own lives, mired in poverty, violence, empty wealth, corruption- is the very stuff that movies are made of. The richest man in the country, the President and First Lady, a hustler/junkie connect via the movies. Daring and gutsy. (I especially liked the allusions to "dog-eating." Everyone is suspicous of everyone- the nightclub owner looks down on his busyboy because he thinks he eats dogs, the department store clerk thinks that the barbecue she buys from the roadside vendor is not cowmeat but dogmeat. Funny and true- I think that Ms.Hagedorn captures the suspicion and hypocrisy and self doubt and defeatism (she still keeps eating there...)that pervades Filipino culture, or any culture, under foreign influence and/or dictatorial rule.