ATISAN NOVELS

October 21, 2011

2011-10-21T09:56:00.001+08:00

Tony Perez is the first Filipino writer whose fiction oeuvre I devoured when I was in college. To learn about the forthcoming release of his latest novel, Si Crispin, revived the excitement I felt when I first came across his Cubao series more than a decade ago. When I asked for his permission to post the cover of the book here, he told me that, "There is a subliminal message here, though. 'Tony Perez Si Crispin' is a sentence in and of itself."

October 20, 2011

2011-10-20T10:13:00.003+08:00

Miguel Syjuco talked here about his desire to have Ilustrado published in Tagalog. You can read the Asia Society article here. (Not really "news," because the interview is almost a year old, but what Syjuco had to say about the necessity of having his work translated in the vernacular remains news worthy.)

October 7, 2011

2011-10-07T08:38:00.001+08:00

Benjamin Pimentel, author of Mga Gerilya sa Powell St., covered the fiesta that was the first Filipino American International Book Festival. One thing he noted that is relevant to the Filipino novel: "One thing I liked about the tribute was that it brought together literary figures known to many Filipinos in the Philippines and the U.S. — Carlos Bulosan, Nick Joaquin, Bienvenido Santos, Jose Garcia Villa, NVM Gonzalez, F. Sionil Jose — and those who may not be well known to readers in the Philippines, but are certainly worth recognizing as among the writers who have helped enrich the Filipino story."

October 6, 2011

2011-10-06T00:33:00.000+08:00

Spot the Amapola sign: this is the latest update at the Facebook page dedicated to the much-awaited second novel of Ricky Lee, Si Amapola sa 65 Kabanata. The book will be launched on November 27, 4PM at Sky Dome in SM North Edsa.

October 5, 2011

2011-10-05T00:30:00.000+08:00

1. Dark chocolate cupcakes with Pinoy komiks heroes on top of them--what do you think? Included above are komiks creations by Mars Ravelo, Carlo J. Caparas, Carlo Vergara and Budjette Tan. Visit The Regali Kitchen for more cake surprises.

2. Ambeth Ocampo wrote about the Philippine History in San Franciso, and he began with this note: "I looked out the window and saw the skyline that reminded me of Bienvenido Santos and his 1987 novel What the hell for, you left your heart in San Francisco?" If I remember my personal history of reading correctly, Santos is the first Filipino novelist in English I read, with his The Praying Man. Maybe I should feature some of his works here in Atisan.

October 4, 2011

2011-10-04T00:30:00.000+08:00

1. Josel Nicolas, known for his komiks Windmills, part 4 of which will be released at Komikon in November, was interviewed for Work In Progress' pilot podcast. You can listen to the first part of the interview here, and to the second part here. You can also download his books online for free, including Windmills Bearkdowns, Windmills 2: Bear Bong, and Windmills 3: Bear in Mind. Nicolas' first graphic novel in Filipino is Eye Sus, which you can also download for free. Among other things, Nicolas recognized reading Gerry Alanguilan's Wasted as catalyst to his own komiks-writing.

2. Two Pulitzer Prize winners, Junot Diaz and Edward P. Jones, will attend the 2nd Manila International Literary Festival from Nov. 16 to 18 at the Ayala Museum in Makati City. This year’s theme is “The Great Philippine Book Café"; it clearly echoes The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café, a novel by Alfred Yuson that I enjoyed reading back when Atisan Novels was in hibernation. I still need to write my essay on it. Meanwhile, I wrote about Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao back when Atisan Novels was yet to focus on Filipino novels.

3. Robin Lim, a Filipino novelist based in Bali, Indonesia and author of Butterfly People is nominated for the CNN Hero of the Year. Although her being a novelist is not the focus of her being included in the list, it still fascinates how the intersection of novel-writing and heroism remains relevant since Rizal. Now, however, heroism is an award, and you can vote for your hero. If you believe in Lim, you can vote for her at the CNN website.

October 3, 2011

2011-10-03T00:30:00.000+08:00

1. Ruel S. De Vera listed Sunday Inquirer Magazine's "five best debut novel for 2011" in yesterday's issue. The closest thing to a Filipino title in the list is Moondogs by Alexander Yates, a novel set in the Philippines with "bizarre but utterly Filipino characters."

2. The Philippine Star posted a movie poster of the film adaptation of a komiks novel by Pablo Gomez serialized in Tagalog Klasiks, Sugat sa Balikat.

3. Oggs Cruz reviewed the film Ligo na Ü, Lapit na Me, based on Eros Atalia's novel of the same title, for Twitch. I haven't seen the film yet, and I realized I haven't even read the novel yet (although I've read Atalia's first two books, and I even wrote a blurb for his second book) and I've yet to feature Atalia's works in this site. Cruz, meanwhile, did not think positively of the film, noting how it failed to "convince its audience that there is something more to the seductive sex talk, to the lousily staged sex scenes, to the humorous stabs at the suddenly lopsided roles of young Filipino men and women when it comes to sex, to the never-ending supply of colloquial wit, to the endless and tedious monologues."

October 2, 2011

2011-10-02T00:01:00.067+08:00

1. Amazon launches The All-New Kindle Family campaign with Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch, to be released on November 15 and November 22, respectively. Fire is colored, works much like the Ipad, and is priced at $199. Touch has the same E-ink technology which the old Kindle had, only in a new sleek design with multi-touch functionality; it is priced at $99. The old Kindle is now selling at $79 (I bought mine for $139, less than a year ago), and I'm wondering how many people who are still holding on to their hardcovers and paperbacks would consider this price reasonable enough to finally give in to their curiosity. Reading novels in a Kindle is a different kind of experience, certainly. For someone like me who always wants to bring several books with him, its convenience sometimes outweighs my nostalgia for the paper.

2. Speaking of ebooks, you must know that many Filipino titles are now available in ebook formats at the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites via Flipside Digital Content. Last July, I received these ebooks as gifts from them: Tabi Po: Book 1 by Mervin Malonzo, Kubori Kikiam: Strips for the Soul #1 by Michael David, and The Long Weekend by Adam David. Most of the titles so far are criticism and essay or short story collections written in English. I'm hoping they'll have a wider selection of novel titles, and works in Filipino, in the future. For now, you can buy Karl R. De Mesa's News of the Shaman: Four Novellas of Horror, a book I already have in paperback, and is now in my long list of to-read titles.

3. Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo's Trese 4: Last Seen After Midnight will be launched on October 8, 5 PM at Bestsellers, Robinsons Galleria. I made a review of the first three Trese books last year and I'm quite excited to get myself a copy of the latest book, which contained four cases:

I might even include the whole series in the syllabus of an elective class I'm gonna teach next semester: a history of the Filipino novel with a special focus on intersections of crime and gender.

October 1, 2011

2011-10-01T02:36:00.000+08:00

1. Atisan Novels is back and beginning today, I'll try to post Filipino-novel news daily. When you missed some updates in the future, you can easily browse previous news from our link above labeled as News. We'll also have a section called 99 Words where I'll write my thoughts on the Filipino novel--mostly from the title I'm currently reading--in less than 100 words per entry. I'm hoping for 99 Words to make me write more often; I'm also hoping for it to make you come and visit the site regularly. Entries in this section might eventually be revised for the longer essay that I'll write on each novel I read.

2. 30th National Book Awards. The National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle announced their finalists for the 30th National Book Awards. For the Fiction Category, four novels are nominated: Blue Angel, White Shadow: A Novel by Charlson Ong, Below the Crying Mountain by Criselda Yabes, Gun Dealers' Daughter by Gina Apostol, and Lumbay ng Dila by Genevieve L. Asenjo. Of the four, only Asenjo's novel had been reviewed here; I hope to finish reading the other three novels before the awarding ceremonies on November 12. (But you can read my thoughts on Apostol's first novel, Bibliolepsy, here. I've also read her The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata almost a year ago but I've yet to write a review.) I'd also like to mention that Banaag at Sikat: Metakritisismo at Antolohiya, Maria Luisa Torres Reyes' study of criticisms of Lope K. Santos' Banaag at Sikat is also nominated for the Literary Criticism/ Literary History Category.

3. Moondogs by Alexander Yates. There's an article in today's Manila Bulletin on Moondogs, the debut novel of an American novelist who grew up in the Philippines, Alexander Yates, and who was shocked to learn that "the Philippines is not more visible in the American popular imagination." The novel is set in Manila, the place that Yates considered home, and is supposed to give off some "FPJ and Manny Villar vibes." I already got a copy of the book in my Kindle and I'm gonna give its "obsessions with superheroes and evil chickens" a shot pretty soon.

Mga Pagtataksil, at ang Panahon sa Pagitan sa Pagsusulat ng Tula

2011-01-05T15:51:00.002+08:00

NITONG HULING LIMANG TAON, mas nakatutok ako sa pagsusulat ng nobela kaysa sa tula. Sa isang panayam para sa anibersaryo ng Pinoypoets noong nagdaang taon na “Niloloob ng Nobela ang Tula: Ang Makata Bilang Nobelista,” sinubok kong bigyang- katwiran iyon:

sapagkat sa kinathang daigdig na ito ng tuluyan [ang nobela], na mas hindi pangingimiang pasukin ng karaniwang mambabasa, naipaaalala ang pangangailangan ng tula, kung bakit kasintanda halos ng sibilisasyon ng tao ang pagtula. Na kung ang nobela ay isang pagsisiyasat sa kondisyon ng pagiging tao, malaking bahagi nito ay isang pagsisiyasat sa relasyon ng tao sa tunog, sa larawan, sa salita, sa kaniyang sining, sa tula. ... Niloloob ng nobela ang tula upang kilalanin mula rito ang sarili niyang pagkahumaling sa salita, at pagnanasang magsalita tungkol sa daigdig, makipag-usap sa daigdig. Upang ipaalala sa mundo na sa loob ng nobela, sa ating bayan, sa ating daigdig, may linya, may saknong, may tula, patuloy na may mga pinipiling magmakata: may hindi basta-basta nilulunod ng tuluyan, may hindi basta-basta nalulunod nang tuluyan.

