Book Review: BUT FOR THE LOVERS by Wilfrido D. Nolledo

But for the Lovers by Wilfrido D. Nolledo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Lei the lovers. Petal all passion. Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable."

Exploding Galaxies' pioneer publication is an under-appreciated masterpiece, by any measure, that sets such a high expectation for their succeeding titles. Where do we sign up to pre-order Book 2?

The multi-sensory pleasure begins when one picks up the book. Exploding Galaxies is a new and local publisher that has somehow printed a book at an affordable price, but surpasses most local books in physical beauty, in every way. The thick paper, the smell of it, the font... they look and feel PREMIUM. And if I didn't know it was published locally I would have thought it was published abroad.

The heft of its some 450 pages was somehow at that perfect weight that feels substantial yet never tired the hands of its reader.

No doubt about it: this is a GORGEOUS tome.

And its insides matched its outside.

This book was a painful pleasure to read, bringing to mind my reaction when I first read Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. It was evident from the first page in both books that I was reading the work of a wordsmith, rare writers in the upper 1% of their published brethren who display such a dazzling mastery of the language, capable of telling the most brutal, evil tales clothed in the finest literary raiment prose/poetry can make. Nolledo does so with love, for each sentence is a miniature masterpiece unto itself.

But in the case of Nolledo versus McCarthy, the Filipino's achievement is all the more amazing because this is English-as-a-second-language, English weaponized as a literary middle finger to the oppressor who has decimated not just the most beautiful city in Asia, but also its people.

Let us not forget that it was the Americans who bombed Manila in 1945, causing it to be the second most destroyed city in World War II.

Nolledo writes of the war as only one who has lived through the actual hell can. But he does so with such beauty, and yes, such idealism despite the pages of melancholy. On one level the characters are all symbols, and yet these symbols are given such individuality, such unique voices, that they become real, that we care deeply whether they live or die.

Nolledo cast the Philippines as a beautiful lost girl-child that brings out the best in the men who seek to conquer her soul. The decrepit Spaniard who seeks to ennoble her, the brutish barbarian peasant who becomes human enough to serenade her with his guitar, the Japanese officer who gives her food and protects her day and night, the American POW who falls in love with one look ... all these join a dozen other characters living in a boarding house too close to a military facility, too near Manila Bay for safety.

Nolledo writes intimate details of how folks survived those days... the scenes about sisid rice (soaked in the waters of the bay that children and women nearly drowned to get) that caused manas (swollen body parts) will haunt my imagination for days. The tortures in UST, the private hells that ordinary citizens went through fill the pages.

"One revolution has failed, with more to come, more to fail. Hence the Filipino ... must be judged according to the malleability that informs his failures... But pray, how does one score the spirit?"

This book was written with love, for the ordinary man and woman who experiences love. Nolledo seems to say, forget the idealism, the propaganda behind warfare that makes no sense. The only thing that saves us, that is worth fighting for, is love. The love of a man for a girl he respects and wishes to save, transmuted into love for the Motherland. The burning passion to repopulate, re-educate a starving population, starved for purpose, for the light of civilization.

Is it too trite to say I loved the book? I loved the experience of reading it. I did not expect to enjoy myself that much, what with all the hype heaped on it in the foreword by Gina Apostol and the introduction by Audrey Carpio.

It's a beautiful thing when critics and the ordinary reader can agree: Behold, a masterpiece.

And can we please get Exploding Galaxies' second title out ASAP?

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