A Cross - Post: We are all HAMLET

 
                                        (Original post can be found here)                                        

HAMLET, like all plays, is best seen live, and, I believe, best performed by young student actors.

Mel Gibson, in the Franco Zeffirelli 1990 adaptation, was in his mid-thirties. Kenneth Branagh (who directed as well as acted) in his 1996 version, was only a few years older.

They were brilliant performances, to be sure, and dazzled female audience members not just because of their magnetism and prowess. But the polish and confidence, while attractive, do not speak about the fatal flaw inside this corrupted soul, split apart by murder, and planning another.

In the youthful hands of director Nelsito Gomez's students from MINTeatro, the uncertainty and the existential angst that we all relate to came out in full force. I was lucky enough to catch their recently concluded production a few weeks ago, featuring a Shakespearean script given a new frame by Filipino Shakespeare authority Jaime del Mundo. Who would Hamlet be today, but the aloof kid in the black hoodie who sits far at the back of class, headphones on despite Teacher's lecturing, trying to put on a brave face while healing from the mental and emotional anguish of two years of the pandemic?

While HAMLET is best appreciated as a play watched live, it has inspired other literary works as well. Here are two I got to read during lockdown.

In NUTSHELL by Ian McEwan, the British author paid tribute to the Bard by putting wondrous original speeches written with a Shakespearean flair in the mouth of a babe yet to be born to a mother (Trudy, a modern Gertrude). This fetus overhears the plot to kill his father, with his uncle (Claude) in cahoots. 

The title comes from the quote in the play that goes: ""Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space -- were it not that I have bad dreams." Is it any wonder that the heart of this novel was an examination of consciousness, and whether it is a blessing or a curse?

In Maggie O'Farrel's HAMNET, she examines the death of Shakespeare's favorite son in a time of plague. It HURT to read this. It will go down as one of the most beautiful books I've ever read, but I dare not reread it for fear of reliving the trauma I felt the first time around. Huhuhuhu.

There is a reason why Shakespeare merely changed one letter from his son's name, in naming the cursed prince of Denmark. And just like how one death starts a chain of events in the play, so too, do we read about grief's ripples throughout even the most placid waters of family life.

(Interestingly enough, there is a recent movie about the impact of Hamnet's death, starring the self-directing Kenneth Branagh again, but this time, in the role of Will Shakespeare. ALL IS TRUE is streaming on Netflix.)

This was merely the tip of the iceberg of film adaptations and books inspired by this play! "The play's the thing," indeed. How infinite our obsession about this princeling, this mere quintessence of dust. For we are all Hamlet, all of us searching for our place in this world that can seem very dark and cruel.

A Cross-Post: THE WONDER and its Netflix Film Adaptation

                                          (Original post can be found here) 

"This book will haunt me for days to come," I wrote back in 2021 upon finishing the book by Emma Donoghue. Based on a combination of true stories of fasting girls during the Victorian era, it was an absorbing read, quickly finished but haunting, like the best horror stories are.

It has been more than a year and it haunts me still.

My original review last year sounds so outraged:

"I've always believed that the most terrible of horrors are the real ones that owe nothing to the supernatural. This story... reveals the horror of blind religious fanaticism and hypocrisy, of what happens when "living for the next life" is taken to the extreme, to the point of neglecting good sense. This is the horror that we've seen day-to-day, when persons of authority are never questioned, when matters of belief are given priority over matters of common decency."

I was excited for the movie because it features the great Florence Pugh as our heroine, an English nurse sent on a curious assignment: monitor closely an Irish girl, who claims not to have eaten for four months!

In my experience, movies based on books often become too different from their origin, such that they should be considered utterly different art works altogether. As a reader, I'm always glad when a movie turns out to be quite faithful to the source material, or if the changes wrought somehow explore the literary themes in a deeper way. And this turned out to be one of those rare films.

(It's not a spoiler if I talk about the framing of the narrative, shown in the very first ten seconds of the film, right?)

The movie starts with a shot of a set in a studio, and a voice-over: "We are nothing without our stories, and so we invite you to believe in this one."

We live our lives in a frame narrative of our making. The power of suggestion is so strong that sometimes we see only what we want to see, and close our other senses to prevent cognitive dissonance. But this surety comes at a cost. Deadening our senses means closing our minds to new scientific information, and yes, to the wonders of a world more complicated and more beautiful than any one mortal brain can comprehend.