Subalit hanggang ngayon, sa kabila niyon, nililigalig pa rin ako ng pakiramdam ng pagtataksil, sapagkat may pakiwaring umiibig nang sabay sa dalawang bagay, at sa ideyal na ideya ng katapatan sa iisa lamang, larawan ng halimaw ang pamamangka sa dalawang ilog—paano maaaring mangyari iyon, ang ilog na sinabi ni Herodotus na hindi na muling matatawid ay dalawa pala’t magkasabay na pinamamangkaan sa pagtataksil.

     Kahit pa marami namang makata ang nobelista rin, may kung anong bagabag pa rin ang bawat pagbangon sa umaga’t ang bagong nobela ang hinaharap sa halip na nagsusulat ng tula. Sa halip na nagsusulat ng tula, sapagkat ipinagpapalagay ngang isa lamang ang magagawa nang may matapat na pagbubuhos ng loob sa bawat sandali, kung ibig kong maging “matapat sa sarili/ sa aking daigdig/ ng tula.” Bagabag na bunga ng pakiwari ng pagtataksil at ang katuwang niyong pagkilala sa panahon bilang realidad nagtatakda sa pagnanasang magsulat at sa pagkabuo ng katha, ang intensiyon at ang texto. Nakakapit ang huli sa pagturing sa panahon bilang iisa at hindi mababawi, limitado ang kapasidad na maglaman ng iisang gawain sa bawat sandali. Sa kabila ito ng rebolusyon sa imahinasyon ng panahon, sa agham at mga sining, na tumitingin dito bilang maramihan, putol-putol, patong-patong, paikot-ikot.

      Kaya’t kahit pa nagsusulat ako ng nobela nang may layong magpaalala sa pangangailangan ng tula, hindi ako nagsusulat ng tula sa sandaling nagsusulat ako ng nobela. Kahit pa may mga tula sa loob ng maraming nobela mula sa Don Quixote ni Cervantes hanggang sa Unang Ulan ng Mayo ni Ellen Sicat, nagiging problematiko ang pagiging “tula” ng mga iyon—ang tulang nakapanipi—sapagkat binabasa sa kontexto ng nobela, ng prosa, na hindi hindi hinihingi ng mga tula na sarili lamang ang kontextong nililinang.

     Subalit ano’ng magagawa ko?

     Sa maraming pagkakataon, sa gayong kondisyon lamang ako nakapagsasalita tungkol sa pagsusulat ng tula: sa hindi pagsusulat ng tula. Ibig sabihin: Ang paksain nga ang pagtula sa nobela, o ang paksain ang pagtula sa iba pang anyo ng tuluyan. Tulad ng sinisikap nating gawin ngayon: ang sanaysay bilang taksil na nagkakanulo sa pangangailangan ng pagsusulat ng tula sa mismong pagtitig nang taimtim doon samantalang hindi naman iyon ang hinuhubog na anyo. At bukod pa roon: ang luwalhati’t hapis ng sanaysay upang sa isang banda’y maging tuwiran, komunikatibo, at sa kabilang banda nama’y pampanitikan, matalinghaga.

     Totoo, may mga tula tungkol sa pagsulat ng tula mismo, na tinatawag nating ars poetica, mula sa kalatas ni Horacio sa mga Pisones ng Roma. Subalit ilan sa atin ngayon, sa isang pambansang kumperensiya ng panulaan, ang handa ring makinig sa tula tungkol sa pagsulat ng tula? Halimbawa:

         Sa Poetry

         Sa poetry, you let things take shape,
         Para bang nagpapatulo ng isperma sa tubig.
        You start siyempre with memories,
         ‘Yung medyo malagkit, kahit mais
         Na mais: love lost, dead dreams,
         Rotten silences and all
        Manner of mourning basta’t murder.
        Papatak ‘yan sa papel ano. Parang pait,
        Kakagat ang typewriter keys
        You sit up like the mother of anxieties.
        Worried na worried hanggang magsalakip
        Ang odes and ends ng inamag mong pag-ibig.
        Jigsaw puzzle, Kung minsan everything fits.
        Pero sige ang pasada ng images
        Hanggang makuha perfectly ang trick.

        At parang amateur magician kang bilib
        Sa sleight-of-hand na pinaprakitis:

        Nagsilid ng hangin sa buslo, dumukot,
        By golly, see what you’ve got –
        Bouquet of African daisies,
        Kabit-kabit na kerchief,
        Kung suwerte pa, a couple of pigeons,
        Huhulagpos, beblend sa katernong horizon,
        You can’t say na kung saan hahapon.

     Sabihin pa, kay layo na ni Rolando S. Tinio kay Horacio, lalo pa sa uri ng inaasahang katapatan ng huli sa pagtula, ang layunin ng “aliw at aral” sa pagtula. 1965 pa unang nalathala ang tulang ito ni Tinio sa mga pahina ng Heights sa Ateneo de Manila—at gaano kalayo naman si Tinio sa atin sa ngayon? Mula sa anakronismo para sa maraming makata sa kasalukuyan ng pagkagat ng typewriter keys, hanggang sa bagong inkarnasyon ng Taglish, sa baybay nito’t himig, sa daigdig ng chat at text, nagbago rin ba ang esensiya ng pagsulat ng tula mula sa paghubog ng anyo hanggang sa paghulagpos ng kahulugan? May esensiya ba ang pagtula, kung kahit ang paggamit ng wika o salita bilang batayang kaibhan nito sa iba pang anyo ng sining sa loob ng mahabang panahon ay niyayanig ng mga pagsusumikap na mamaybay sa pagitan ng tunog na primordial tulad ng mga tagulaylay at matatandang panalangin, o kaya’y ang pagbabalik sa simbolong-biswal ng tinaguriang concrete poetry, subalit ngayo’y sa paggamit ng hindi agad-agad kinikilalang salita. Tulad halimbawa ng “Odalisque” (2009) ni Christian Bök, ang alipin ng asawa’t mga kalunya ng Turkong sultan, subalit may pagkakataong kilalanin din bilang bahagi ng harem sa hinaharap.

Ginagamit umano sa akda ang lahat lamang ng dalawampu’t isang tipograpikong sangkap upang maisulat ang lahat ng titik sa alpabeto. Nasa larawang ito kung gayon ang posibilidad ng lahat ng iba pang nakatitik na salita! Subalit ito mismo’y hindi salita? Tulad ng isang odalisque, maaari rin ba itong kumawala sa pagkaalipin natin sa kasaysayan at kombensiyon ng “pagsusulat”—literal, at gayon din ang inaasahan nating textong pampanitikan—at maging salita na nga sa hinaharap?

     O kung ang paggamit ng salita ay naninimbang hindi na lamang sa posibilidad ng metapora kundi maging ng patapora, kung saan ang mismong pagpapalawig ng realidad ang paglikha ng panibagong realidad sa pahayag upang puluputan tayo tulad ng mga ahas sa mga kuweba ng Nalandangan ni Agyu habang nagpapasikot-sikot tayo sa pagdadalawang-loob, nagpapakaligaw sa pagmamaraming-diwa, subalit balintunang itinutulak, tulad ng bisa ng mga sinaunang epiko, tungo sa mataimtim na pakikinig, pakikilahok sa naratibo ng pagpapatatag ng lipi’t mga simulain, may puwang pa ba upang tingnan ngayon ang pagtataksil bilang negatibong gawain? Hindi kaya’t ang pakiwari ng pagtataksil ang sadyang nagpapatalas sa danas at pagmamalay natin ng katapatang estetiko?

     Mga tanong ito, sapagkat para sa akin, nagsisimula ang pagtula sa pagtatanong, sa pagsisiyasat, sa mga puwang sa kaalaman at pag-unawa, sa pang-uusig sa realidad, ang bugtong tungkol sa buwang kinain na’t naubos subalit nabubuo pang lubos. O isang tanong ang pagtula, kahit hindi ipinahahayag nang patanong, isang interogasyon sa imahinasyon at realidad at kahit sa mismong inaakala nating imahinasyon at realidad.

MAINAM SANA ANG GAYON: Isang pambansang kumperensiya ng panulaang Filipino kung saan inaasahan tayong makinig lamang sa mga tula, tumugon sa pamamagitan ng tula, makipag-usap sa pamamagitan ng pagtula—tulad ng ipinagpapalagay nating ginagawa ng mga makatang nagdidiyalogo sa pagtula’t nilalampasan ang hanggahan ng mga panahon, ng mga wika’t nasyon. Ang mga makatang Filipino na nakikipag-usap sa iba’t ibang kontinente ng mga taludtod: Si Rio Alma kay Baudelaire, si Benilda S. Santos na kay Tu Fu, si Michael M. Coroza kay Lorca, si Allan Popa kay Dickinson. Subalit kung magkagayon, kailangan din natin nang mahahabang pahinga sa pagitan ng bawat “pagtula,” tulad ng katahimikang inaasahan nating nagaganap sa pagbabasa at sa pagitan ng mga pagbabasa ng tula.

     May mahabang kasaysayan ang pagbibigay-saysay sa tula, mula sa pagpapatalas ng pandama ng mga bugtong, o pagsisilbi bilang pilosopiyang sinauna ng mga salawikain, hanggang sa kasalukuyang interogasyon at pagbasag nito sa usapin ng representasyon ng realidad, ang doble-karang wika, ang salimuot ng titik, samantalang nagbabanyuhay din ang ibayong pagkasangkapan dito ng iba’t ibang pinaninindigan: lahi, kasarian, posisyong politikal, ekonomikong interes, nasyon, pananalig.

