Art – The Book-Butterfly

December in Books

“Sonia’s heart was a Hopper painting.” The title is blunt about Sonia and Sunny’s loneliness, but it’s this Hopper line that makes one grasp how lonely: A profound loneliness that has something to do with a vulnerable and fluctuating selfhood, an abstract loneliness that is tied to urban and modern life, an existential loneliness craving real connection that cannot be quenched by mere companionship. Lonesomeness was Edward Hopper’s leitmotif, and Kiran Desai weaves this theme into an unfolding raga… Read full entry here.

The Woman from Tantoura was my pick for #ReadPalestine week. Radwa Ashour’s best work, if you ask me. Started 2025 with Edward Said and ended it with something a bit less intellectually demanding, albeit informative and genuinely affecting. Why #ReadPalestine? Until we know enough to be able to call a spade a spade.

Brightly Shining by was my hope for a more festive read, and my first Dua Lipa recommendation. Surprisingly, all three books touch on immigrant life, and two have Filipino minor characters. But this one broke my heart.

It makes me extra grateful to have been able to squeeze in Tethered on the last day of 2025. Not because it helped me achieve my goal of reading at least one Filipino author a month, but primarily because this book is a gift. Grace is a multifaceted word, but even when I contemplate its various meanings, this book still embodies all of its definitions. Read full entry here.

That’s my December in books. The 2025 reading wrap-up will have to wait. It’s a wonder I was able to read at all with all the season’s bustle while caring for a loved one who was ill for most of the month, leaving me to (wo)man the fort. But we said goodbye to 2025 on a healthier and happier note. Gave and received bookish presents. Attended the last Ex Libris session of the year and felt revitalized. BFF paid us an impromptu visit: We attended a Rizal Day literary event and said goodbye to the old year / welcomed the new year reading quietly… and it was precious.

Wishing all my reading friends a happy new reading year!

Kiran Desai: The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Lonesomeness was Edward Hopper’s leitmotif, and Kiran Desai weaves this theme into an unfolding raga: at times beautiful, at times disorienting, at times cruel and repulsive, at times disquieting, at times capriciously meandering.

I have no qualms with the length. Although considered massive in proportion to the contemporary reader’s short attention span, I imagine the typeface and the font size would make Tolstoy say, “Hold my vodka.” But the book often offers clues to Desai’s literary and artistic inspirations and subtly discloses why the author found its length necessary: “How many millions of observations and moments it had taken to compose this book!” Sonia thought about Anna Karenina.

It is not, however, “an unmitigated joy to read” as Khaled Hosseini claims in a blurb. Reading about Sonia’s toxic relationship with Ilan, the narcissistic artist, was nauseating to the point of causing an unpleasant physical reaction that made me want to give up one-third through the book. Although aghast, it was accompanied by the awe of how much the author fathoms an artist’s relationship with darkness. There is no question about this being a work of art, but I will admit that I hoped to love and enjoy this more than I did.

While Sonia and Sunny failed to endear me to them, I was drawn to Sonia’s mother, who kept company with books and understood that there are worse things than loneliness, and Sunny’s father, who desired to break free from the cycle of corruption in the family for the sake of his son, believing that to be honorable is to be free. While I was concerned that portrayals of men beyond the main characters would perpetuate stereotypes of Indian men, it was Desai’s keen eye for psychological and cultural detail, and her vast insight into the plight of the immigrant, that made me continue reading.

To paraphrase a memorable line from the novel: I knew when I saw this book that the story would not be simple. And simple it is not.

A Reading Girl in Kazakhstan

That was me. The girl with a Gogol anthology poking out of a backpack pocket while walking the length of Almaty’s Gogol Street a number of times, earning her more than 20,000 steps a day;

who paired her first Kazakh meal of horse meat and fermented camel’s milk with Alina Bronsky’s insane but unexpectedly touching Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine;

who carefully savored the nuances in every Kazakh story from Amanat (Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan) on every fermata between adventures, and upon completion, discovered that it would be one of her favorite collections of short stories;

the girl who brought Buzzati’s The Stronghold (aka The Tartar Steppe) to a stronghold in a Tartar steppe, and who realized that Buzzati would have been happy with her for taking a cue from his novel and living a life contrary to that of Drogo’s;

the girl who felt like a queen when she received a cute note in English with tiny flowers from a barista in Uralsk, and a free pass at the Pushkin Museum by reading and bringing The Queen of Spades with her;

who learned about Pugachov’s Rebellion through Pushkin before knocking on Pugachov’s door;

who reunited Dostoevsky’s Notes from a Dead House with Kazakhstan simply because it’s where he started writing the notes;

the girl who wished she flowed, but instead, lumbered through Sholokhov’s epic “And Quiet Flows the Don,” and being devastated by it, could only take the hefty book to the house where Sholokhov learned that he was awarded the Nobel and play a plaintive melody on his piano while gazing at his portrait, wanting to ask him so many questions;

the impractical girl who carried all these books to a trip, thankful that she did because Kazakh bookstores humble the English reader by catering only to the Kazakh and Russian reader;

the girl who agreed with Marga Ortigas who wrote that reading is, “A special gift that showed you how much of the world still lay beyond the safety of your comfort zone”;

the girl who believes that traveling is one way of acting upon that gift.