THE WONDER can be seen in Netflix!

A Cross-Post: THE ENGLISH PATIENT and Gabriel Yared's Score

                                           (Original post can be found here)

For these next 3 posts, I thought of exploring the intertextuality of books and the movies, soundtracks, and other books they inspired! As we feed on bookstagram to nurture our love for reading, so too do books inspire other artists.

~~~

There are works of art that make even the most jaded person believe in all-consuming love. THE ENGLISH PATIENT, a novel by Michael Ondaatje, is one such jewel, as well as the immortal soundtrack of Gabriel Yared for the movie by the same name.

"I fell burning into the desert," says the mysterious patient, bandaged from head to foot, a living mummy recovering in the ruins of World War II Italy. How he got there, and who he really is, is one of the most spell-bindingly beautiful and heart-breaking stories you'll ever encounter.

So many have written about the movie, so I thought I'd reflect on the OST and how I love it so much, I daresay I love it even more than the book and film (all of which I absolutely adore!).

Ondaatje wrote that there are ancient cultures where they "celebrated their loved ones by locating and holding them in whatever world made them eternal." Like a painting. Or a song. This soundtrack is the product of love, whose beauty deserves to be immortalized.

The soundtrack starts with what seems at first hearing like an Islamic call to prayer, but sung by a woman. 

It is only later that we realize that the clue to the mysterious patient's country of origin was in the music, all along!

I think it's a sign of Yared's genius that he was able to compose unique themes, most of which are under one minute, but feel like they encapsulate entire lifetimes in those shining seconds of emotional tension, and sweet harmonic resolution. This gorgeous music rightly won both the Academy Award and the Grammy for the intermingling of three major themes, which I think were also present in the novel. These three themes were masterfully performed by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

First, the mysterious Oriental music. How similar are the sounds of what is foreign or different to ears used to Western music. How universal the beauty of the human voice, despite the strangeness of the cadences and modes. Yared made audible the clash of cultures in a time of war. 

The title track, The English Patient, begins with soloist Márta Sebestyén singing a folk song, then sweeps into a haunting musical vista

evoking windswept dunes and a conflagration of of heat and hearts. This same theme emerges in Herodotus and other tracks, giving a firm sense of place to

this love story which depended so much on geography for its outcome. 

Next we have Yared's tribute to civilization and to J.S. Bach, the supreme architect who blended reason and passion so divinely. Convento Di Sant'anna, to an unsuspecting listener, could almost pass one of the master's two-part inventions, reworked with different instrumentation in Kip's Lights and I'll Always Go Back to That Church. This is the supremacy of art, of human craftsmanship merged with divine inspiration, which war tries its best to destroy but cannot. For this art is the best of what is human, and will stand for as long as there are cathedrals and books and pianos left on earth.

And last, we have possibly the most romantic theme ever scored. It is passion's madness made musical. Try listening to Rupert Bear with an untouched heart and you are bound to fail. It makes one believe in fate, in meeting one's soulmate. It makes one almost forgive the trespass made on broken marriage vows, in the face of such power.

As Far As Florence is when Yared combines all three themes daringly, in a combination I didn't think possible until I heard it. I confess, at that point in the movie, I was too overwhelmed with my memories of the book's words and the incredible acting of the god-like Ralph Fiennes and the delicate beauty of Kristin Scott Thomas, I was bawling like a baby. But on second listening, I am left amazed. See how intimately these disparate threads entwine, Yared says to us, echoing a theme in Ondaatje's book. See how destinies come together, and are torn apart, in the oases of love amid the deserts of hatred. 

Gun to my head, if I were asked to choose: soundtrack, book, or movie? I would scream SOUNDTRACK!!! Undoubtedly!!! Because there are other beautiful epic romances I can read, other gorgeous movies to throw all the awards at. But Yared's music is a rare thing, a soundtrack so inspired, he must have been touched by God during its creation. And if you read the book while listening to the music (as I did, to "review" for this entry), even an agnostic would be moved to offer thanks for the intermingling of inspiration that allows such a trifecta of perfection to come into being.

Then again, in this modern age, why only choose one to enjoy, when you can immerse yourself in all three? 

Book Review: THAT MIGHTY SCULPTOR, TIME by Marguerite Yourcenar