     Higit pa roon, alam din nating hindi sa pagsulat nagsimula ang pagtula, sa samot-saring kasaysayan nito sa iba’t ibang panig ng daigdig, kung paanong hindi rin ito sa pagsusulat maaaring magtapos sa harap ng ebolusyong panteknolohiya. Binabago na ng ipad at ebook readers ang pagsusulat ng nobela, paano nito babaguhin ang pagtula? Subalit may kakaibang gayuma pa rin ang pagsulat—kahit pa sa malaking bahagi ng realidad ay tinitipa na lamang ng mga makata ang titik sa keyboard (hindi na sa “typewriter keys” ni Tinio)—sapagkat kaiba ng pagbigkas o pagtatanghal sa tula, may imahinasyon ito ng mambabasa, ng pagbabasang magaganap lamang sa panahon matapos ang pagsusulat at hindi habang isinasagawa ito, di tulad ng madlang tumatanggap sa anyong oral nito. Kung gayon, laging may antisipasyon ng panahon sa pagitan ang pagsulat ng tula, ang espasyong sumasaklaw sa pagsulat at pagbasa, ang hamon ng imahinaryong tagatanggap na wala rito, wala pa rito sa sandali ng makatang nagsusulat ng tula. Kaya’t sa pagbasa sa tula, hindi na lamang natin binabasa ang relasyon nito sa panahon kung kailan ito isinulat, o sa panahon kung kailan natin ito binabasa, kundi ayon sa panahong nakapagitan sa dalawa.

Noong 2004, isinulat ko bilang pambungad ng koleksiyong Tayong Lumalakad Nang Matulin ang tulang “Kuwentong Bayan.” Binabasa ko ito ngayon, akong hindi na makatatawid sa kaparehong ilog, subalit namamangka na sa dalawang ilog, na hindi ba’t maaaring-maaari na sa iisang dagat naman ang tuloy, ang ako na hindi na mapalagay sa maraming bagay sa tulang ito, ang mambabasang ako na hindi inasahan ng makatang ako, ang ako na kinahinatnan ng mga taon sa pagitan ng pagsusulat at pagbabasa, mga panahong mas ginugol sa pagsusulat at pagbabasa nga ng nobela.

          Kuwentong-Bayan

          Nagnanaknak ang mga alamat
          ng ating bayan. Sapo ng alaala
          sa sugatan niyang palad
          ang mga hindi napaghilom
          ng panahon: pagkabaliw
          ng mga diwata, pagsiksik
          ng mga manananggal at tikbalang
          sa pinakasulok ng takot,
          pananahan ng mga multo
          sa lahat ng kawalang-malay
          na tinalikuran ng lungsod,
          paglikas ng mga anito sa gunita
          ng mga pananalig. Mahiwaga rito,
          babala ng mangkukulam
          sa tinik sa ating talampakan
          samantalang inililigaw tayo
          ng kaniyang paanyaya
          upang iwan natin ang tángang sigpaw
          at lusungin ang hikbi ng agos
          sa mga batong nilulumot.
          Lagi’y rumaragasa
          ang ating paghahangad
          na iwan ang nakaraan.
          Lumingon sa pinanggalingan,
          bulong ng sirena sa alon
          sa tuwing tinatangay tayo ng ilog
          sa dagat ng kawalang-katiyakan.
          Subalit ang natatagpuan natin
          ay asin lamang sa dalampasigan.
          Magtatanong ang mga tiyanak
          na nalulunod sa hiwaga ng gabi:
          Saan nagmula ang buwan?
          At mararamdaman natin ang kirot
          sa pagkaligaw ng isipan
          sa kanilang lupain.
          Buwan ang gamot sa mga taon,
          buntong-hininga ng nuno
          sa punso habang pinagmamasdan
          ang papalayong liwanag
          ng mga alitaptap. At saka tayo
          rin ay lilisan: sakbibi ang hapdi
          sa mga di-nagpabinyag na pangalan
          na nananahan, nananangan
          sa mga kuwentong di na pinakikinggan.

     Tinuruan tayo ng matatandang lumingon sa pinanggalingan, sa pinagmulan ng totoo’t imahinaryong paglalakbay—subalit walang panawagang magbalik, dahil marahil sa kakabit nitong sinauna ring karunungan na wala na ngang makababalik, at maaari na lamang tanawin ang patuloy na paglayo natin sa mga bagay—kahit pa nga umaalis ang bayani ng sinaunang mga epiko upang maghanap ng lunas mula sa malalayong lupain nang may pangako’t pag-asa ng muling pag-uwi. Basta’t gayon lang ang hiling o atas ng matandang sawikain: ibaling ang mata sa pinagmulan samantalang patuloy ang mga paa sa tinutungo. Para makarating sa paroroonan.

     Sa daigdig ng banal na paglikha, sa pagsusulat ng tula, halimbawa, maaaring iyon ang pagkilala sa mga itinuring na diyos o bathala, ang primordial na puwersang bukal ng pag-ibig at ligalig, kaya’t ang patuloy na pagsasalaysay ng mga mito at alamat ay isang paglingon sa pinanggalingan. Samantala, sa sekular na realidad ng kasalukuyang alagad ng sining, maaaring iyon ang pagkilala sa mga naunang nabasa, sa dating hindi-malay na impluwensiya, ang patuloy na sinususuhang tradisyon, ang mga intertexto, at ang matatandang anyo at wikang nariyan na bago pa man magtangkang kumatha ang indibidwal.

Subalit binabagabag ako sa tuwing lumilingon dahil ang naroon minsan—minsa’y ibang mga lupain at mga mukhang ituturing na banyaga nitong pinagmulang bayan. Ngunit ano nga ba ang nasyong nililingon ng pagkatha? Maaari kayang kay tagal na nating inaawit ang “Doon Po sa Amin” sa iba’t ibang bersiyon nito’t pangangailangan dahil noon pa man, hindi na tayo nakatuntong sa sarili nating lupain, kaya’t laging naroon ang hinaharayang bayan sa kung saan wala na tayo? Maaari kayang igiit ngayon na may sarili ring bayan ang pagkatha na hindi kumikilala sa hanggahan ng mga kinasanayan at tinatanggap nating “pinagmulan”?

     Mga tanong ito na maaaring lalong magtaboy sa akin bilang walang utang na loob, suwail, hambog at kay ikli ang gunita. Na para bang hindi ko lamang kailangang mabagabag sa kawalan o pagkakaroon ng mga impluwensiya, kundi lalo’t higit sa mga uri ng impluwensiya na kinikilala kong mayroon ako. Na para bang mayroon na ngang “katanggap-tanggap” na talaan ng mga pinaghuhugutan ng sensibilidad at nilalaman ang isang manunulat na Pilipino, ng isang makatang Filipino sa kasalukuyan, bago pa man siya magsulat ng tula. Sabihin pa, isa na naman itong pagtataksil. Subalit isang pagtataksil na tulad ng binanggit ko kanina’y mahalaga upang lalong mapatalas ang imahinasyon ng katapatan sa sining.

     Anuman, nitong nagdaang dalawang taon, isa sa mga kinahumalingan ko si Roberto Bolaño, makata’t nobelista mula sa Chile. Ang Chile na maaaring nasulyapan ni Ferdinand Magellan sa paglalayag niya sa Timog Amerika noong 1520, bago siya nagpatuloy sa mga islang tinawag na Filipinas, kung saan niya natagpuan ang kamatayan. Ang Chile na sinakop din ng mga Espanyol, at bagaman naunang lumaya kaysa sa Filipinas ay binitbit naman ang wikang Kastila ng alaala’t imahinasyon nila sa pagkatha hanggang sa kasalukuyan. Ang Chile na katumbas ni Neruda sa loob nang mahabang panahon para sa maraming mambabasang Filipino; si Neruda na nito lamang 2004 ay isinalin ng iba’t ibang makatang Filipino sa ika-isandaang taon ng kaniyang pagsilang; ang mga makatang Filipino na iniibig ang hapis ng paglikha’t nananalig ding, “Maisusulat ko ang pinakamalulungkot na tula ngayong gabi,” o sa harap ng postmodernong dis-ilusyon at pagkadismaya ay, “Kaya kong magbitiw ng bitter words ngayong gabi.” Natagpuan ng marami kay Neruda ang saklaw ng pagsulat ng tula, kung paano maaaring dapuan ng liriko ang pinakakaraniwang bagay tulad ng asin at kamatis, hanggang sa epikong tagulaylay ukol sa tayog at kadakilaan ng Machu Picchu.

     Subalit ngayon, para sa akin, ang Chile at ang pagtula sa pamamagitan ni Bolaño. At sa pamamagitan ng nobela.
     Sa mga nobela ni Bolaño, natatangi ang pagmamapa niya ng kulturang pampanitikan, partikular ng tula: Kung paanong ang bawat imbestigasyon, ang bawat buhay sa kaniyang Latin America ay nakatahi sa buhay ng mga makata sa kaniyang bayan. Kahit sa realidad, aktibo’t nakisangkot si Bolaño sa direksiyon ng pagtula sa kaniyang bayan, at itinatag kasama ang makatang si Mario Santiago ang tinawag nilang Movimiento Infrarrealista de Poesia na laban sa ipinagpapalagay nila noong “kulturang opisyal” na kinakatawan ng mga tulad ni Octavio Paz. Lumabas bilang tauhan si Neruda sa nobela niyang By Night in Chile, nakaharap at nakausap ng tagapagsalaysay, isang paring kritikong pampanitikan na “tumutula” rin paminsan-minsan. Sa nobela namang Distant Star, inamin ng tagapagsalaysay na dinapuan siya ng Neruditis simula pagkabata, isang karamdaman ng matinding romantisasyon sa pagtula—ang pagtula bilang puno’t ugat ng mga bagay, ang simula’t wakas, ang lampas pa sa daigdig. Subalit sa nobela ring iyon, iminumungkahing magbabago lamang ang panulaang Chilean kung matututuhan nilang basahin nang tama si Enrique Lihn. O ibig sabihin, ang marhinalisado, ang naisagilid, naiwaglit ng kamalayan sa ngalan ng mga Neruda ng mundo.

