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shell_s's review
5.0
Beyond the Line of Trees is astonishing, each of its four tales a sweet and bitter feast for the heart and senses, and I cannot wait for more releases from Vida Cruz!
I recommend buying this collection but if you also enjoy audio, some of Cruz's work can be found in podcast form, like "Odd and Ugly" here: https://podcastle.org/2020/03/18/podcastle-618-odd-and-ugly/
This is the sort of short story collection for which I'm bound to stumble in my quest for words to describe it and praise it (while also trying not to put my 21st century Caucasian U.S. American foot in my mouth in the attempt).
The three folktales featuring pre-colonial Filipino islands' peoples and mystical beings---"How the Jungle Got Its Spirit Guardian," "Song of the Mango," and "Odd and Ugly"---struck me as brand new legends that carried the gravitas of far more ancient myths passed down through generations.
"To Megan, With Half My Heart" is a more contemporary fairy tale (set at a Catholic school and covering up to the adult years' of two of its students), but is no less impressive or moving.
Vida Cruz's intense research for authentic cultural details (clothing, flavors, music, and more) and her exquisite writing style combine to steep the reader in a vivid bygone era. An era where brave village women strike bargains with fierce diwatas (like powerful deities or spirits who protect a region and its wilderness) or kapres (aloof trickster giants with a realm of their own accessible through certain tree trunks), and they ally to fan the flames of revolution to reclaim their homelands from conquerors.
I loved each story, especially because the ferociously steadfast characters within them loved until it ached and refused to be cowed by the menacing forces around them, be they supernatural beings or arrogant and insatiable human armies. I also enjoyed how the characters followed their passions and developed their talents even when tradition and pressure from their community tried to confine them to the same spheres as the generations before them.
In her introduction, which I also adored, Cruz talks about these tales as her attempt at "articulating the maze of my heart" and says, "I poured the emotions tormenting my heart into these words," and I must say, that tumult and passion really shines through every time.
In these stories sometimes the price of having true magic touch your life or your loved one's, or having it flow from your very fingers and throat, was devastatingly steep. Or the conquests ravaged the land and extinguished so many lives as to feel very crushing. Yet at every tale's end I was left with a profound sense of the resilience of the both the human spirit and the spirit of the land.
I highly recommend this short story collection if you enjoy a fairy tale or folktale with beings as wild and unpredictable and alluring as summer lightning. And if you relish stories which, as the author promises (I can't say it better, so I won't try), feature "brown-skinned girls bucking the norm, coming of age, saving the world--while falling in love, having adventures, and gaining magical powers in between."
WHEN A SHORT STORY COLLECTION LEAVES YOU ENRAPTURED AND EAGER FOR THE NEXT TALE---SPEAK UP, BOOST THE SIGNAL!
I recommend buying this collection but if you also enjoy audio, some of Cruz's work can be found in podcast form, like "Odd and Ugly" here: https://podcastle.org/2020/03/18/podcastle-618-odd-and-ugly/
This is the sort of short story collection for which I'm bound to stumble in my quest for words to describe it and praise it (while also trying not to put my 21st century Caucasian U.S. American foot in my mouth in the attempt).
The three folktales featuring pre-colonial Filipino islands' peoples and mystical beings---"How the Jungle Got Its Spirit Guardian," "Song of the Mango," and "Odd and Ugly"---struck me as brand new legends that carried the gravitas of far more ancient myths passed down through generations.
"To Megan, With Half My Heart" is a more contemporary fairy tale (set at a Catholic school and covering up to the adult years' of two of its students), but is no less impressive or moving.
Vida Cruz's intense research for authentic cultural details (clothing, flavors, music, and more) and her exquisite writing style combine to steep the reader in a vivid bygone era. An era where brave village women strike bargains with fierce diwatas (like powerful deities or spirits who protect a region and its wilderness) or kapres (aloof trickster giants with a realm of their own accessible through certain tree trunks), and they ally to fan the flames of revolution to reclaim their homelands from conquerors.