That Mighty Sculptor, Time by Marguerite Yourcenar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. The increased traffic, the longer mall hours, the bigger crowds… yup, it’s the season when we see girls and boys selling lanterns on the street indeed.

And of course, things are also getting rather tense at work. Even the most joyful occupations have weeks that are high-stress, and mine is not exempt as my co-teachers and I have been putting in more hours coaching for an upcoming interschool competition and other events.

That’s why I chose this slim volume for my weekend de-stress read. Some people book mani-pedi-massages. I schedule an hour or two of reading on weekends.

Marguerite Yourcenar mesmerized me in her glorious Memoirs of Hadrian, which is “one of those works which continue to feed you… and which, to a certain degree, transform you.” And so I was thrilled to chance upon this preloved volume, typing MINE so hastily in the comments, I nearly broke a finger pressing ENTER!

I did not realize it was a collection of essays, and the range of topics astonished me! From Tantric philosophy to Japanese warrior poets, from a short history of Christianity in England to a humanist view of Christmas (“a festival of joy shaded with pathos”), Halloween (“Hallowed all: all souls are sanctified”), and other festivals borne from myth (“those great truths which are beyond us but which we need in order to live”)… she lifted me out of 2022 and into that interior world where pupils of life and art retreat in order to make sense of all we’ve seen and read.

“All Paradises are within,” she reminds us. And it was pretty much Paradise for this happy reader, especially since the Northern cup of toffee nut latte tasted so nice, compared to the watered-down swill in the Southern branches of the same overpriced franchise.

And just like that, I feel ready to take on this week’s challenges! May your week be merry and bright, and full of light!


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Theatrical Review: Dulaang UP's "The Reconciliation Dinner" by Floy Quintos

It's not every performance you get to sit onstage as an audience member. But that's what happened in Dulaang UP's production, with the rapt spectators cleverly placed around the intimate performing area on top of the UP Main Theater stage.

All the world's a stage, we are reminded. And only months after a divisive election, the setup reminded us that the eyes of the world are on our country still. How are we moving on? Is unity possible? Have broken relationships mended, and if so, at what price?

I along with thousands of others rejoiced when we found out Floy Quintos had written another play, and while it features his trademark mix of making profound statements using the popular lingua franca, merging serious political commentary with tongue in cheek laughter, there is something altogether fresh in this newest literary child of the current dystopia.

Previous Quintos plays presented both sides of a social issue, trusting the audience member to be intelligent enough to make up their minds.

But now, tact is forgotten. There is no longer the gentleness of patience. This is a changed playwright, no longer content to whisper, but shouting through the characters. At one point, I was so shocked, I couldn't believe the lines I was hearing. So raw and discomfiting was the script, I could hear my fellow audience members gasp and squirm. Then seconds later, laugh and cry, then cry from laughter until the two merged and we were just a heaving mass of raw emotion, our heartstrings expertly drawn by the direction of Dexter Santos, with such an amazing cast. Reb Atadero deserves special appreciation, for acting a part he learned only 3 days ago! And of course, the two queens who reigned over the show: Frances Makil-Ignacio and Stella Cañete-Mendoza.

Perhaps discomfort is the point. And if some of us found the climax of the play surreal, weren't the elections themselves surreal?

We make our own reality, Quintos reminds us. It is up to the next generation to decide what we shall shape it to be. But we need to look past the lies, and look coldly at the truth. For how can we contribute towards nation building if we refuse to acknowledge our country's brokenness?

There is a new fierceness in the beloved playwright's words, a battle cry resounding from characters we all know, for we all have them in our real life intimate circle. The loving ninang who disappointingly voted this way, the ninong with anger management issues who predictably chose that candidate... The ones who gave up on the country when the election results came out... And most touchingly, the ones who decided to stay.

As the play reminds us, "The fight is here." In our home.

But what IS home? More than the absurd traffic and surreal news headlines, it is the people we consider family. Quintos shows us the path forward: Engagement. Dialogue. Not hiding behind the Asian facade of polite smiles and non confrontation, but choosing to engage the other political side, exchanging thoughts as honestly and as respectfully as we can. Quintos shows this will be messy, but the alternative - a false unity perpetuated by lies and fueling poisonous resentment - is worse.