     May isa ring tauhang makata ni Bolaño na lumaking putol ang dalawang braso mula sa balikat at lumaking bakla’t mahirap, mga prekondisyong lalong nagtulak sa kaniya sa sining. Nang minsang nagtangka siyang magpakalunod, lumangoy siya pabalik sa dalampasigan bago kapusin ng hininga at pinagpasiyahang sa kasalukuyang kondisyong sosyo-politikal, “committing suicide is absurd and redundant. Better to become an undercover poet.”

     Sa nobelang Amulet ni Bolaño, ang tagapagsalaysay na si Auxilio Lacouture ang tanging nakaligtas sa okupasyon ng mga militar sa Mexico. Nagkataong nasa kubeta siya ng ikaapat na palapag ng gusali ng Pilosopiya at Panitikan nang sinona ang unibersidad na pinagtatrabahuhan niya. Samantalang nakaupo sa inidoro’t nagbabasa ng aklat ng tula, “[she] thought about how strange it is to emigrate eastward rather than westward.” Ngunit hindi iyon kamangha-mangha sa panahon ng kanluraning explorasyon at “pagtuklas” sa mga ipinagpapalagay nilang terra incognita samantalang libong taon nang pinananahananan ng iba. Gayumpaman, maaaring totoo iyon para sa mga tao sa kasalukuyan, sa daigdig ng militarisasyon ni Lacouture, na maaaring sabihing nagmula sa mundo ng industriyalisasyon hanggang sa globalisasyong neokolonyal ngayon: ang mga Pilipinong naglalakbay palayo sa kanilang bayan, patungo sa iba’t ibang sulok ng mundo upang “maghanap ng suwerte,” maghanapbuhay, magbuo ng panibagong buhay—ang mga manunulat na tulad nina Jose Garcia Villa at Bienvenido Santos na piniling manirahan sa Estados Unidos, halimbawa.

     Subalit isang emigrasyon iyon na hindi totoo, at maaaring sabihing saliwa pa nga, sa kaso ng mga texto. Kakabit ng karahasan ng kolonya’t mga imperyo, pa-Silangan ang naging dominanteng direksiyon ng mga akda, at kung gayon, ng mga impluwensiya, hanggang sa ngayon. Mula sa pagsasakatutubo ng panalangin at pananalig na Kristiyano sa Doctrina Cristiana hanggang sa adaptasyon ng Amerikanong kulturang popular sa mga palabas sa telebisyon. Kritikal ito sa naging dominasyong pangkultura sa bansa—ang karanasang binansagan sa iba’t ibang banyagang pangalan bilang colonial mentality, miseducation of the Filipinos, o sa madaling sabi’y pagiging sakop, ang mga “katawang pasibo,” ayon kay Foucault—subalit sa isang banda’y maaari namang tingnan din ito bilang bukal, potensiya, ng isang uri ng lakas. Mas kilala natin sila, sa pamamagitan ng kanilang mga texto, samantala’y ano ang talagang alam nila sa atin? Ilang edukadong Pilipino ang hindi kilala si Edgar Allan Poe at ilang edukadong Amerikano ang hindi kilala si Francisco Balagtas? Totoong hindi maiuuwi lamang sa usapin ng estadistika o trivia ang diskurso ng kamangmangan, subalit maaari pa ring igiit, sa kabila ng demonisasyon nito’t samot-saring mutasyon, na kapangyarihan ang kaalaman, at magagamit natin sila. Isa itong posibleng tugon sa hamon ni Foucault kung paano kakatha ng puwersang laban sa tinawag niyang Panopticon, isang uri ng pagtatanghal ng pribado’t indibidwal sa harap ng kontrol ng tila mas malawak na sistema: ang transpormasyon ng kaalaman bilang imahinasyon, ang imahinasyon bilang ahensiya ng pagkatha, sa pagsulat ng tula. Kahit pa sa harap ng postmodernisasyon ng sensibilidad na kakabit ng paghalaw, appropriation, salin, bricolage, paano lubusang maigigiit na hindi rin nga itinutulak ng lunggating politikal ang mga gawaing ito, lalo pa sa sining, sa pagsusulat, sa pag-aangkin ng anyong tulad ng tula na may mahabang kasaysayan sa ating panitikang-bayan subalit kasaysayan din ng pakikipagtalaban sa mga banyagang impluwensiya?

     Bumabanggit si Bolaño ng mga makata’t manunulat sa kaniyang mga akda, higit marahil sa kahit na sinong nobelista, inihahalayhay niya sila, klasiko’t kontemporanyo, tanyag at obscure, buhay at patay, matanda’t bata, kinagigiliwan niya’t isinusumpa, mula sa loob at labas ng Chile, na para bang ang populasyon ng mga tauhang ito ay tila ensayklopidikong layon na bigyan ng aura ng isang daigdig na binubuo ng manlilikha ang kaniyang mga akda. Sa pagtatapos ng nobelang Amulet, gumawa ng mga propesiya tungkol sa ilang manunulat ang tagapagsalaysay na si Auxilio, kung sino ang patuloy na babasahin, sino ang makakalimutan, sino ang mapapaslang, sino ang magkakaroon ng resureksiyon, ng reinkarnasyon, sino ang mabubuhay nang paulit-ulit, sino ang ipagtatayo ng mga rebulto, sino ang mapuputa sa langit at impiyerno, at tungkol sa tula: “Poetry shall not disappear. Its non-power shall manifest itself in a different form.”

     Subalit binubulabog ang unibersong iyon ng mga kathang manunulat at ganoon din ng mga kathang akda, na para bang may mga pinapangarap pang buhay at texto sa loob niyon, ang totoo at hindi totoo sa labas ng katha ay totoong lahat sa daigdig ng katha at nagpapanagpo ang mga buhay nila. Sa Distant Star, na muling-imahinasyon at extensiyon ng pangwakas na kabanata ng Nazi Literature in the Americas, makikilala ang isang makatang naging asasin ng militar, si Carlos Wieder na naunang nakilala bilang Alberto Ruiz-Tagle. Habang isang pagsisiyasat iyon sa buhay niya, ang pagbabago ng buhay niya kaalinsabay ng pagpapalit ng pangalan, kung buhay pa ba siya, kung siya nga iyon, ang lumilikha ng tula sa eyre sa pamamagitan ng pagpapalipad ng eroplano, sinisiyasat din ng nobela ang hanggahan ng pagtula, at ang kaugnayan nito sa karahasan, kung maaari nga bang ang indibidwal na may sensibilidad ng isang makata ay maging kriminal, pumaslang ng mga babae’t kunan ng larawan ang kanilang marahas na kamatayan upang i-eksibit bilang sining pagkatapos ng pagtatanghal ng tula sa himpapawid, kahit pa sa gitna ng masamang panahon. Isang obsesyon halos itong pag-uugnay ng malikhaing kamalayan sa pakikisangkot sa awtoritaryanismo, lalo na sa pagbubuo niya ng mga hakang talambuhay ng mga manunulat sa Amerika sa kaniyang Nazi Literature in the Americas. Sa isang banda, maaaring iugnay ito sa posisyon ni Kundera laban sa panganib ng lirisismo, tulad ng inilatag niya sa kaniyang mga sanaysay tungkol sa nobela, at sa nobelang Life Is Elsewhere, na sa isang banda’y siya ring dahilan kung bakit hindi na niya binalikan pa ang pagtula. O nasa isa pang akda ni Bolaño ang sagot sa ugnayan ng karahasan at pagsusulat: “The vanity of writing, the vanity of destruction. ... The two things are connected, writing and destroying, hiding and being found.”

     Sa loob ng Distant Star, hinanap ng detektib na si Abel Romero ang tagapagsalaysay upang hanapin kung nasaan si Wieder sa pamamagitan ng pinaghihinalaan nilang mga akda nito. Kailangan umano ni Romero ng makata para hanapin ang isa pang makata. Umikot naman ang The Savage Detectives sa mismong paghahanap nina Arturo Belano at Ulises Lima kay Cesarea Tinajero, ang kinikilala nilang tagapagtatag ng visceral realism, sapagkat hindi nila maunawaan ang kahulugan ng tanging tula nitong nalathala, ang “Sión,” na hindi gumagamit ng “salita,” tulad ng “tula” ni Bök.

Mahalaga ang paglalatag ng kulturang pampanitikan para kay Bolaño bilang motibasyon ng mga pagsisiyasat, ng mga pagtatanong, sapagkat may mga hindi nauunawaan, lalo na sa gitna ng daigdig na politikal na ginagalawan ng kaniyang mga manunulat. Ginawa niyang tauhan, halimbawa, si General Pinochet at pinagsalita sa nobela niyang By Night in Chile upang bigkasin ito tungkol sa ibang mga namuno’t naging diktador tulad nina Alessandri, Frei at Allende: “They didn’t read, they didn’t write. They pretended to be cultured, but not one of them was a reader or a writer.” Maaaring tinitingnan ni Bolaño na sa bandang huli, nakasalalay ang lahat sa mga salita, sa kakayahang magbasa at magsulat. Na ang kalungkutan niya’y samantalang humuhubog siya ng daigdig na umiikot sa kulturang pampanitikan, sa katotohana’y pinaiikot at pinamumunuan ang daigdig na iyon ng mga makapangyarihang walang kinalaman, walang pakialam, sa panitikan, sa tula. O, kung sakali ngang may pakikisangkot ang mga namumuno’t makapangyarihan, o nakikisimpatiya sa kapangyarihan, sa pag-akda ng panitikan, tulad ng ipinakita niya sa mga kathang biograpiya sa Nazi Literature in the Americas, ay higit itong mapanganib, mas nakatatakot—kaya’t dapat pa ring ipagbunyi ang kasaysayan kung saan nagmumula ang kulturang pampanitikan sa gilid, sa oposisyon, bilang kontraryong opinyon laban sa naghahari’t makapangyarihan, tulad ng sensibilidad ng maraming kuwentong-bayan. Isang pagtataksil sa kasalukuyang kalakaran.