I loved each story, especially because the ferociously steadfast characters within them loved until it ached and refused to be cowed by the menacing forces around them, be they supernatural beings or arrogant and insatiable human armies. I also enjoyed how the characters followed their passions and developed their talents even when tradition and pressure from their community tried to confine them to the same spheres as the generations before them.
In her introduction, which I also adored, Cruz talks about these tales as her attempt at "articulating the maze of my heart" and says, "I poured the emotions tormenting my heart into these words," and I must say, that tumult and passion really shines through every time.
In these stories sometimes the price of having true magic touch your life or your loved one's, or having it flow from your very fingers and throat, was devastatingly steep. Or the conquests ravaged the land and extinguished so many lives as to feel very crushing. Yet at every tale's end I was left with a profound sense of the resilience of the both the human spirit and the spirit of the land.
I highly recommend this short story collection if you enjoy a fairy tale or folktale with beings as wild and unpredictable and alluring as summer lightning. And if you relish stories which, as the author promises (I can't say it better, so I won't try), feature "brown-skinned girls bucking the norm, coming of age, saving the world--while falling in love, having adventures, and gaining magical powers in between."
WHEN A SHORT STORY COLLECTION LEAVES YOU ENRAPTURED AND EAGER FOR THE NEXT TALE---SPEAK UP, BOOST THE SIGNAL!
kamreadsandrecs's review
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
It’s been a while since I read a short story collection written by a single author. I’ve tended to read anthologies, mostly: the ones that are focused on a particular genre, or subgenre, or theme. I’d forgotten how pleasant it can be to read a collection with consistent quality, as opposed to the hit-or-miss nature of a lot of multi-author anthologies – and I’m glad that this book has reminded me of that pleasure. Cruz’s writing has a kind of music to it: one that, again, reminds me of the more literary stories I read back when I was at university. Though the lyrics change, the melody remains – and it’s a very lovely one to listen to. In this regard, the short stories in Beyond the Line of Trees have certainly done it right.
Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-IK
arifel's review
4.0
This gorgeous illustrated collection offers four short stories from Vida Cruz, a Filipina author and former Tiptree fellow. I hadn't come across any of these stories before (one is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest, which despite the controversy surrounding that particular event is an amazing achievement!) and jumped at the chance to pick up one of these super-limited first printing chapbooks to familiarise myself with Cruz's writing. I was not disappointed! The stories here deal with the intersection of supernatural forces and of human societies grappling with traditions and change in many forms. Its hard to pick favourites, but the standouts for me were "The Song of the Mango", the story of Saha a woman whose brother is killed and turned into a magical healing mango tree, sending her on a path from being a dissatisfied handmaid to the village leader to a grumpy mango witch in a forest, to her capture by conquering forces and eventual escape. Saha's narration - told in the past tense from a significant distance, which adds to the mystery of the story - is gloriously bad-tempered, and the worldbuilding is detailed and interesting, making me wish I could get a mango worth eating without getting on a long haul flight!
The final story, "Odd and Ugly", weaves a non-linear love story into a fable with strong overtones of Beauty and the Beast, with a story between a kapre, or tree spirit, and a young woman who invites herself in as his housekeeper. As the tale unfolds we learn more about the kapre's history (an african slave brought over to the Philippines during the colonial occupation), and the heartbreaks past and present of both of the main characters.
Review Link: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2019/09/questing-in-shorts-august-2019.html
The final story, "Odd and Ugly", weaves a non-linear love story into a fable with strong overtones of Beauty and the Beast, with a story between a kapre, or tree spirit, and a young woman who invites herself in as his housekeeper. As the tale unfolds we learn more about the kapre's history (an african slave brought over to the Philippines during the colonial occupation), and the heartbreaks past and present of both of the main characters.
Review Link: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2019/09/questing-in-shorts-august-2019.html
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