The Turkistan Dispatch

There is nothing like steppeland sunrise and snow-capped mountains viewed through a train window to herald one’s entry to the Silk Route.

Built on an oasis at the edge of the Kyzylkum Desert, Turkistan was an ancient jewel of culture, trade, and spiritual significance for the Turkic people.

Turkistan shares not only a border with Uzbekistan, but also its Timurid architecture. Its most prominent landmark is a mausoleum commissioned by Timur (Tamerlane) in honor of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, a poet and Sufi mystic. In the vicinity is a smaller mausoleum devoted to Rabiya Sultan Begum, Timur’s great-granddaughter, and daughter of Ulugh Beg of whom I’ve written and fangirled during my Uzbekistan trip in 2022.

When dusk falls, the call to prayer suffuses the air and rises with the birds while a mystical crescent moon ascends the purple sky to complete the experience.

As I steep myself in this splendor, I also mourn it. The moment I turn my back on it, I am faced with Karavan Saray, a horrible travesty — a new shopping complex constructed in a theme park version of Timurid architecture that feels dystopian. My heart aches for the beauty we cannot keep and the beauty we ruin for the sake of commercial profit.

When I revisited the mausoleums early this morning to see it in pure sunlight, hardly anyone was around save for a pilgrim on his knees, facing the Khoja Ahmed Yasawi Mausoleum, intoning a sincere and almost heart-rending prayer. I think of the pilgrims who once held this site sacred and who continue to do so, who can only accept the truth that the holy place is but external and ephemeral, and that pilgrimage is, after all, a journey to the deepest parts of the self.

Bogdanovich Glacier and Oktyabrskaya Cave

Being aware of having altitude sickness, I don’t know what gave me the audacity to do this ascent to the Ile Alatau Mountains — higher than our Mt. Apo and Mt. Pulag, in negative degrees Celsius, and on the first day of opening season, when other trekkers haven’t carved out clear paths on the snowy heights yet. Under the charm of the waxing crescent moon, all I know is that I had to obey the landscape’s whims and do something I may never get the chance to do again. Such landscapes demand one to make the most of life and revel in it!

I’ll spare you the details of how I slipped, almost passed out twice, missed taking beautiful photos because it wasn’t safe to do so, but oh, it was all so worth it!

To be in the presence of metamorphosing architecture, this frozen confluence of time and nature, seeing rocks stopped in their tracks and suspended in a surreal blue, realizing the impact of these monumental sculptures on the planet; it was something I would never experience by reading books, but it was sheer, powerful poetry.

Almaty Museum of Modern Arts

Aside from the usual arrogance of the Western eye, there is a movie to blame for painting Kazakhstan as a poor and backward country. I agree with author Christopher Robbins when he wrote that the joke of this particular movie, “Depends on an audience’s absolute ignorance of Kazakhstan and its culture.” While poverty is, indeed, present here, it is also important to remember that this nation ranks 12th in the world in terms of oil reserves, and on top of that, coal, copper, uranium, platinum, and gold.

Because two weeks is not enough to see this vast country, I have even decided to skip Astana, the capital, because it looks too modern and filthy rich. Haha!

I don’t know much about how economies really work, and I only usually see things through the artistic lens, but I’ve somehow always thought that a country’s prosperity can be reflected in the state of its museums. Seeing the Almaty Museum of Arts, with the Tien Shan mountains as its backdrop reinforced this idea.

The building is impressive in itself, designed as two interlocking structures, one made of limestone (to represent the mountains) and the other of aluminum (to represent the city). To my surprise, there was an ongoing Yayoi Kusama installation; a photo exhibit by Almagul Menlibayeva whose works remind me so much of my best friend Franz’s creativity; and a huge piece by Anselm Kiefer — “Questi scritti, quando verranno bruciati, daranno finalmente un po’ di luce” (These writings, when burned, will finally cast a little light) — that affected me most of all.