     Ano ang pakialam ko kay Bolaño? Sa kasalukuyan kong mga bagabag sa usapin ng katapatan at pagtataksil, sa lahat ng salimuot nito’t epekto sa aking pagsusulat, binubuhay niya ang noon ko pa pinaghihinalaan na diyalogo sa mga anyo ng tula at nobela, subalit puta-putaki’t hindi pa nagagawan nang taimtim na pag-aaral: ang relasyon ng pagsusulat ng nobela sa pagtula ng isang makata. Kahit pa nga ginawa iyon ni Rizal, ni Lope K. Santos, ni Alejandro G. Abadilla, ni Edith Tiempo, ni Jun Cruz Reyes, ni Alfred Yuson, ni Luna Sicat-Cleto, ang mamangka sa higit sa iisang ilog. Sa ngayon, ginagawa pa rin iyon ng mga kahenerasyon kong tulad nina German Gervacio, Genevieve Asenjo, at Alvin B. Yapan.

     Kinailangan kong magsulat ng nobela upang mapangahasan ngayon, halimbawa, ang isang himig sa tula, na hindi ko mapapangatawanan limang taon na ang nakararaan kung kailan ang pagiging mataimtim ng bisyon ko sa relasyon natin, ng ating kamalayan, sa mga nilalang ng dilim, ay walang kapasidad na tingnan iyon bilang katawa-tawa sa gitna ng pagiging kalunos-lunos nito. Sa isa sa pinakabago kong tula, wala ang dakilang ambisyon ng “Kuwentong-Bayan,” subalit hindi nagpapanggap ng pag-aaruga ng mga sugat at sakit ng kolektibong kumakawala sa imahinasyon. Hindi ko isinusumpa ang lungkot at kadakilaan, ibig ko lamang takasan ang pagtingin sa mga iyon bilang nakalulungkot at dakila na nga.

     Kinailangan kong pagtaksilan ang nagdaang sarili, kilalanin ang panahong nakapagitan sa bawat pagsulat ng tula, upang maghunos ang mga panibagong salita. Sa palagay ko, sa ganitong paraan lamang ako muling makapagsusulat ng tula. Kaya bilang pangwakas:

          Tagpo

          Pitong taon ako nang una ko siyang makita:
          hindi tao, hindi hayop, nakasiksik sa sagingan
          na tinatanuran ng matandang poso. Tiyanak!
          Sabi ko, nanlalaki ang mga mata. OA,
          sabi niya, naroon at wala sa panahon.
          At lumundag siya't tumuntong sa balikat ko,
          buong buhay kong pinasan, mahigpit
          ang kapit sa ulo ko. Hindi siya nakikita ng iba—
          ang halimaw na laging may puna sa iniisip
          ko’t binibitiwang salita, tulad ng, “Pitong taon
          ako nang una ko siyang makita,” dahil bulag
          ako’t naliligaw at siya ang nakatagpo sa akin.

* This is the lecture I delivered at the Pambansang Kumperensiya sa Panulaang Filipino held last November 25, 2010 at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.

Ang Pagsusulat Bilang Pagkadismaya

2011-01-01T01:14:00.002+08:00

O, NOBELISASYON SA IKATLONG DAIGDIG BILANG PAGWASAK

5 December 2009. Cultural Center of the Philippines.

TIGIB NG KONTRADIKSIYON ang karanasan ng isang manunulat, palaisipang tulad ng bugtong na nariyan lamang sa paligid ang sagot ay niyayanig ng talinghaga ang sariling kamangmangan o karunungan, sinusukat ang pakikibahagi pa rin sa mas malawak na karanasan ng bayan, ang kolektibong hiwalay sa kaniya subalit kinabibilangan din niya. Sa isang banda, maaari niyang ideklarang “ako ang daigdig,” samantalang nagluluksa ang mundo sa mga trahedyang idinudulot ng tao sa isa’t isa, o mga kalamidad na kasintanda ng pagmamalay ng mga sinauna sa paglalaho’t pagkabuo ng buwan. Maaari siyang kumatha para sa sarili, para sa mismong sining, para sa itinuturing na maganda ng bawat panahon o kultura: pagsikat ng araw, tabi ng dagat, pamumulaklak ng diliwariw, sayaw sa kalipay, ibong may layang lumipad, pag-ibig—at ibulong sa sarili, Maganda pa ang daigdig. Naroon sa gayuma ng paningin, ng pagtingin, ang potensiyal na suliranin: maaari akong tumingala sa buwan at sabihing dambuhalang keso, tulad ng sinasambit-sambit ng mga dagang hindi naniniwala kay Daginding na bato lamang ang buwan sa kuwentong-pambata ni Roberto Alonzo, o ipangako ito sa sinusuyo bilang panghalip sa pag-ibig, na kinaumayan na’t inuyam pa ni Allan Popa sa “Buwan, Buwan.” Nasa pagtingin ang bukal ng paninindigan o pagkatinik nang malalim, kaya’t idyomatiko rin ang pagtingin sa atin para sa pagtangi, pagmamahal.

        Puso kong lulutang-lutang
        Sa gitna ng karagatan,
        Ang tanging tinitimbula’y
        Titig ng mata mo lamang.

Subalit masidhi ang trahedya ng pagkatao na maisasalba lamang sa pagtingin ng iba, trahedyang hindi nasulyapan man lamang ng persona sa katutubong dalit, tulad ng pagkalugmok nina Doña Juana at Doña Leonora sa Ibong Adarna na naghintay sa kanilang Don Juan na magliligtas sa kanila mula sa ilalim ng balon; kaiba sa ahensiya ni Doña Maria na siyang gumanap sa lahat ng pagsubok ng ama niyang hari para sa prinsipe, at nanguna upang ipinaglaban ang karapatan ng sarili sa harap ng gayuma ng paglimot ng lalaking inibig sa dulo ng korido.

Sinabi na ni Ildefonso Santos: “Sa dagat man, Irog, ng kaligayahan/ Lahat, pati puso’y naaagnas ding marahang-marahan.” Nakamamanhid ang mismong saya, ang mismong paglulunoy sa daigdig na narito. Kailangang matigatig sa mismong pagkapanatag. Paano mapapakali kung ayon sa isang survey kamakailan lamang: sa bawat 100 pumapasok sa grade 1 ay 54 lamang ang nakapagpapatuloy sa high school, at 13 ang nakapagtatapos sa kolehiyo, at wala pang kalahati sa mga nakapagtatapos na iyon ang nakakakuha ng matinong trabaho? Saan mapapanatag kung tatlong dekada pagkatapos ng serye ng Mga Batang Lansangan ni Ricardo Lee, lumala pa ang bilang at kondisyon ng mga batang nalululong sa droga, nagbebenta ng katawan, nanghohold-up, pumapatay, nakukulong, napapaslang? Mahirap maging mahirap, at ito ang sentimyentong sinisikap sakyan ng karamihan sa mga manunulat sa kasalukuyan na nagmumula sa akademya, may intelektuwal na kapital, karamiha’y nakakakain sa oras hindi man ganap na nakakariwasa. May malaking problema kapag hindi na maramdamang may problema nga pala. Sa Sipat-Kultura ni Rolando Tolentino, iminumungkahi niya ang isang estetika at politika ng paglayas at paglayag, dahil sa mga kondisyon lamang na iyon umano ng hindi pananatili maaaring maapuhap ang posibilidad ng paglaya. Malinaw ang posisyon ni Tolentino: kailangang pro-active ang anumang pagsusulat, mahalagang may direksiyon itong tinatahak tungo sa pagbabago ng mga kondisyon ng nasa-labas nito. Hindi maaari ang mungkahi ng bata sa kaklase niya sa isang komersiyal sa telebisyon, “Isipin mo na lang, ham ‘yan.” Sa harap ng kadahupan pa rin at patuloy na pagdanas ng pagkaapi ng nakararami sa kasalukuyan, bunga man ng isa o kombinasyon ng iba’t ibang kondisyon ng marhinalisasyon—uring panlipunan, kasarian, etnisidad, nasyonalidad, relihiyon, paninindigang politikal—mahirap na maging hindi militante kung ibig na maging awtentiko ang pagdanas ng pagsusulat. Nagtatagisan ang mga hamon mula sa loob at labas ng mismong indibidwal na nagsisikap maging alagad ng sining at bayan, samantalang nagtatalaban din ang paninikil mula sa loob at labas ng bayan niyang iyon.

Subalit problematiko ang basta pagpapahayag na, Walang panahon para sa sariling ego, lalo pa kung ang ego na iyon, ang sariling iyon (hindi lamang ang “ego” bilang “laki ng ulo”), ang pumoposisyon sa mga usapin, ang nagluluwal ng mga damdamin, kaisipan at pagkilos. Ang ego na iyon ang dumaranas ng pagkadismaya at maaaring maglunsad ng pagwasak. Sa harap nito, napakahalagang usapin ang kontexto at tunguhin sa bawat pagtataya sa estado ng praktis ng pagsusulat sa Pilipinas. Kumikilala ito sa espasyo (lahat ng mga aspektong pangkaligiran, ang chronotope, na kinasasangkutan ng obheto ng pagsisiyasat) at panahon (bilang paglingon sa formasyon ng mga anyo at projeksiyon sa posibilidad ng isang hinaharap), bilang dalawang mahalagang konsiderasyon sa formasyon ng kamalayang pang-estetika at politikal ng isang nasyong gaya ng anumang kolektibo’y may pagdanas ng pluralidad at komplikasyon ng mga identidad at ugnayan, bunga ng tagisan ng mga kasaysayan ng opresyon at paglaya, at patuloy na pagdanas ng mobilidad, mula sa usapin ng lunang heograpikal hanggang sa pagmamapa ng mga damdamin at paninindigan. Dito ko sisipatin ang pangkasaysayan kaugnay ng pangkasalukuyang praxis ng nakababatang henerasyon ng manunulat, lalo na kaugnay ng anyo ng nobela, sa harap ng hamong “makibahagi ang manunulat sa pagwasak ng kultura ng kaalipnan, kahirapan at kamangmangan.”

