Book Review: A THREAD OF GRACE by Mary Doria Russell

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace." -- a Hebrew saying

During World War II, when most of the world rejected and murdered Jews, fifty thousand of them survived because they were taken in, hidden and protected by Italians from all walks of life, at great personal risk... and in defiance of the Vatican's and Pope Pius XII's shameful neutrality agreement.

This is the thread of grace in that dark period of history, the subject matter of this wonderful novel that took the author seven years to research and write.

Mary Doria Russell is one of my favorite authors for good reason: she writes about things that MATTER. She puts her anthropological background to good use by writing so skilfully about character's motivations and desires in a few paragraphs, then weaves together redemption and History like magic in an epic tale. The scale of her canvas is huge, but the reader is never lost, as we read of sacrifice and sin, hatred and heroism.

This being my 4th novel by her, I've learned to appreciate her particular blend of theology and righteousness, a world view that acknowledges the depths of man's fall from grace, but also the heights of our potential for good.

"When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail... Each of us chooses, one by one, and God's eye does not  turn from those who suffer or from those who inflict suffering. Our choices are weighed. And thus, the nations are judged."

It is a story of how ordinary people chose to help because they could, defying what their pope and the law said, putting morality above theology. And it challenges its readers: could we have done the same?

Best read with hanky at the ready! She always makes me sob, huhuhu.

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Excerpts and Reflections on IBERIA by James A. Michener

I don't think I've ever read anything quite like James A. Michener's IBERIA. The book merged history, both personal and worldly, and travelogue in such a brilliant way that I was never bored, not for one page! Michener organized chapters by region, and Robert Vavra's glorious black and white photographs added so much to the experience. 

 It's weird but I do honestly feel as if I have a better understanding of my own country (and consequently... myself) after reading this book. 

 Michener has a fiery passion for Spain, which he visited for the first time as a college student, then kept going back over the course of 40 years (the book was published by Random House in 1968). 

 Before picking up this book, I had rather hostile feelings towards Spain (as any Filipino patriot would). But now it's in the bucket list! To see and tread where Michener has gone, in search of the elusive authentic flamenco, paella, and toreador... to see its "poems of stone" in cathedrals Gothic and Romanesque, to make the pilgrimage along the Way of St. James, to witness the beauties of kingdoms where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived side by side until torn asunder by intolerance. 

 There is much to learn from Mother Spain, as a warning as to what can happen when creativity and learning are stifled, when one way of thinking is brutally enforced and all critical thought stamped out. Michener claims Spain's weakness was its prolonged inquisition. We look to its past, hopefully in time to change our own country's course. 

 Oh and I've finally learned who Juan dela Cruz is!!! Hahaha.

 

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From the chapter "Badajoz" we learn of Extremadura, the harsh unforgiving land where the greatest and cruellest of Spain's explorers came from, the likes of Hernan Cortes and Vasco Nunez de Balboa. It was in this region where the Romans built roads and bridges still in use as of the time of Michener's trip, and where the Guardia Civil travelled in pairs on horseback to keep the peace amongst gypsies and farmers.

In this chapter, too, Michener introduces us to key elements of Spanish culture: duende, gracia, and viva yo. If duende is that mysterious mix of passion and magic, then gracia renders even the ugly girl charming. But I was particularly struck with viva yo, which Michener roughly translates as "Hurray for me, and to h*ll with everyone else." I see this indifference to the collective good in my own countrymen, and I have to wonder... is this a legacy from 300 years of Spanish rule? Or uniquely ours?

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Michener's chapter on Toledo will make you laugh at the inconveniences of too many tourists in the stronghold of Catholic Spain, home to Cardinals Mendoza and Cisneros and great works of art by Goya and El Greco... but then the section on the Siege of the Alcazar in 1936 will touch many to the point of tears.

Michener writes of Colonel Moscardo, charged with defending around 1760 men, women, and children in the ancient fortress, who successfully defended the keep for 70 days against the Republicans. On the 3rd day they telephoned the colonel to report that they held his 16 year old son Luis hostage.

Luis: Papa!
Mosc: What's happening, son?
L: They say they're going to shoot me if you don't surrender.
M: Then commend your soul to God, shout Viva España & Viva Cristo Rey, & die like a hero.
L: A very strong kiss, Papa.
M: Goodbye, my son, a very strong kiss.

Aaaaaaa!!!!! T.T

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In Cordoba we meet her sons, "the finest pagan (Seneca), the finest church man (Hosius), the outstanding Jew (Maimonides) and the most brilliant Muslim (Averroës)," as well as Manuel de Falla.

Michener includes excerpts from the play DON ALVARO, which inspired Verdi's opera LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, set in the true to life village of Hornachuelos.

He writes, "A recurring theme of Spanish history is the failure of the Spaniards, no matter in what part of the world they find themselves, to develop a workable system of self government."