If the Almaty Museum of Arts cannot change the image of Kazakhstan that Borat impressed on anyone’s mind, I don’t know what will. But it should, shouldn’t it?

November 26, 2025 – Zenkov’s Almaty

ZENKOV CATHEDRAL / MUSEUM OF FOLK MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Through my acquaintance with Kazakh literature, I learned of a detail in Turkic mythology of how a musical instrument was believed to be a branch of the Tree of Life, and how this branch was to be bestowed upon a chosen one, shaman or musician. It’s beautiful how this story articulates how much their culture values music, to the point of associating music and musicians with what is most sacred to them.

Because of this, it did not come as a surprise when I heard about the Kazakh Museum of Folk Musical Instruments in Almaty. There were stringed, wind, and percussion instruments that had been owned by their most famous musicians throughout history, some looked like they could double as weapons. There were new ones, but there were also instruments that bore battle scars, which I considered to be the most beautiful in the collection. I found myself alone with this wonderful curation of musical instruments that I had never seen before, and as their music played through the museum’s sound system, filling the eight different rooms with emotion and spirit, I felt transported.

But this museum is little-known, and usually bypassed by many who go straight to Almaty’s most famous landmark — the Zenkov Cathedral (that ornate Orthodox Church built entirely of wood that miraculously withstood the great 1911 earthquake that devastated most of Almaty). What most people don’t know is that Andrei Zenkov, the architect of the iconic cathedral, also designed the museum building in 1908.

After immersing myself in the museum, I walked to Zenkov Cathedral and honestly did not know what to make of such a colorful edifice. But looking back at the history of this place around the time these two buildings were constructed, I realize that it must have taken a certain amount of courage to create something with such vibrant colors and a hint of whimsy. Now I look at both buildings as works of defiance and resolute joy.

November 25, 2025 – Green Bazaar, Almaty

Circling back to Almaty and exploring the many facets of what is the largest city in Kazakhstan. Although it was once a stopover on the Silk Road, the Soviets have left a more tangible influence on the city. If there’s a place in Almaty that still bears echoes of the Silk Road, it would have to be the Green Bazaar.

Dried persimmons from China, candied apricots from Afghanistan, camel dairy products, horse meat, the same spices that nations have gone to war for, and teas that have coursed through the veins of the famed routes for centuries, fresh pomegranate juice stands overflowing with incomparable fuchsia… It’s all there!

But I went to the Green Bazaar for the apples. No, not because of my regular detox diets. Almaty, formerly Alma-ata, means “Father of Apples.” Apples are from Kazakhstan. Its seeds travelled along the Silk Route and eventually reached the West through the Romans, who discovered them in Syria after a few thousand years.

The Kazakh apple is a little bit more sour than the apples I’m used to, but I’m happy to report that I am very much awake! Luckily, my first bite did not put me to sleep. Heaven forbid I’d have to wait for true love’s kiss to wake me up!

November 17, 2025 – The Snow in Almaty

A fine thing in Almaty, Trotsky’s wife Natalya wrote, was “the snow — white, clean, and dry.” After his exile in Kazakhstan, he would only move farther and farther away from the motherland and never return. And yet, the couple would recall their sojourn here fondly.

Underneath this landscape hushed by snow are dark, startling, and forgotten histories. May the traveller always seek to know what gives its beauty depth.

November 22, 2025 – Uralsk, Kazakhstan

The city is now descending into winter. At 9:00 A.M., the sky is unlit, and even at noon, the sun barely makes its presence felt. But I love strolling around despite the dark and the freezing temperature and seeing the onion domes of Orthodox churches appear through the mist, adorable babushkas wrapped in headscarves who are up before everyone else, and the warm lights emanating from old windows that reveal hidden coffee shops that offer respite from the cold. The baristas do not speak English; hardly anyone does, but they have smiles that translate enough warmth to this strange, shivering girl with a book.

Its side streets and residential areas are pages out of a Gogol story. It is, after all, quite a literary city. It was here that the first and enduring public library in Kazakhstan was established in 1871. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Sholokhov and other literary greats have come to Uralsk and made their mark here. I booked at the Pushkin Hotel, predictably.

The distance between Almaty and Uralsk is several chapters or a few hundred pages of a Russian novel. For a different perspective: Uralsk is closer to Kiev, Moscow, Warsaw, Vienna, and Helsinki than it is to Almaty. The oldest city in what is now Kazakhstan, Uralsk was founded by Cossacks in 1584 as a border outpost of the Russian Empire.

Perched on the European bank of the Ural River, it is geographically within Europe. It is where Central Asia ends, or begins, depending on where you’re coming from. But if you’re coming from a book, as I am, it is where Russian literature comes alive.