Book Review: THE FILIPINO CHRIST AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS by Michael Demetrius H. Asis

The Filipino Christ and the Historical Jesus by Michael Demetrius H. Asis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a profound link between the Jesuits and nation-building in the Philippines. Yesterday we celebrated the death of our national hero, Jose Rizal. A visit to his place of exile, Dapitan, and its neighbor, Dipolog, made me realize just how intimate the connection between the Jesuits and Rizal was. Both cities' parish churches were founded by Jesuits, who formed the social consciousness of the man who invented the very concept of the Filipino nation. Until now, an altar carved by Rizal is used in Dipolog's church, while in the Dapitan church's garden is a map of Mindanao drawn by Rizal himself.

My father, himself Jesuit-educated before studying at the state university (the running joke about people with similar backgrounds is that they got the best from the separation of church and state, hehe), carved the Jesuit motto in the front door of our school's faculty room: "Ad majorem Dei gloriam." (For the greater glory of God)

Physical signs matter because they remind us of the living message of heroes and gods past. This was a theme present in this firebrand of a book.

Part of my annual examen on this last day of 2022 was reading this short scholarly book by Prof. Asis from the Theology Department of the Ateneo, the foremost Jesuit educational institution in the country.

Concise yet accessible, it's short enough to be read over a very long breakfast! Written in layman-friendly language so an ordinary reader like myself had no trouble, this was a book-length analysis of the challenge facing every Filipino Catholic today and always: why is "the only Catholic nation this side of the world" also one of its most morally corrupt?

This is a very brave book. Prof. Asis asks difficult questions, makes painful observations on clergy and laity alike.

"The prophetic function of the Church empowers it to denounce the many cases of abuse, violence, corruption, and injustice in society. But this prophetic task and vision should be the same benchmark by which the Church measures itself... Has it confronted the obvious evil of clerical sexual abuse and financial anomalies in the Church?"

"Why do Filipino Catholics, despite their inherent piety, seem to fail - essentially - to build up the Kingdom?"

"Filipinos will go to great lengths imitating Christ's passion but fail to live out his moral examples."

Prof. Asis presents the theses of other scholars (a glance at the bibliography show how universal he is, referencing both Catholic and non-Catholic authors) to present the merits and failings of the syncretism in Filipino Catholicism.

This is not finger pointing at the clergy only, but also a call for collective action. Enough with the passivity, Prof. Asis says. Enough with the separation of our Sunday selves from our daily lives, using liturgy and folk practices as escapism, imbibing the post-Colonial legacy of the martyrdom in accepting injustice on earth, while praying for Heavenly rewards.

Prof. Asis ends with a call to action, to live more heroic lives, to live out "bayanihan" as a "collective saving effort of the community." He also pointed out that Jose Rizal was called as the "Tagalog Christ." Just see the wonders he wrought in Dapitan! Instead of languishing in exile and indulging in self-pity, Rizal taught local boys for free, became doctor to the people, engineered water works that still stand today. He literally carved out a haven on earth, creating a heaven out of hell, as it were. And that challenge stands before all of us today.

"This is how salvation begins," Asis writes, with "the human exemplification of commitment to social welfare and development."

A proper examen should never end in despair, as Prof. Asis reminds us, "Jesus himself never explained why there was evil in the world. He did emphasize that it does not have the final word."



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Book Review: FOUR SEASONS IN ROME by Anthony Doerr

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"A year is an infinity of perceptions...This year has been composed of a trillion such moments; they flood the memory, spill over the edges of journal entries. What is it physicists tell us? Even in a finite volume, there are an infinite number of points."

I think this is my last book for 2022, and I consider myself very lucky to be able to finish this Roman treat while fresh from the excesses of Greece in Paddy Fermor's MANI and ROUMELI! To be able to book-end my literary adventures with Doerr/Fermor was an unexpected grace, especially since I had no idea Doerr wrote a travelogue on a year spent in Rome until I received an email informing me that it was marked down to 2 dollars on Kindle!