Michener also mentions Louis Bertrand's analysis that the "excessive individualism of the Spaniard, his tendency towards anarchy, is a Muslim inheritance..." which makes me wonder: what good does finger pointing to outside cultures do? At SOME point we need to take responsibility of our past and fix ourselves!

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The chapter on SEVILLA, with its immersive description of what Holy Week is like, has got to be one of the best examples of doing justice to the setting. When Michener writes of the floats and the brawls to fight for the honor of holding up the statue, it's almost as if he was describing a Catholic procession in Manila as well.

"When this float comes through Sierpes, Jesus Christ himself is in that street."

We are also introduced to handsome bull fighters and 2 immortal works of art set in Seville: Bizet's CARMEN and Rossini's THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.

Michener also writes scathingly of the nobility: "In Spain a contempt developed for anyone who worked with his hands, especially farmers. It became an actual disgrace, from which a family could not cleanse itself, for a member to work at agriculture; inevitably, the land suffered."

This lack of respect for manual labor, this pretentiousness and gross disrespect for holy and honest work, is also visible in the Philippines. :'(

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Madrid has got to be the meatiest chapter, in terms of the sheer number of ideas being exchanged in tertulias with marquises, writers, thinkers, and artists.

Michener even records an entire conversation with Filipino artist Fernando M. Zobel, founder of the Museum of Spanish Abstract Art in Cuenca.

Topics ranged from politics ("This is Spain and control will always rest in traditional hands, like that of the Church, the army, and the landed families.") to religion ("Unless I join the Opus Dei, I am going to be slowly excluded from the really important things I want to do."), as well as lengthy discussions on art and the zarzuela.

I am left with the insane desire to highlight entire passages, but out of respect for the book's age and rarity, I settled on taking pictures instead. :)

Again, I am overcome with this weird sense of recognition. The parallelisms with the Philippines keep piling up.

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In Salamanca, Michener ponders the lasting legacy of the Spanish inquisition and the intolerance it fostered, and its impact on the once great University of Salamanca and the cultural life of the country. Michener claims the Inquisition (lasting until 1826!) caused Spain's decline.

"With its castration, the spark of national vitality ebbed... a few hundred students mouthed cautious doctrine taught by frightened professors."

"An oyster can live to itself but without grains of sand for agitation, it cannot produce pearls."

I was deeply moved with the anecdote of philosopher-poet Miguel de Unamuno, the Rector of the University, who in 1936 publicly berated Gen. Jose Millan Astray after the latter cried "down with intelligence, long live death!"

Unamuno said that the general was a cripple both in body and mind... "and that because of his own withered nature, he was determined to enforce on healthy Spain his sickly philosophy."

To which Franco said: "If necessary, shoot him."

With all the repression going on today, this chapter hits close to home.

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Michener's chapter about Pamplona, "the heart of Navarra," is a work of sheer joy! While I'll never understand the pursuit of virility and proof of bravery that drives thousands of men to run before the bulls during the festival of San Fermin, it was still great fun to read conversations with close pals of Ernest Hemingway, fellow bull lovers who risk life and limb once a year, despite being over the age of 60!

Michener tells of grand picnics to and fro the basilica of St.Ignatius of Loyola, the Caves of Altamira, and the magic fog that settled in the Pass of Roncesvalles, made famous in the Song of Roland. He also discusses the contributions of musicologist Felipe Pedrell to the likes of Albeniz, Granados and Falla ("His songs live in all of us.").

This paragraph on the oboes of Pamplona has got to be one of the best pieces of musical writing POR SIEMPRE:

"If there is sweeter music on earth I have not heard it. The sound that comes from these old oboes is like the whispering of a thousand birds at dawn; it is the fairy music that elves dance to; it is the Middle Ages captured in haunting notes, and long after all else in Pamplona has been forgotten, these delicious sounds will echo in the memories of men and women... those who were awakened at Pamplona by the oboes...would have tears in their eyes."

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Michener tell us that Barcelona in the 1960's was the intellectual capital of the country, with its liberal students and families that devour books, its poets ("The measure of a contemporary society is whether it can support poets") and Catalan nationalists, its grand theatre and opera house ("We have a bigness of spirit... a singing of the heart.")

However, Michener arrived at a time that hired goons would wait for liberal professors after their lectures, to beat them up outside. It was a time when students were rallying after classes were closed to them.

"The government fears us... in Spain the educated man is held in contempt."

Book Review: VIAJERO - A FILIPINO NOVEL by F. Sionil Jose

Viajero by F. Sionil José
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Viajero" is the Spanish for "Wanderer." First published in 1993, it is only my 3rd F. Sionil Jose book and the 2nd of his novels that I have read.

The book is an attempt to answer the age-old question: "Why are Filipinos driven to leave the country of their birth? Why do so many choose to abandon it to its fate?"