Kung tutuusin, isa sa mga problematikong anyo ang nobela, lalo na kaugnay ng ating kasaysayang pampanitikan. Hindi gaya ng tula na nag-uugat sa isang mas malayong tradisyong-bayan (Lumbera), malinaw na isa itong anyong kolonyal, na naging posible dahil sa teknolohiya ng palimbagan, na nakarating sa atin noon pang 1595. Gayumpaman, bagaman may halos tuwiran tayong koneksiyon sa isa sa mga itinuturing na ninuno ng nobela sa kanluran, ang Don Quixote ni Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra na nalathala ang unang tomo noong 1605 sa Espanya, lilipas pa ang mahigit tatlong daang taon bago nalathala ang itinuturing na unang nobelang Filipino sa Kastila, ang kostumbristang Ninay (1886) ni Pedro Paterno.

Malinaw na sintomas ito hindi lamang ng relasyong politikal at pampanitikan sa pagitan ng Pilipinas at Espanya nang panahong iyon, kundi maging ng problematikong pagharap sa nobela bilang anyo. Sa simula pa lamang, kahit sa kanluran (at alalahaning isa ito sa mga inaangkin pa rin bilang anyong Europeo ng maraming mga pag-aaral sa nobela, salamat sa mga akdang gaya ng kay Cervantes, gayundin ang Gargantua & Pantagruel ni Francois Rabelais, sa kabila ng katotohanan na mas matanda nang di hamak ang iba pang posibleng “ninuno” nito, gaya ng Arabian Nights at Tale of Genji ni Murasaki), isa itong subersibong anyo, na tumutuligsa sa mga anyong nauna rito, at ginagawang katawa-tawa kahit ang mga suliranin sa kondisyon at mga sistemang itinatag ng tao. Sa kabila ng imprimatur sa paglilimbag sa Don Quixote, dahil sa mga hayag nitong pagsusulong umano ng mga ideyal na Katoliko, makikitang punong-puno rin ng balintuna ang mismong mga pagtatanghal na iyon sa relihiyon, isang katangian ng nobelang papangalanan ni Mikhail Bakhtin bilang dialogic imagination na nauuwi sa istratehiya ng heteroglossia, isang kapasidad ng anyong ito na hindi kayang pasanin ng monolohikal na bisyon ng tulang lirikal, o kahit pa nga ng epiko, na karamiha’y para sa pagbibigay-katwiran at suporta sa kapangyarihan at posisyong hawak ng naghaharing-uri.

Kung gayon, malinaw ang lohika kung bakit halos ikubli ng mga Kastilang mananakop ang posibilidad ng pagnonobela sa mga katutubo, samantalang sinuportahan naman nila ang produksiyon ng tula. Nakita nila ang mahalagang papel ng tula sa pagpapatatag ng tradisyon ng bayan (sawikain), ng matalas nilang pagkilala sa kapaligiran (bugtong), ng kolektibong pagdanas sa mga gawaing-pambayan (awiting-bayan), kaya naman masigasig itong pinag-aralan ng mga misyonero. Higit na bukas ang monolohismo ng tula sa agenda ng pananakop. Ibang usapin ang nobela. Nakita na nila kung paano nagtanghal ng kawalang-pakundangan ang nobela sa lahat ng mga itinuturing na birtud ng sibilisasyon, ng kawalang-paggalang sa posisyon ng kapangyarihan, at ng pagtimbuwang ng lahat ng mga inaasahan. Isang pagwasak. Ayon pa rin kay Bakhtin, sa pag-aaral naman niya sa nobela ni Rabelais, ito ang sandali ng “carnivalesque” na binubuksan ng nobela. Ito ang carnivalesque na hindi maaatim ng mananakop, kaya’t imbes na nobela’y sermon at buhay ng mga santo (vida) ang produksiyon ng kanilang mga prosa.

Nang ilimbag ang Urbana at Felisa (1838) at Si Tandang Basio Macunat (1865), kahit pa itinuturing ang mga ito bilang proto-nobela ni Resil B. Mojares sa kaniyang The Origins and Rise of the Filipino Novel, malinaw sa akin na “kontra-nobela” ang mga ito, na ang diwa ng mismong paglalathala ng mga akdang ito ay laban sa espiritu ng nobela na nagbubukas ng higit na diskursibong pagsisiyasat sa mga usapin. Malinaw sa mga akda nina De Castro at Bustamante na nananatiling singular ang bisyon ng realidad, at malinaw ang mapandiktang himig na halos nasa astang totalitariran. Sa sarili niyang pag-aaral sa nobela, sasabihin ni Milan Kundera na nasa loob mismo ng nobela ang sensibilidad na kontra-totalitaryanismo, at nilalabanan nito ang anumang mapanakop, mapanaklaw at mapanlagom na pagtatangkang ikahon ang pagdanas ng tao sa kaniyang realidad.

Nagsimula ang sarili kong pagbabasa ng panitikan sa mga pahina ng Liwayway at dito’y agad na mauungkat ang pormasyon ng kamalayang popular katapat ng paghubog din sa politika at sensibilidad na estetiko’t kritikal. Ano ang pagkakaiba ng popular na konsumpsiyon sa kanila kung itatapat sa panonood ng mga pinagbibidahan nina KC Concepcion at Richard Gutierrez, o patuloy na pagpila sa Wowowee, gaya ng senior citizen na gagampanan ni Dolphy, ang bida sa Juan na isa sa mga lahok sa Metro Manila Film Festival sa darating na Disyembre? Isinilang ako sa panahong post-Martial Law, Pebrero 1981, isang buwan matapos ang opisyal na deklarasyon na tapos na ang halos isang dekadang batas militar na humubog nang matindi sa buhay ng mga henerasyong nauna sa amin—isang yugtong masasabing isa sa pinakamahalagang panahong pangkasaysayan sa bansa pagkatapos ng digmaan, kung pagbabatayan ang naging epekto nito sa produksiyong pampanitikan sa ating bayan. Wala ako roon. Hindi ko iyon inabot. Bahagi ng kasaysayang hindi ko man lang nakita.

Bagaman totoong hindi naman nagwakas kasabay ng pagtatapos ng Martial Law ang mga pandarahas na naging kakabit na ng panahong iyon—ipinangangalandakan ni Imelda Marcos noong isang gabi lamang sa telebisyon na “ginintuang panahon” ang Martial Law, at mas maraming karahasan laban sa mga Pilipino sa administrasyon ni Cory Aquino, panahong inabot ko na, subalit natatabunan ng matitingkad na alaala ng gabi-gabing blackout ang lahat ng iba pang alaala—isang trauma pa rin sa kamalayan naming mga batang manunulat na wala kami sa Dekada ‘70. Hindi kami kabilang sa nabigyan ng babala: Tutubi, Tutubi, ‘Wag Magpahuli sa Mamang Salbahe. Isa iyong bukal ng paninindigan na kinikilala ng maraming manunulat na Filipino na isang natatanging pangyayari na nagtakda sa kanilang pagkamanunulat. Sa hindi iilang pagkakataon, narinig kong sinabi mismo ng nobelistang si Jun Cruz Reyes na maaaring hindi siya nakapagsulat kung hindi naganap ang Martial Law.

Wala kami roon. At sa isang banda, nag-uugat dito ang isang pagdanas at mukha ng pagkadismaya na makikita sa direksiyong tinatahak ngayon ng panitikan, partikular ng nobelang Filipino. Pagkadismaya itong nagmumula sa parehong panig. Una, pagkadismaya sa amin mula sa panig ng mga henerasyong nauna sa amin, na naroon. Na para bang nabigo sila sa amin, tipikal na larawan ng magulang na may pinangarap para sa mga anak, subalit hindi iyon ang piniling landas ng mga ito. “Ang lumakad nang matulin, kung matinik ay malalim.” Subalit wala na, malaon nang nakaalis nang hindi nakikinig, walang pinapakinggan. Batay sa personal kong karanasan, ayon sa mga narinig ko’t nabasa (anong hindi na nakikinig?), para sa ilan sa kanila, kami ang mga anak na wala: mga batang manunulat na sinisipat nila ayon sa ipinagpapalagay nilang nawawala sa amin. Walang-malay, sa sarili, at sa iba. Walang kaugnayan. Walang pakialam. Walang kabuluhan. Walang pananagutan. Walang paninindigan. At ang lalong ipinagpuputok ng butsi ng mga tumitingin sa aming henerasyon batay sa kung ano ang nawawala sa amin, kumbakit wala rin kaming sinasabi sa harap ng kanilang panggagalaiti.

Pero hindi rin totoong-totoo na wala kaming sinasabi. Hindi nga lamang siguro sila ang pinipiling kausapin o harapin. Patuloy ang aktibong produksiyon ng panitikan sa hanay ng mga batang manunulat mula sa garapalang pagtatawa ni Eros Atalia sa mga “wala lang” ng kasalukuyang lipunan hanggang sa mga tula at sanaysay ng kasariang Hiligaynon at post-Ladlad ni John Iremil Teodoro, o sa matulaing rendisyon ng pasakit at luwalhati ng katawan ng babae sa nobela ng Ilonggong si Genevieve Asenjo, o sa pagnanaknak ng loob at katawan sa mismong kawalang-pasakit sa mga akda ng Bikolanong si Kristian Cordero.