I've been a fan of Doerr ever since his amazing ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, and some months ago I also read his pandemic novel, CLOUD CUCKOO LAND. FOUR SEASONS IN ROME has themes present in the two other books, but it is extra special for fans of ALL THE LIGHT because it talks about one year (2005) that Doerr spent in Rome, with his wife and newborn twins, while he was working on what is perhaps his most famous book (which will become a Netflix mini-series in 2023, hurray!).

To be so close to the Vatican when Pope John Paul II passed, to have been amongst the crowd of smiling Romans who ran to St. Peter's as soon as bells pealed, celebrating the white smoke from the chimney of the conclave, to explore the ruins of a city celebrating the best (and worst) of Europe!!

The blurb of the book says that one shouldn't leave for Rome without this book, but I think Doerr shares this common trait with Fermor in that they write about the human experience of a place, not so much the logistics of sightseeing as seeing with the inner eye how one's soul is changed by a prolonged pilgrimage amongst such beauty. To borrow from Doerr, both authors write tributes to wonder itself.

Light features very prominently in Doerr's memoir, as does the act of seeing. Doerr challenges us to counteract entropy, to view the world with an infant's eyes. All places have their own beauty, Doerr writes, and their time in Rome just reminded them of this. What matters is how we view the world, and the kind of frame we use.

"The oculus of the Pantheon, the dome of St. Peter’s, the tufted pillars of the umbrella pines, and the keyhole in the green door outside the gardens of the priory of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine Hill—they are all eyes of God. We look through them; they look through us. Everything is designed around the light."

I end this last book entry of 2022 (good riddance, 2nd annus horribilis in a row!!) with what is becoming our family's battle cry, echoed in this beautiful book as well: "Keep the light on!"



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Book Review: MANI - TRAVELS IN THE SOUTHER PELOPONNESE by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the pleasures of the annual Christmas/New Year break is the leisurely reading of designated "vacation reads." These are books meant to be read S-L-O-W-L-Y, each musical sentence savored over a sip of coffee rolled unhurriedly around the tongue (although this book might be better off paired with retsina or ouzo, hehe). There's no pressing plot to turn pages excitedly for, no stressful life deadline threatening to cut off the sheer hedonism of a full morning or afternoon immersed in Greek splendor.

If ROUMELI (1966), which I read up in the mountains a week ago, was about the Northern Greeks and the mental/emotional divide between the Byzantine and ancient Greek heritage, then MANI (1958) is about the South, and the legacy of ancient Sparta.

Both are widely considered to be among the best travel books of all time. However, to this reader, MANI most especially is less a travelogue than a literary painting, less of a chronicle and more of an extended reflection on History and Time. It takes very little to trigger Paddy Fermor, as the sight of a rock or the face of a shepherd sets him off pages and pages of romantic flights of fancy that are deeply rooted in the sociolinguistic patterns of history.

"Countries are only great if they can produce wise men, and if they have the sense to elect them. Otherwise the individuals, however good and brave and sensible they are, are like noughts, vast quantities of hollow, round valueless noughts. Place a statesman at their head, and it is like the digit in a written figure, it gives value to all the noughts... take away the digit, and the noughts are noughts again, and they can be blown away or dispersed by any chance wind," says a random villager in a taverna a stone's throw away from where ancient battles turned into blockbuster movies were fought.

What must it be like to live with history so close, so tangible? To be able to swim to where the ancients believed was the entrance to Hades, or to be able to visit islands that Homer wrote about, where Paris and Helen trod? This wonder-full book's every chapter is the result of this dizzying height of emotion.

But for this reader, the most fascinating chapters were the ones inspired by ikons, that uniquely Orthodox religious art form. In Fermor's hands, what could have been art criticism became a transcendent piece touching on theology and the visible difference of Western Christianity from the East after the Schism of 1054.

"Western Christs expose their wounds; Eastern Christs sit enthroned in ungesticulating splendor... religious art in the East sought to bring man to God's level, and in the West, bring God to man's; each laying stress on a different half of Our Lord's nature... Knowing that the representation of Christ as God was as impossible a task as uttering the ineffable, they tried to indicate the immediately assimilable incarnation of Christ in such a way that it gave wings to the mind and the spirit and sent them soaring through and beyond the symbol to its essence, the Transcendent God, with whom, as they themselves had defined, He was consubstantial... in the foredoomed task of indicating the unfathomable mystery of Godhead in visible terms, the Greek ikon-painters chose the hardest way. They sought ingress to the spirit, not through the easy channels of passion, but through the intellect."