Perhaps it is time to invite that ex-friend to dinner, once again. But maybe eat the Filipino way, and keep those knives away. Just in case.

The Filipino way. All of us are Filipinos, and it is only together that we can search for OUR way forward.

P.S. I regret not taking a photo of the long line of ticket buyers waiting outside the theatre, IN THE POURING RAIN. But we were happy to do so. For DUP and Floy Quintos, audiences are happy to brave stronger storms.

**** Added the following day ***

I'm sure I'm not the only audience member who dreamt of the DUP performance we watched yesterday. Such is the power of this Floy Quintos play!

Music, too, has power. For anyone who is a fan of Netflix's THE CROWN or who has seen Floy Quintos plays like FLUID, the carefully chosen tracks reveal so much without the need for speech. Wordlessly, they inform the audience of a specific time, and usually also a specific place, even if we close our eyes.

And so when BAGONG LIPUNAN blared over the speakers during The Reconciliation Dinner, it brought a bone-deep appreciation to how far back in time we seem to have regressed... only to be brought back to the present with the strains of ROSAS that a character onstage defiantly blared out via Spotify on his cellphone.

Songs with lyrics can do even more. Dramatically, they often provide an additional layer of meaning to the action.

The moment that made me tear up the most in yesterday's play was when a Leni supporter onstage coaxed his ninang (who voted for the other camp) to sing along. Embarrassed, the lady said she didn't know the Nica del Rosario song, only to be able to sing the ending ... "Pilipino." Once, as a whisper. The second time, more confidently, going a few notes higher.

And it was beautiful. A moment of unison in music, a prayer (a prophecy?) made real. A reaching for our higher, better, more loving selves.

Songs contain dreams. Thank you to everyone in the cast, in the team, for sharing your dreams with us this weekend.

Where do we sign up to petition for a rerun of this amazing production?!?

Book Review: YOU HAVE NOT YET BEEN DEFEATED by Alaa Abd el-Fattah

You Have Not Yet Been Defeated by Alaa Abd El-Fattah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All eyes are on Egypt this week as they host this year's UN Climate Change Conference (COP27). But while the powerful wine and dine in fancy hotels, an old lady stands outside a prison with written permission from the state prosecutor, begging to be allowed to see her son who has been on complete hunger and water strike for several days. Some days she has to use crutches because the cold has seeped through her bones, so long has she waited. But she persists. She has done this before, as have the son's sisters. As they have done to see their late father.

This is the incredible bravery of author Alaa Abd el-Fattah and his family. 

YHNYBD is a collection of Alaa's writings, and it took nearly two weeks of slow reading to finish. But there is no sense of achievement or completion, on the contrary, I feel that it is a mere introduction to this intellectual's work. Alaa was once an IT professional turned political prisoner. Why is he in jail? Because the state that claims to be a democracy fears his writings so, they have kept him in prison, book-less, voice-less, for the better part of ten years. His son is growing up fatherless, with a father growing old behind bars as he is kept in "preventive detention," where Egyptians can be kept in prison without being convicted of any crime, renewable for as long as the authorities deem fit.

Apart from being a crash course in recent Egyptian political history, there is much international readers can learn from this book, written by one who made the democratization of the internet his life's work. 

Alaa writes of the need for intelligent discourse, to resist the infantilization and trivialization of social media algorithms. If words are important, and the miracle of the internet and the possibilities of instant communication so powerful, then why are we wasting time on dumbed down language, choosing emojis to express ourselves? Spending inordinate amounts of time dancing on Tiktok? Why do we fixate on the absurdly meaningless, and shy away from complex issues? "Resist the algorithmic pull of the trivial," Alaa urges, "and assert your right to be a creator not a consumer." Alaa is forever thinking of "the ways technically free people are nonetheless confined and entrapped," our imaginations captured by capitalist advertising. He is a modern-day prophet warning us of technology's Panem et circenses, and we can all learn from this patriot's example.

His words stem from personal experience, of being part of a genuine movement for reform, and a brief moment when it seemed a better tomorrow would come to pass, only to endure the defeat of having an even worse regime replace the old one in his beloved Egypt.

Alaa writes of the necessity of never losing hope,"with faith in a better future despite knowing that tomorrow still holds a lot of pain." And while success isn't guaranteed in our lifetime, "all that's asked of us is that we don't stop fighting for what's right."

