After reading "Batorsag and Szerelem"

Okay, I'm not even going to attempt to be proper and literary and be all CWish here. I'm just going to blurt this out loud:

Shyet, ang lupit ni Ethan Canin!

Now lang ako ulit na-amaze at nagreact ng ganito to a short story that I read. I really wanted to scream "wtf?!" but it's way past midnight na. There's a surprise twist, and it kept me guessing till the end, although I suppose in the back of my mind I was already trying to put my finger on it but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was odd about the situation.

"Batogsag and Szerelem*" is a novella from The Palace Thief, and you got a boy and his older, hippie math genius brother. Kuya has a girlfriend whom he hides in a refrigerator box in their basement, and she's supposedly his lover. Kuya is speaking in a strange language with his best friend. Kuya's girlfriend makes a pass on Lil Brother.

And it's all very intriguing because the blurb at the back of Granta 45 asks this: "Ethan Canin--JD Salinger's heir apparent?" A family of geniuses? Of course I just had to read it. I read one of his stories before, also from a Granta issue on young American Novelists. He didn't particularly make an impression on me then kasi si Jeffrey Eugenides (pre-Virgin Suicides) ang wow worthy sa akin nun. But now, I *heart* Granta 45. May Nick Hornby na, good novella by Ethan Canin pa. A real find, at least for me.

Wow. Yun lang.

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*I'm still trying to find out what the words actually mean. I tried searching for it, but I can't understand a word because everything is in Hungarian or something. All I know is "Servoos!"

Pps. Okay, now I know: it means "love and courage." Aww.