It was also fascinating to read of the syncretism of the ancient Greek pantheon merged with Christianity, as this fusion of prehispanic religion and Catholicism is also present in this reader's culture... how Hermes became the archangel Michael, Athena became the Blessed Virgin, Helios became the prophet Elijah, and so many others!

All told, this book and its sequel are wonderfully written tributes to Time and how she carves out man's destiny, and how there are traces of our historical beginnings everywhere, if we would only peel back the film from our eyes and gaze at our world with wonder, the way Paddy Fermor did.

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Book Review: MAUS - A SURVIVOR'S TALE (Vol. 2: And Here My Troubles Began) by Art Spiegelman

Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If Volume I brings tears to the reader's eyes, Volume II shatters one's faith in humanity. Or at least, that's how I imagine the effect would be, if this was given to a child and not processed properly by the adults around her.

This is the darker sequel to the "My Father Bled History." In "And Here My Troubles Began," Art Spiegelman continues his account of how his parents survived Auschwitz and Birkenau, and in the process, winning the Pulitzer in 1992 (the first ever graphic novel to do so)!

There is something terribly stark about the black and white illustrations, matching the unsentimental way the story progresses. This is harsh truth, with humans drawn as animals so as not to drive the reader mad from grief. It's the statistics and the details that get you... The description of the bodies pulled from the Zyklon B showers. The accounts of family members surviving the death camps, only to be killed by the Poles who had squatted on their land upon their return. This book come with the strongest trigger warnings, as some panels were honestly so disturbing, even to this adult viewer, that I had to put down the book for several minutes to calm myself down!

The trauma of the war affects even the artist, Art Spiegelman, who draws his attempts to get his father talking about his war experiences, as well as what it's like to live with someone who, in many ways, didn't survive Auschwitz wholly human.

In one of the haunting panels, Art sees his psychiatrist (who is also a Holocaust death camp survivor), and talks about his dad.

Shrink: "Then you think it's admirable to survive. Does that mean it's NOT admirable to NOT survive?"
Art: "Whoosh. I think I see what you mean. It's as if life equals winning, so death equals losing."
Shrink: "Yes, Life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn't the BEST people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was RANDOM! ... Look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust."

Perhaps human nature doesn't change, but this shows the importance of story-telling, and why we need to keep telling and sharing even these difficult stories, if there's even a hope for us to avoid a repeat of this state-sponsored genocide.

There are books we read out of desire, then there are those we read out of necessity.

MAUS demands to be read. MORE people need to read it, and thanks to the book ban, it is once again very much in the public's eye.

To read MAUS is to defy censorship and the whitewashing of history. It remains for us adults to make sure that our children do not read this too early, but read it they must (this teacher recommends they do so in high school). For to deny the past is to deny all lessons learned from it.

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Book Review: MAUS - A SURVIVOR'S TALE (Vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History) by Art Spiegelman

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"My Father Bleeds History" is the first of two volumes of the (in)famous MAUS graphic novel, and tells the rise and fall of the Spiegelman family fortunes in Nazi-occupied Poland from the 1930's until 1944.

I've been wanting to read this ever since a school board in the U.S. banned the books, which of course made sales skyrocket. It took this reader more than 11 months to FINALLY track down the books because they were sold out everywhere, even from international sources!!

You know how some terribly violent movies suddenly switch from full color to black and white, when things are about to get especially gory?

Art Spiegelman's art is like that. Make no mistake: this is not an innocent children's book one gives to the very young because "they're comics with cute mice and cats."

This is brutal history, redrawn primarily I think as a way to make it more palatable, otherwise one would simply put it down from sheer horror.

This is the true story of one family's fight for survival, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats, but it only marginally distracts from the reality drawn in. At some points, the tragedy was nearly overwhelming, I was downright GRATEFUL for the conceit of animals drawn in, instead of humans.

I'm only halfway done, with second volume in hand, so I shall be continuing the review as these two really ought to be read together. But already, I can't wait to see how the story plays out.