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Theatrical Review: MINTeatro's "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

 

                           (Director Nelsito Gomez (2nd from left) with friends)

My favorite venues for watching live theatre are always the intimate ones. From staged readings in medium-sized auditoriums to college theatres, and of course, the classroom, where the thrill of live voices ring out freely. There is a wholesomeness to theatre done without lapels, without too-pretty sets that sometimes outshine their stars. There is something beautiful in student productions wrought by young actors giving some of the bravest performances, convincing their audience members to share in their reality for 2.5 hours (don’t complain, it’s about as long as the Wakanda Forever movie and infinitely more worthwhile!).

How fitting that my first pandemic theatrical experience was MINTeatro’s student production of Shakespeare’s HAMLET! Director Nelsito Gomez based his work on the edited script by Shakespeare authority Jaime Del Mundo, and used the “play-within-a-play” framework for maximum effect. The play stars Rafael Jimenez as the tortured princely Dane, whose baby-faced youthfulness made this audience member reel with the realization that HEY! HAMLET IS REALLY YOUNG! And it just hit differently with the recent pandemic and the mental health crisis in our vulnerable youth.

I was struck with the thought that there can be multiple interpretations of Hamlet: as a case study for mental health, as a political metaphor for a country lacking honorable parent/authority figures, the list goes on.

The play is rich in themes, but Director Nelsito Gomez certainly did not spoon-feed his audience. He gave the play to us AS IS, trusting us to form our own conclusions, interpret it through the lens of our different personal experiences.

This is meaty Shakespeare, perhaps pared of a few lines but undoubtedly, it was the Bard of Avon’s words bursting forth with conviction and clarity from the other actors like Zackary Flynn (Claudius) and Dippy Arceo (a female Polonius… which somehow WORKED better especially with Ophelia’s later unraveling!) Miguel Salaya’s performance as Laertes was particularly moving.

“To be or not to be?” Nelsito Gomez and the cast throws the question back at the audience, for us to answer for ourselves.

But if you ask me, “To watch or not to watch?” then the answer’s easy! Go see them next weekend, they have shows on Nov.18 and 19!

A Cross-Post: Shusaku Endo - A Class Unto Himself

                                             (Original post can be found here)

Have you ever read a book or seen a film so profound, you knew you could reread or rewatch it endlessly, and never get to the bottom of its infinite mystery?

That’s what reading a Shusaku Endo novel (and watching the Martin Scorsese film inspired by one of them - SILENCE) is like.

A mystery. How catholic! While some faiths try their best to make the word anathema to their adherents, I think it’s timely to remind ourselves that “catholic” means “universal.” It is one of the few faiths that acknowledges our brothers’ and sisters’ journey along many paths to our common Creator.

And Shusaku Endo is precisely that: certainly a Catholic author, but with a unique Japanese stamp. His works are a miraculous mix of beauty and the ugly stain of human sin, philosophy and divine theology merged with tawdry anecdotes. Some of his works are set hundreds of years ago, in a time when to be Catholic/Christian meant certain death on top of inhumane torture. Others are more modern, but still deal with variations on a single theme: how weak men and women seek to take up their crosses in life, out of love for Him who shared all of mankind’s suffering.

Settings vary as well, from samurai Japan to contemporary Tokyo, and even India. A lot of his tales take place in hospitals, where people look eternity in the eye on a daily basis.

Endo’s Christ is one who seeks the most downtrodden. He is one who offers salvation even to the damned hiding in the dark. He draws near not to those who worship in public daily, but to those too ashamed to enter churches.

I’ve made it my life’s mission to track down all of this amazing author’s works translated to English, which will take me many more decades (especially since I usually encounter them in sales bins or preloved bookstores’ pages), but I welcome the challenge! While I do not end up loving every Endo novel I read, I am always left wiser and more grateful.

To be authentically Christian is to be part of a minority, Endo writes. But then again, when one remembers how few friends Christ had, we can rest easy knowing that we are in the best company.

Have you read any of Endo’s works? Which one was your favorite?

A Cross-Post: I'm Dreaming of A White Japan

                                                       (Original post can be found here)