Narito ang kabilang panig ng pagkadismaya: mula sa panig ng mga batang manunulat na ito. Subalit hindi tulad ng pagkadismaya ng mga nakatatanda na lumilitaw sa anyo ng kritika (ang paminsan-minsang rebyu halimbawa ni Cirilo Bautista sa kolum niyang “Breaking Signs” sa Panorama ng mga aklat o katha ng batang manunulat, o ang “bendisyon” ni Virgilio S. Almario sa ilang batang makata sa bago niyang antolohiyang Sansiglong Mahigit ng Makabagong Tulang Filipino), nahuhubog bilang isang uri ng estetika at politika, hindi kritika lamang, ang pagdanas ng mga batang manunulat sa pagkadismaya.

Isang kondisyon-damdamin-asta-pagkilos na postmoderno ang pagkadismaya. Nagsisimula ito sa isang malinaw na karanasan: may pangyayaring hindi naging mabuti, hindi nagustuhan. Sumusunod dito ang isang rekognisyon: maaari sanang naiwasan ang pangyayaring iyon. Nagiging ganap ang pagkadismaya sa meta-rekognisyon: ang mismong sistema at mga may-hawak ng kapangyarihan ang tumitiyak na mangyayari ang hindi mabuti, ang hindi magugustuhan ng nakararami.

Maaaring sabihin na noon pa mang nasa Europa si Rizal at iminungkahi niya sa mga kapwa-Ilustrado ang pagsusulat ng nobela na sasalamin sa kondisyon ng Filipinas, dinanas na niya ito nang hindi ito seryosohin ng kaniyang mga kasama at nauwi siya sa pagsusulat nang mag-isa, na nagluwal nga sa Noli me Tangere. Malinaw na produkto ang nobelang iyon hindi lamang ng pagtuligsa sa kalakarang kolonyal na tumitiyak ng pagkaapi ng nakararaming mamamayan sa ating bayan, maaari ring tingnan na produkto iyon ng pagkadismaya ni Rizal sa mga kapwa niya Ilustrado na ang mismong pagpapatuloy ng buhay na kosmopolitan sa Europa ay nagsisilbi mismong panggatong sa mga pandarahas.

Nito lang Marso, paggising at pagsisimula ng araw sa kinasanayang pagche-check sa email, nabasa ko ang mensahe ng kaibigang kuwentista at nakasama sa isang workshop sa Bacolod noong 2003, si Mykel Andrada. Nawawala raw umano ang kaibigan namin at nakasama rin sa Bacolod na si VJ Rubio. Hindi nagtagal, natagpuan sa San Mateo, Rizal ang sasakyan, basag ang mga salamin. Sa Nangka, Marikina ako nakatira, isang baryo na katabi ng San Mateo. Nagpadala agad ako ng mensahe kay Mykel para alamin kung saan sa San Mateo nakita ang sasakyan ni VJ. Ilang minuto lang, tiniyak ni Jun Cruz Reyes na patay na nga si VJ. Nitong nagdaang buwan naman, isa pang manunulat mula naman sa Visayas, si Winton Lou Ynion, ang natagpuan namang pinatay sa sarili niyang tinutuluyang condo unit sa Katipunan lang. Magkabertdey kami ni Winton at nagkaklase sa ilang Ph.D. units sa UP, kung saan ko nasaksihan ang tindi ng malasakit niyang dalhin sa kamalayan ng gaya kong Tagalog ang husay ng mga manunulat na sina Magdalena Jalandoni at Ramon Muzones, at kung bakit dapat mailagay sa kanon ang Margosatubig ng huli.

Paano kakatha ng kapanatagan sa harap ng ganito katiyak na kamatayan ng mga kabataang manunulat na malaki ang pangako sa hinaharap? Politikal o kriminal ba ang kanilang kamatayan? Hate crime? Hayag na bakla sina VJ at Wynton, at anggulo iyong hindi isinasaisantabi, sapagkat kung magkagayon, lalong simptomatiko ito ng malalalim pa ring galit sa isa’t isa bunga ng mga di-pagkakaunawaang kinakatha ng kamangmangan at kahirapan at neoliberal na ideya ng karapatan at pagkakapantay-pantay, na balintunang sa harap ng mundong ginagawang globalisado’y lalong naitatampok ang karupukan at pagkadehado ng ikatlong daigdig.

Malabo pa rin hanggang sa sandaling ito ang detalye ng mga kamatayan nila, at ang kondisyong ito’y lalong nanliligalig, nag-iiwan ng pagkadismaya. Lalo pa’t wala na dapat tayo sa panahon ng batas militar. Dito gumigitaw ang suliranin sa pagpapangalan sa isang sandaling historikal, ang problema sa mga kategorya tulad ng panunupil, pananakop at karahasan, at ang kasinungalingan ng kalayaan. Muli: alam nating hindi natapos sa pagtatapos ng batas militar ang iba’t ibang mukha ng represyon at opresyon sa mga manlilikha ng isang bayan. Ang suliranin (o problema nga ba?): ano ang itatawag namin sa panahong ito? Sa amin? Post-martial law babies. Ano ang post—ano pa ang magagawa ng, sa, post, tulad ng postmodernidad, postkolonyalidad, bilang mga agresibong tugon sa kinakabitang kondisyon? Samantalang napakalinaw na karanasan ng Batas Militar para sa henerasyon nina Jun Cruz Reyes, Lualhati Bautista, Fanny Garcia, Ricky Lee at iba pa, ano naman ang maglalagom sa panunupil at pandarahas na itong patuloy na dinadanas, hindi lamang sa antas na indibidwal kundi sistemiko rin?

Hindi lamang ang literal na kamatayan ang pumapaslang sa malikhaing potensiyal ng isang bayan (bagaman hindi binabawasan noon ang pangangailangang ipagluksa ang ganitong mga kamatayan), kundi ang mismong pagpatid sa mga opsiyon ng isang buhay na malikhain sa kasalukuyan. Halos nagkokoro na ang sentimyento ng maraming kritiko ng ating kontemporanyong karanasan sa pandarahas sa buhay-intelektuwal ng kultura ng call center at caregiving sa ngayon, samantalang hindi rin naman nagwawakas ang pila ng mga aplikante, dahil pagkatapos mag-aral sa kolehiyo, kahit pa sa inaakalang mabubuti namang unibersidad ay ano nga ba ang mga inihahaing uri ng trabaho sa atin sa kasalukuyan? Ito ang kinakathang dayalogo ng globalisasyon at neoliberalismo sa kasalukuyang buhay na publiko at pribado ng marami sa aming henerasyon. Mukhang may pagpili, mukhang may pinagpapasyahan, o ipinagmamalaki mismong ang hindi pagpili, ang hindi pagpapasya ay isa rin mismong pagpapasya.

Nauwi na nga sa ganoong balintuna ng pangangatwiran ang lohika ng karaniwang kamalayan (subalit ano ba ang karaniwan? mula saang posisyon nagmumula ang pagtatalaga ng karaniwan?): mahalaga ang posisyon ko (ang aking ego!) dahil wala nang mahalaga sa akin. Subalit hindi sa ganito dapat mauwi ang lahat, at nananalig akong hindi neoromantiko iyon, hindi isang sentimyento na lamang nga ang magkaroon pa ng tiyak na pinanghahawakan sa harap ng kasalukuyan nating realidad. Na ang pagiging “pasaway,” sa isang banda, ay hindi na lamang basta di-pagsang-ayon o kawalang-interes o “pang-aaning” sa kung anuman ang namamayani’t ibig kumondisyon sa nakararami: ang ganap na pagka-“pasaway” sa kasalukuyan ay may aktibong paglalantad ng kontraryong posisyon, na ang pang-iinis, gaya ng orihinal na implikasyon ng salita (inis, inisin) ay nakamamatay. Na ang isang pasaway ay naniniwalang sa gitna ng kabaliwang pinamamayani ng kalakaran sa ngayon, walang pinakamatinong tugon maliban sa pagpapasaway. Dialektikal ang pagiging pasaway, kung gayon: ang pasaway na dismayado’t hindi mapanatag ay hindi magpapapanatag at magdudulot ng ibayong pagkadismaya sa naghahari, sa nagtatakda ng kaayusan. Nakita na natin sa kasaysayan ang pagpapasaway ng mga Lapu-lapu at Malong, ng mga Palaris at Sakay, ng mga Bonifacio at Evangelista, ng mga binyagang tumagibang sa “inaasahang” pagpapakuhulugan sa Pasiong Mahal batay sa eskatolohiyang Katoliko (Ileto), ng mga Huk na kipkip ang Pasion ding Talapagobra samantalang inaawit ang sariling pakikibaka (Maceda), ng mga komunistang may paninindigan para sa kapakanan ng obrero (Guillermo), ng mga babaeng nananalinghaga samantalang nakikipagkrus sa kasaysayan (Santos), at ang mga patuloy sa pag-akda ng bansa nang taliwas sa opisyal na kasaysayang ibig palaganapin ng pamahalaan, mula sa labas ng sentro, upang usigin ang mismong pagtatatag ng mga sentro bilang bayan, at pagkilala sa mga taga-sentro bilang tanging taga-bayan (Lumbera).

Ito siguro ang dahilan kaya’t hindi nakapagtatakang umusad mula sa realismo ng nobelisasyon ni Rizal tungong radikalisasyon ng mga akda sa pagdating ng mga Amerikano, gaya ng makikita sa Banaag at Sikat ni Lope K. Santos hanggang sa mga nobela nina Amado V. Hernandez at Lazaro Francisco (bagaman ayon Guillermo, higit umanong instrumento ng pasipikasyon kaysa radikal ang mga nobela ni Franciso, na kamakailan ay kinilala bilang National Artist), kahit pa nga sa mga magasing popular, kung tutuusin, nalathala ang marami sa mga iyon.