The frame narrative is simple enough: we have a Filipino orphan saved from the Japanese and taken in by an African American soldier, raised in California, then embarks on what starts out as a global quest for identity that becomes an all consuming passion, and finally ends with him going back to the land of his birth.

We follow Salvador dela Raza (nicknamed Buddy) as he travels all around the world, researching about his country of origin. A few chapters are his imaginings of what it would have been like to be a datu crossing the West Philippine Sea to take back his kidnapped daughter, or to be a galleon ship builder making the deadly crossing to Acapulco, or what it must have been like to be Artemio Ricarte, general in three wars. I think these "intermissions" were the best bits in the novel.

"When will Filipinos realize that it is themselves who are often their worst enemy? My people are vindictive... they are petty, and they pride themselves in baubles... We are a nation of show-offs, and Imelda has captured all that is in the Filipino character."

F. Sionil Jose does not want to coddle his reader. He wields his pen as if it is a knife, as if with the intent to wound, and I found myself exclaiming "ARAY!" aloud in some parts as he tore into the faults of the ordinary Pinoy, even as he exalted the virtues of the best, most self-sacrificing of us, whom he calls "above all else, a heroic people."

"The modern Filipino has no morality, which after all, is the basis of politics, and the democratic state... As the king, so the people? No! As the people, so the king! ... Unless collaboration with the enemy, with Marcos and his rapacious oligarchy, was considered the ultimate crime against the people... on this moral bedrock will then rise an idea of a shared community."

To wander is to be an exile of sorts. There is also the exile of the uprooted Filipino like the protagonist... "an exile from his own self." Eventually, Buddy makes his way to Manila and witnesses People Power firsthand, then settles down in the tiny patch of land high up in the mountains where his American stepfather found him, and lets his chosen destiny play out as it will.

I found the last line quite poignant: "He hoists me on his shoulders. I am very glad, for up there, I can see much more."

That is what this novel does for Filipinos... it encapsulates practically all of our history in only around 300 pages... short enough for perspective, without sacrificing the important twists and turns in our moral history. And after reading it, we can see much, much more. Written in F. Sionil Jose's trademark Filipino cadence, it makes it come alive for this Filipina reader in particular, although again his descriptions of women may be considered controversial by modern standards.

"What is history? It is our capacity to remember, to make the past useful and more so for Filipinos who have permitted themselves to be lobotomized by their own willfulness... if the past can be inlaid in the living flesh, then the past becomes alive as well, perpetuated in the collective mind."

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Book Review: A SKY BEYOND THE STORM (An Ember in the Ashes # 4) by Sabaa Tahir

A ​Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"But as the days turned into weeks and months, I grew accustomed to the pain- the same way I learned to live with the scars... and instead of hating my heart, I began to marvel at its strength, at the fact that it thuds on insistently. I am here, it seems to say. For we are not done. We must live."

Now THAT'S how you end a series!!

You know it's a good book when it has you shouting curses and weep copious tears at the death of your favorite fictional character (this is NOT a spoiler, there are SO MANY CHARACTERS you'll fall in love with!!).

This is Y.A. done right. More bloody and violent than most others in the genre, but then, it is a harsher world we live in today.

Much like the real world, though there is heartache and suffering, there are also pockets of peace and joy.

"The answer is in living. In finding joy, however small, in every day. We'll struggle to trust happiness at first, perhaps. But we can trust ourselves to reach for it always."

What a ride. Thank you, Sabaa Tahir!

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Book Review: THE WATERS OF SILOE by Thomas Merton

The Waters Of Siloe by Thomas Merton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Best read in small doses, after long weary days of labor. It's by Merton, who can't help but write sentences that SING.

At one level, this book can be read as the history of the Cistercian order.

But it can also be read as a collection of individual lives woven into one mystical holy cloth.

Beautiful passages abound, and this reader especially appreciated the passages that spoke of the simplicity of a life dedicated to common purpose, to truth and goodness and charity.

"We are what we love."

I found it calming and found myself more centered after reading pages from it, over the course of several weeks.

It goes against so much of what the world shouts: it speaks of the vow of stability, of sinking roots where you are and loving your woods.

It speaks of the necessity of labor that tires us in a pleasing way, of perfect love shown through obedience and humility, of freedom from exterior possessions and base selfish desire.

Above all, it reminds us of finding God in all things, in joy and pain. In silence and birdsong.

"The one love that always grows weary of its object and is never satiated with anything and is always looking for something different and new is the love of ourselves. It is the source of all boredom and all restlessness and all unquiet and all misery and all unhappiness; ultimately, it is hell."

Reading this nearly one year into the lockdown made me realize that solitude from the world is not necessarily a bad thing. Without invalidating the suffering of many, this book challenges its reader to do as Merton does: to find God even in the midst of great evil and strife.

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