Japan is different things to different people. Some are in search of the inspiration behind their favorite anime shows (my personal favorites – apart from Studio Ghibli ones – include Netflix's Romantic Killer! hahaha). Others are drawn to its beautiful traditions, kept alive despite the country’s startling modernity. Where else can men and women commute in the full majestic regalia of kimono and obi, co-existing with warm toilet seats that shoot water at the press of a button?

But all agree on one thing: you’d be hard pressed to find a cleaner country. In a land where utmost dedication to every act is holy, including the manual labor behind cleaning, even the humblest street shines (and not just from the morning dew).

As outward purity inspires the same inner wholesomeness, so do these white covers make us think of this beautiful country’s affinity with cleanliness like the purest snow on top of Fuji. While only one of them can be strictly classified as Japanese literature, all three were written by those who fell in love with Japan… one of the easiest things to do.

🍣 TOKYO TRAVEL SKETCHBOOK by Amaia Arrazola was one of the last Christmas gifts I got Mama. I kept pestering her “Are you done with it yet?” so she accused me of buying the book for myself. Hahaha she knows me so well! The drawings are lovely, and so we included a few in this reel... but the research and the actual content were sadly wanting.

🏯 FIFTY SOUNDS by Polly Barton is a white Fitzcarraldo! Which means it's nonfiction. (The blue Fitzcarraldos are fictional) I’m excited to read about this British citizen’s physical and metaphysical journey as a translator. One review said Wittgenstein features prominently, which makes me even more eager to jump into this!

⛩️ THE MAKIOKA SISTERS by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is EVERYWHERE, it seems. So much so that I fear I’m one of the few remaining booklovers who hasn’t read this! Immortalized in film, compared with Austen, I am certainly feeling the literary pressure to read this!

Are you drawn to Japanese lit? What are your favorites? Do share!

A Cross-Post: Rashomon and 17 Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

                                         (Original post can be found here)

There is a reason why Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short stories are still being studied in thousands of schools all over the world. “In a (Bamboo) Grove” is in the curriculum of two high school subjects in the school where I teach, and to review for our discussion, I did my annual re-read of a volume I first read a decade ago: the Penguin edition translated by Jay Rubin, with an introduction by Haruki Murakami.

There’s always something new, some fresh insight into the shadows of human nature, with each revisit.

Murakami wrote how “national writers” like Akutagawa are integral to the formation of a common cultural identity (he calls it “subliminal imprinting”).

Interestingly enough, the translator counts “Hell Screen” as the gem among the 18 stories in the collection, while Murakami praises “Spinning Gears” above the rest.

“In a (Bamboo) Grove” is taught in Philosophy classes as well as English classes because it features several unreliable narrators and forces the reader to play detective. A murder is committed, and we are left with several testimonies as clues. The classic story features one of life’s lessons that comes with maturity, but comes as a shock to some teenagers: how one event can have several different interpretations, to underscore how much of a social construct “reality” is, in that it requires other people’s verification of one’s version. Otherwise it’s all just in your head.

To read an author is to visit, however briefly, his mind. And to be perfectly honest, Akutagawa’s isn’t a very pleasant place to be in. I think of his life as the tension between Old Japan and New Japan made real, with all the instability that comes from samurai walking around fifty years ago in his time, but then being educated in the most Western manner possible. A clash of civilizations, indeed, with poor, brilliant Akutagawa one of its tragic casualties.

This makes one reflect on how much a country's narrative for its cultural identity is woven with our personal narrative for our own soul.

Book Review: THE BONE PEOPLE by Keri Hulme

The Bone People by Keri Hulme
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes we meet people who strike us as different, from the get-go. "Why is there a suggestion of the numinous in his shadow? Who else do I know who listens to the silence of God on lonely beaches?"

If this wondrous book were a person, reading it would be the equivalent of a hongi, the traditional Maori greeting where we reverently touch noses and foreheads. Keri Hulme writes of the hongi as an act that means to say: "I salute the breath of life in thee, the same life that is breathed by me... I salute that which gives us life."

The book is its author breathing, SHOUTING... "I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down." This book is ALIVE, vibrantly, emphatically so. It brought to life three main characters who were representatives of the clash of two civilizations in New Zealand: a fiercely independent Pākehā woman-artist of white European descent, a young autistic boy, "half-devil, half-child," and the alcoholic Maori man who sought to adopt him. All of them, to a man, are bitter and disappointed with Life. But (AND THIS MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE). "And still he tries, and he still cares."

