Collected Short Stories of F. Sionil Jose (Part 1)

 

There are authors and books meant to be taken in small doses. National Artist F. Sionil Jose’s latest volume of Collected Short Stories is one of them, but perhaps not for the reasons you might think.

 

I can only read a few stories at a time because it simply hurts the heart too much.

 

This is my first time to read the controversial author’s short stories, and I’m very grateful to have the chance to get fifty of them (so many!!) in one handy volume during our last visit to the late author’s bookstore in Ermita. My previous exposure to Jose were a couple of novels and a few one-act plays.

 

The stories are arranged in chronological order of writing, and while I’m only seven stories in, I thought I’d do a series of posts about them.

 

It hurts to read them. Much like it hurts one’s vanity to hold a mirror close enough to see all the pores and imperfections in one’s face, reading the first seven stories is like looking into a mirror of the collective Filipino soul, and seeing our society’s faults. And while the external circumstances of the stories took place generations ago (there are barely any years written in them, but you get the idea because of old place names and monthly salaries of P1,500.00), the catalyzing actions and corresponding reactions of the people are hauntingly familiar.

 

The book starts with much beauty, though. The preface is addressed To The Young Writer, and all of it is immensely quotable, especially these excerpts:

 

“Be an honest witness to your time, and be strong when they revile you for telling the truth… Even in your shattering loneliness, remember you are writing… for your own people who, in their silence and perhaps poverty, cannot express their aspirations and anguish. You are their voice, but only if you have not deserted or betrayed them…

 

Why then must you write at all? Do it because there is so much hypocrisy and cussedness in us, and who knows, you may be able to exorcise a bit of these. Do it because many of us have lost our moorings, and it is in literature where history lives, where we can know best ourselves so that we can then live with ourselves and be rooted again in native soil…

 

What, after all, is literature but pain remembered…

 

One final word: write wherever you can do it best… but never, never leave your village, your town, your beginning.”

 

I’d like to end this first section with a joke that I found funny, but the fact that I did speaks a lot about my/our culture:

 

“He is on this elevator and there is only one other passenger. He asks him if he is from Leyte and the man says no. He asks the man again if he is from Ilocos, and again, the man says no. Finally, Father asks: “Are you in the Army or are you related to any sergeant or officer?” Again, the man shakes his head. At this point, (he) gains some courage and tells the man: “Then, will you please take your shoe off my foot? You are hurting me.”

 

The first seven stories hurt me. But I shall continue, a little bit at a time. Because even when F. Sionil Jose hurts his readers, there is still much to learn from the man who has witnessed a century of Philippine history.

 

***

Here are pictures of my twin and I outside F. Sionil Jose’s bookstore in Ermita in 2018, with Judie who very kindly brought us! 

This is me proudly presenting the Floy Quintos volume of plays I bought during that visit. 

And then it was our turn to bring another dear friend, Meewa, in 2022, which is when I got the short story collection.