Obviously there is no way that’s going to happen, especially since I’ve had them from the library for four weeks and so far have gotten through half of the first volume (granted, I borrowed them at an inopportune time, right before a family visit followed by my husband going on a two-week business trip and leaving me to solo parent our toddler in the midst of an up-all-night, waking-at-dawn teething bout, which didn’t leave me a whole lot of time or mental capacity for reading). It’s the first 8 books of the Darangen, an oral epic poem of Mindanao or Mindanaw people of Lake Lanao in the Philippines. I’m sad that I have to return it unfinished because it’s a rich and complex epic and I would love to have adequate time to pore over it and really understand it. However at my current rate of reading it would take about a year and I think if I dug into it enough to really get all the cultural references I would be well on my way to a PhD in the subject and, well, I only have so many years left to live. So I will be frantically reading for as much of the next 56 hours as possible and then I will be regretfully returning these four volumes to the San Francisco library unfinished.
Also, I published my last blog post at 6:00 on a Friday evening, which apparently is the wrong time to do it if I want anyone to actually read it. It’s a post I like, about collections both physical and mental, and about attempting to see past the blinders of cultural imperialism. If that sounds interesting to you, please check it out!
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