Dream Jungle FROM THE PUBLISHER
Two seemingly unrelated events occur in the Philippines - the discovery of the Taobo, an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area, and the arrival of an American, celebrity-studded film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the "lost tribe" just might be a clever hoax masterminded by a brooding wealthy iconoclast - and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and their own egos.
As the consequences of these events play out, four unforgettable characters find themselves drawn together, sometimes passionately, sometimes violently. The iconoclast playboy, Zamora de Legazpi, renowned for being the first outsider to make contact with the Taobo tribe, cannot escape the boredom and frustration of his corrupt class. Rizalina, Zamora's resourceful and intelligent young servant, flees Zamora's estate, only to get trapped in the seedy underworld of sex tourism. The American actor Vincent Moody, whose personal demons cause him to feel detached from the other actors and the film crew, becomes entangled and then obsessed with Rizalina. Paz Marlowe, a writer, returns to the Philippines from Los Angeles when her mother dies, and stays to witness the fate of Zamora, the movie, and the country.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
Her best book since Dogeaters...Indeed, Dogeaters and Dream Jungle stand together like installments in a single panoramic Philippine historical epic, with just the right amount of cheesy delight in pop culture and tacky behavior to keep things from getting too pompous or ponderous.—Michael Upchurch
The Washington Post
Hagedorn's style is oblique, but it utterly suits her subject.—Carolyn See
Publishers Weekly
Barbed and alluring, this third novel by Hagedorn (Dogeaters; The Gangster of Love) revolves around the purported discovery of a Stone Age "lost tribe" in the Philippines, and deftly explores late 20th-century Filipino cultural identity. Led to the cave-dwelling Taobo by an enterprising local in 1971, mestizo politician Zamora Lopez de Legazpi is as contented as a "conquistador without an army" can be. At around the same time, 10-year-old Rizalina, the sole survivor of a shipwreck in which her brutal father and twin brothers were killed, comes to live with her mother, who serves as loyal cook to Zamora at his grandiose Manila palace. A model student with an inquisitive mind, Lina is briefly happy, but when she is nearly 12 and Zamora takes an unseemly interest in her, she flees and ends up prostituting herself. A few years later, Vincent Moody appears, a captivating but aptly named film celebrity who abandons his girlfriend and son in California to star in a big Vietnam-era blockbuster, Napalm Sunset (think Apocalypse Now). When he stumbles upon Lina at a joint called the Love Connection, he falls for her, and makes her part of the film's entourage. Meanwhile, Paz Marlowe, a Filipino-American journalist with social ties to Zamora's family, returns to Manila to attend her mother's funeral and to unravel the inconsistencies in accounts of Zamora's discovery. With the addition of each narrative thread, Hagedorn deconstructs Zamora's story, revealing the corruption of a regime capable of orchestrating the discovery of a new tribe as part of a public relations coup. Hagedorn hits some notes too hard, but her storytelling is sensuous and vivid and her characters are cunningly imagined; she offers a telling glimpse of the imposing American presence, both physical and cultural, in the Philippines. Agent, Harold Schmidt. (Sept 29) Forecast: Hagedorn's second novel (The Gangster of Love) didn't live up to the promise of her debut (Dogeaters, a 1990 National Book Award nominee), but her latest comes closer and should win back readers. Six-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Paz Marlowe is a young Filipino American woman who returns to her homeland to research two seemingly unrelated events: the discovery of a "lost tribe" in a remote rainforest and the making of an American movie about the Vietnam War. These two events figure prominently in the lives of three other characters in the novel: a wealthy landowner who "discovers" the tribe; his young female servant who, fleeing the landowner's sexual advances, ends up working in a seedy strip club; and the disillusioned American actor who falls in love with her. Each character's story is told through alternating sections, sometimes crossing and connecting, sometimes leaving doubts about their motives and sincerity. Caught in the political and social upheaval that occurred in the Seventies during the Marcos regime, these characters' lives become a reflection of a country in turmoil and an ironic commentary about the relationship between America and the Philippines. Dark, thick, and hypnotizing, this novel by poet and performance artist Hagedorn is as rich and tangled as a tropical rainforest. Recommended for larger public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/03.]-Kellie Gillespie, City of Mesa Lib., AZ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Hagedorn (The Gangster of Love, 1996, etc.) tries to capture the upheaval and chaos of 1970s Philippines by using disparate narrative styles. The story threads here concern an archeological discovery, a servant girl's downfall and recovery, and the making of a movie overtly reminiscent of Apocalypse Now. In 1971, Zamora L-pez de Legazpi, a Yale graduate and member of the Philippine elite, discovers a tribe of Stone Age cave-dwellers in the jungles of the southern Mindanao region. Zamora works to protect them from outside influences but is later accused of fabricating the tribe's existence as a pretext to help the Marcos (though the name isn't used) regime spy on the area, which is a hotbed of rebellion. Zamora is a charming, sometimes cruel playboy and womanizer, but he's deeply unhappy and basically decent. Recognizing the intelligence of Lina, his cook's young daughter, he lends her Pigafetta's account of Magellan's expedition, excerpted throughout the novel, and promises to send her to school. But Lina, who blossoms into a great beauty as she approaches adolescence, runs away with the first man who pays her serious attention. Pregnant at 14, she is soon working as a bar-girl. In 1977, a troubled American actor, Vince Moody, meets Lina, now calling herself Jinx, at a sleazy nightclub where he's hanging out to soak up local atmosphere. A besotted Vince brings Lina/Jinx along to the set of the Vietnam War film being shot by an acclaimed American director, whose wife is making her own film of the filming. Meanwhile, Paz Marlowe, a US journalist born and raised in the Philippines, comes home to do a story on the increasingly reclusive Zamora but snags an interview with the film's directorinstead. Zamora and Vince will hold readers' interest when they're on stage, and the mysterious monkey people are alluring, but most of the time Hagedorn strains too obviously for her effects . Ambitious but disjointed and unevenly written: the parts just don't add up to a whole. Agent: Harold Schmidt
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