Summer Solstice
Nick Joaquin’s “Summer Solstice” is one of the many intoxicating stories he's made. It could have been attributed to the author’s state of mind while writing his stories. He shares this kind of style with Edgar Allan Poe and Ernest Hemingway. They love to drink and write. I love to drink and drink… milk. I wish I am still a child to enjoy it for free where only my cry is my ticket to getting it. This maybe the reason why I still have this magnetic attraction to breasts.
I must admit, I’m not in the position to carry out a criticism of a master’s work. Who am I anyway? A master’s work is a master’s work. But as human beings, it is in our nature to criticize. We even criticize the looks of our fellow humans whom God masterfully created. I am not excused from such nature, so, coupled with the obligation from the teacher, I will declare that I don’t like the story. It simply lacks the eroticism of a Harold Robbins. The only short story I love that is devoid of any eroticism is Rappaccinni’s Daughter by Hawthorne. It is romantic.
Summer solstice is the time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere when the noon Sun appears to be farthest North. It is a sacred occasion for the druids of England. It was even insisted by scientists to have caused the erection of the famous prehistoric monument in Salisbury, England, the Stonehenge.
Nick Joaquin’s short story version of the natural phenomenon does not instigate any erection of some sort. It is disappointing. I suspect that he could have made some erections, given the way he used and hinted in describing the femaleness or maleness of his subjects. However, he didn’t. For what? For delicadesa? I was confused until it dawned on me that he could have done that deliberately. He did that to defraud his audience into reading further by hanging their expectations in suspended imaginations. He successfully outraged the worldly emotions of human fervor but resisted from satisfying them. He could have done what I needed to read, but
I must admit, I’m not in the position to carry out a criticism of a master’s work. Who am I anyway? A master’s work is a master’s work. But as human beings, it is in our nature to criticize. We even criticize the looks of our fellow humans whom God masterfully created. I am not excused from such nature, so, coupled with the obligation from the teacher, I will declare that I don’t like the story. It simply lacks the eroticism of a Harold Robbins. The only short story I love that is devoid of any eroticism is Rappaccinni’s Daughter by Hawthorne. It is romantic.
Summer solstice is the time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere when the noon Sun appears to be farthest North. It is a sacred occasion for the druids of England. It was even insisted by scientists to have caused the erection of the famous prehistoric monument in Salisbury, England, the Stonehenge.
Nick Joaquin’s short story version of the natural phenomenon does not instigate any erection of some sort. It is disappointing. I suspect that he could have made some erections, given the way he used and hinted in describing the femaleness or maleness of his subjects. However, he didn’t. For what? For delicadesa? I was confused until it dawned on me that he could have done that deliberately. He did that to defraud his audience into reading further by hanging their expectations in suspended imaginations. He successfully outraged the worldly emotions of human fervor but resisted from satisfying them. He could have done what I needed to read, but