Open any page and soak in the beauty of the sentences. This was twelve years in the making, its structure well planned, its images vivid.

It's very hard to write something so compelling from the first page til the last, enough to suck one in even when one is reading it while waiting for a seminar to start in a packed and noisy covered court! My powers of imagination aren't that strong, it's truly all because of Hulme's combination of poetry and prose. Why, oh why, didn't she write another book?! This is genius, pure and unadulterated. And the fact that I innocently chose this paperback just before I went to attend a seminar on children in conflict with the law is another of life's great mysterious coincidences. How heartbreakingly fitting, and finishing the book today seemed like a continuation in understanding the practicalities I learned of yesterday.

Hulme's vision of the world is realistic, as I am finding out. Woe to those who hide in their sheltered ivory towers full of books and art, as her female protagonist finds out. Because Life will find a way to batter down the door, and no matter how much we seek to protect ourselves, to live is to love and to love is to feel pain. That's just the way it is.

Hulme's characters are terribly flawed. Whether suffering from PTSD, or addiction to alcohol, or depression, she is a believer in redemption that comes from a combination of individual commitment to do better, and the Maori korero, the "tribal talk-it-out." There is strength in the community, and the scenes I loved best where the ones set in pubs where friends and family gather to drink and blabber, playing billiards or darts, with a few even bringing their kids along?!

Fair warning to those who would read this classic: it was written in a time before trigger warnings and political correctness. Like Real Life, there is much violence (so much of it that it became one of the most controversial Booker Prize winners as many judges felt strongly against rewarding that much visceral pain immortalized on paper), and much that may trigger, as it seeks to answer the question: "Why do we cause so much hurt to those we love best?" But the balance is fully in the positive as there is also so much to admire and love in this book that simply demands a re-read.

And the statistics of what I've learned about broken families added to the heart-tutoring of this incredible novel mix in me, so I can only tearfully nod in agreement when the author wrote: "A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart."

Yes, this book is now one of my most beloved reads, despite being one of the most painful.

I strongly urge this online family of book lovers to read this book, but only if you are in a good place internally, and preferably by the shore, surrounded by sunshine and wind and the breath of God.

 

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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.

A Cross - Post: What is the "Best Western Novel?"

 

(The original post can be found at our book club's Instagram)

What is “the best Western novel?” This reader submits three books as contenders for the title.

But first, what makes a book a “Western?” Some might disagree with my classification of one of the three, because it doesn’t have gunfights with Indians, and the main character happens to be female. (I’m referring to the Stegner, which is arguably the most powerful of these three literary powerhouses.)

However, this reader would argue that the essence of a Western has more to do with the spirit of what makes someone leave the East and its more “civilized” cities, rather than focusing on the horseflesh and shootouts with outlaws.

At their core, Westerns are all about the internal transformation once undergoes when one travels. When the external landscape becomes all the more wild and lawless, that is when our heroes (and heroines) reach deep within for the steadying weight of art, choosing to live and die by an honorable code, demonstrating a bravery that outshines the darkest night.

This, then, is the appeal of the Western. In the capable hands of masters like Stegner, Williams, and McMurtry, the genre is every bit an Odyssey, the exterior distance traveled outshone by the grand internal rebirth of the spirit.

🤠 In the Pulitzer Prize winning ANGLE OF REPOSE, I found one of my favorite quotes of all time: “"What though the world be lost? All is not lost. Honor is not lost."

🐎 BUTCHER’S CROSSING was recently turned into a film, which I have not seen but look forward to, especially as it is very timely with its core message against human greed that would kill everything (including what makes us human) for profit.

🤠 LONESOME DOVE (also a Pulitzer Prize winner) is noteworthy for its aging protagonists, and a beautiful and heroic friendship writ large which makes one realize that in some cases, it can be even more fulfilling than a short-lived romance.

Have you read any of these? What is YOUR favorite literary Western?