No matter the horror, this book SHOULD be kept in libraries and discussed in schools. We do our children a disservice by shielding them utterly from all evil, to the point that, when they inevitably encounter it in real life, they are unequipped to deal with it.

But perhaps MAUS should be introduced at the appropriate age level. I think this should be kept for the eyes of high school students only, and definitely with both parents and teachers processing the text afterwards.

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Book Review: PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Our hero wakes up from a coma, with dead crewmates all around, and no idea why he's alone in outer space. Very interesting beginning! Unfortunately any responsible reviewer will need to stop there. This is a book one cannot speak too much about, for fear of spoiling!

It was a pleasant enough read, but Weir is one of those authors whom you read purely based on plot, and not for beauty of language nor nobility of thought.

I liked how Weir used "real" science in the real world to make his scifi novel seem robust and realistic.

Some might like how contemporary Weir's characters sound, as if they really lived in 2021 (the date of the book's publication) because they speak the lingo of 2021. I guess it's just a personal preference for me to want the protagonist (a science teacher, hurray!) to say more heroic / profound things. Weir also tries his best to explain a great deal of scientific jargon in simple words, however, non-scientifically inclined readers still need to be on their toes (and have access to Google) to look up a lot of words not necessarily encountered outside a high school Science class (like "centrifuge" and "the Krebs Cycle"). In short, this book demands a lot from its reader!

This is my first time to read Weir, although I greatly enjoyed watching the film version of his other book "The Martian."

I think this is the appeal of Weir's books: how an everyman can get himself into the unique position of being Earth's Messiah. Whether or not he pulls it off ... well, you'll have to read the novel to find out. Or watch the upcoming Ryan Gosling movie. I have a suspicion this would work better in movie form.

Over-all, a most pleasant read, and a palate cleanser from this reader's usual diet of literary fiction.

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Album Review: THE LOST BIRDS by Christopher Tin (Decca)

 

"It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here.

By separation's sorcery

Made cruelly more dear...

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear,

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near."

I've been a fan of composer Christopher Tin ever since I heard his incredible Grammy-award winning music for the computer game Civilization IV. I went through a year-long phase where I would play the latest iteration, Civ 6, mainly so I could listen to the Tin score again and again, without ever getting tired of the artistry and sheer beauty of his compositions.

So when I finally had time to listen to his latest pandemic album, The Lost Birds, my expectations were high indeed.

He shattered them and me, completely. With one of the best choirs in the world, Voces 8, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tin created what is meant to be a tribute to extinct birds, setting texts from poems by Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sara Teasdale, to some of the most sublime music I've ever heard! I must have looked half-mad while in the bus, a drop or two moving silently down my cheeks. This gorgeous album called forth emotions I'd kept firmly repressed, but today, on the eve of Christmas, one can't help but indulge in a bit of sentiment. It's all Tin's fault!

Tin's music is more than a call to action for us humans to reverse our destructive habits before more birds and animals are lost. After all, to artists, birds stand for other things.

The first track grabs the heart and doesn't let go. "Flocks a Mile Wide" (and its partner track, the slower, more poignant "Intermezzo") set the tone. This is majestic, sweeping art of the highest order, blending the pain of loss with hopeful gratitude.

And when Voces 8 joins in with The Saddest Noise, the spell is complete. Lock yourself in your room, bring several rolls of tissue. It's going to be a cry-fest, honey.

All the album's songs are beautiful in their own way, but the first ("The Saddest Noise") and last ("Hope is the Thing with Feathers", which echoes the haunting melody we first heard in "Flocks a Mile Wide") are the stars that shine brightest in the firmament that is Tin's compositional prowess.

At Christmas, we celebrate all that is beautiful and good, and what a beautiful thing it would be if Tin would win the Grammy (again) for this musical gift.

I think this album can be more accurately described as a paean to our dearly departed. It provides so much comfort for me, and I hope, for other families with similar empty places in our Noche Buena tables. Let us eat our ham and cheese, and smile, for if we cannot be merry we can at least be joyful in expectation, and grateful for memories of fuller tables past. And, as Tin/Dickinson remind us, to never stop hoping and singing.

It's available on Spotify and YouTube! I hope it brings you as much comfort and peace as it did me. Happy Christmas!!!