Dito nagiging mahalaga ang daynamiko ng tinatawag kong “sandali ng pagbabasa” lalo na sa kondisyon ng karamihan sa mga nobela sa atin na de-serye. Nasa sandali ng pagbabasa ang potensiyal ng pagwasak sa inaasahan na kritikal sa anyo ng nobela, sa kabila ng mukhang programatiko, de-kahon, at kasapakat ng kapitalistang oryentasyon ng popular na magasing kinasasadlakan ng mga ito. Kapag tiningnan natin ang aktuwal na produksiyon ng nobela sa Pilipinas, makikitang wala pang sampung bahagdan sa mga nobela sa bernakular ang unang nalathala bilang isa nang aklat. Dito lalong lumalawak ang dagat sa pagitan ng popular at akademikong konsumpsiyon ng mga texto. Samantalang sinusubaybayan ng nakararaming Pilipino ang mga nobela nina Constante Casabar at Hilaria Labog sa Liwayway at Bannawag noong bago ang digmaan at nina Rosario De Guzman Lingat at Benjamin Pascual matapos ang digmaan, hindi sila naiposisyon sa kanon ng panitikan hanggang nito na lamang magkaroon ng reebalwasyon sa kanilang papel sa kasaysayang pampanitikan, salamat sa mga pag-aaral na gaya ng ginawa nina Soledad S. Reyes sa kulturang popular, at sa paglalathala bilang aklat ng nobela ng gaya nina Lingat (Kung Wala na ang Tag-araw at Ano Ngayon, Ricky?), Pascual (Lalaki sa Dilim at Babaeng Misteryosa) at Casabar (Silang Nagigising sa Madaling-araw), lalo pa’t patuloy pa rin ang pagkiling ng akademya sa aklat kaysa sa ibang lathalaing gaya ng magasin. Binigyan din ni Reyes ng mahalagang puwang sa disertasyon niyang Nobelang Tagalog, 1905-1975 ang hindi matatalikurang papel ng magasin sa produksiyong pampanitikan ng bansa.

Tinatawag kong “sandali ng pagbabasa” ang lahat ng kumukondisyon sa produksiyon ng nobelang de-seryeng patuloy na nalalathala hanggang sa kasalukuyan, pangunahin sa Liwayway, Bannawag at Bisaya. Ang panahong umuusad ang unang sandali ng pagbabasa. Dahil de-serye ang nobela na nalalathala ang bawat bahagi linggo-linggo, may mga nobelang tumatagal nang ilang taon, tulad ng humigit-kumulang sa tatlong taon na serialisasyon ng Laro sa Baga, isa sa mga pinakamahabang nobelang naserye sa Liwayway noong dekada otsenta, ni Edgardo M. Reyes. Umuusad ang nobela kasabay ng pagbabago ng panahon, nagbabago ang kaligiran, nagbabago ang kondisyon ng mambabasa.

Isa sa mga una kong personal na nasundan sa Liwayway ang Laro sa Baga. Noong una, maaaring magkatambal ang gayuma at pagkabagabag sa akda ng pitong taong gulang kong kamalayan noon. Hindi ko itatanggi ngayong hindi ko pa naiintindihan noon ang marami sa mga dilemma ni Ding, ang pangunahing tauhan, na bunga ng pakikipagrelasyon niyang seksuwal sa iba’t ibang babae, mula sa kaniyang Ninang Carmen hanggang kay Dee. Naaakit lang siguro ako noon sa mga larawan ni Jun Lofamia sa mga tauhan na laging halos hubo’t hubad na siyang bubungad sa iyo sa isang pampamilyang magasin. Alam ko na noon na hindi ko pa dapat binabasa ang binabasa ko pero walang sumasaway sa akin sa bahay. Pero ang ako na pitong taon sa pagsisimula ng nobela ay malayo na sa sampung taon na nagbabasa pa rin sa nobela sa mga huling kabanata nito. Natuli na ako noon, higit na akong naging malay sa sarili kong katawan, at ginagawa ko na rin ang mga “kalokohang” mas maagang natutuhan ni Ding sa nobela noong bata pa siya.

Subalit dahil nakaangkla sa realismo ang karamihan sa mga nobela, sinasabayan din ng realismong ito ang aktuwal na pagbabago sa realidad: pagbabago ng presyo ng mga pinamimili sa palengke, ng pamasahe sa dyip, pagtukoy ng mga detalye sa kulturang popular (nanalong team sa PBA, balita sa TV, palabas na pelikula, dumating na kalamidad) bilang agarang references ng kinakathang realidad. Siyempre pa, hindi lamang ang mambabasa at ang realidad ang nagbabago, kundi ang manunulat mismo. Sa masinop na pagbasa sa mga nobela sa Pilipinas, napakahalagang isaalang-alang ang sandali ng pagbabasa bilang pagtugaygay din sa pagbabagong sikolohikal ng may-akda sa buong panahong inaakda niya ang nobela upang tayain kung paano nito naapektuhan ang sarili niyang mga pananaw, politika at kahit ang estilo sa pagkukuwento simula sa simula hanggang sa wakas.

Siyempre, malayo na ang Edgardo Reyes ng Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag sa Reyes ng Laro sa Baga. Samantalang dikta pa ng kritisismong panlipunang laganap sa mga akdang supling ng batas militar ang makikita sa serialisasyon ng Kuko noong dekada sitenta, higit namang personal ang krisis ng indibidwal na humaharap sa modernong mukha ng alyenasyon sa siyudad kung saan nagkubli na sa mga bagong anyo ang mga dating mukha ng pandarahas.

Samantala, ikalawang saysay ng “sandali ng pagbabasa” ang mismong espasyong pinaglalathalaan ng nobela, ang materyalidad ng magasin, na kung pananaligan ang ilang mga teoryang higit na saykoanalitikal ay maaaring nakaaapekto sa resepsiyon sa mismong akda. Ibang karanasan ang tuloy-tuloy na pagbuklat ng pahina ng isang nobela na nakaaklat. Kamakailan, lumikha rin ng malaking usapin sa sandali ng pagbabasa ang introduksiyon ng Amazon Kindle, isa sa mga itinuturing na pinakamalaking rebolusyon sa sistema ng pagbabasa nitong nagdaang mga taon. Subalit sa serialisasyon ng nobela sa magasin, binabasa ito kasalitan ng balitang pandaigdig at pambansa, balitang isports at showbiz, horoscope, jokes, puzzle, padalang liham ng mga kababayan natin mula sa ibang bansa, payong pangkalusugan, recipe, maiikling kuwento, ilang tula, teen-age love stories at kuwento ng kababalaghan na batay umano sa mga ipinadalang liham ng mambabasa, ilang artikulong pangkultura o pang-agham, nobelang komiks, tapusang komiks, print advertisement ng Pigrolac at iba pang produkto, samantalang nasa cover ang larawan ni Judy Ann Santos o iba pang artista.

Ito ang ikalawang realidad sa sandali ng pagbabasa ng de-seryeng nobela sa magasing tulad ng Liwayway: Nakikipag-agawan ito ng espasyo at atensiyon sa lahat ng iba pang textualidad na maiiimprenta sa pahina. Alin ang uunahin? Alin ang nilulusaw ng ano? Alin ang napatitingkad sa ganitong salimbayan ng mga texto? Nang pinag-aralan ko ang mga nalathalang nobela sa Liwayway sa loob ng dalawampung taon simula noong 1986 hanggang 2005, nakita kong may mga panahon kung kailan nasa mga unang pahina ang de-seryeng nobela at may mga panahon kung kailan pinapalitan ang unang pahina na iyon ng balitang kababalaghan. Kung aalalahanin ang malinaw na materyal na kondisyon ng magasin bilang isang produkto, at kung gayon ay hinuhubog sang-ayon sa ipinagpapalagay na panlasa ng konsyumer, masisipat ang isang uri ng daynamismo sa pagturing sa nobela at kuwentong kababalaghan bilang “mapagpapalit”—sa kabila ng “realismo” sa mahigit 90 porsiyento ng mga nobelang de-serye na iyon. At sa panig ng patnugutan at ng mismong tagapaglathala, gaano kahalaga ang mga nobelang ito kung ikukumpara sa lahat ng iba pang maaaring lamanin ng magasin? Bakit tatlong pahina ang karaniwang haba ng mga nobela ni Edgardo Reyes (Ang Mundong Ito ay Lupa, Babaeng Marupok… Makapangyarihan, Doon Po sa Amin), subalit isang spread lamang para sa iba pang manunulat, gaya nina Virgilio Blones at Evelyn Estrella?

Panghuli, maaaring tingnan ang “sandali ng pagbabasa” bilang siyang indicator mismo ng estetika ng natatanging anyo ng produksiyon ng karamihan sa mga nobela sa atin. Nabubuo rito ang pre-determinasyon ng nobela dahil sa ilang usapin: gaano kahaba ang buong serye (kay-ikli, kay sandali ng pagbabasa!), ilang labas? (sa Liwayway, si Reyes din ang may hawak ng rekord ng nobelang may pinakamaraming labas, ang Laro sa Baga nga, at gayundin naman ang pinakamaikling mini-nobela, ang Puto at Dinuguan, na limang isyu lang ang itinakbo ng kuwento), at sino ang nagdidikta nito, ang manunulat, ang editor, ang publisher, ang mambabasa?

Pero dahil din sa mismong materyal na kondisyon (kailangang subaybayan, kailangang kapanabikan, kailangang maalala ng mambabasa; ibig sabihin: kailangang may dahilan para patuloy na bilhin ang magasin), lumilikha ng mga istratehiyang kinasanayan (at maaaring sabihin, naikakahon) sa nobela. Halimbawa, naging karaniwan ang pambibitin ng eksena sa dulo ng bawat labas, na aakalain ng mambabasang importanteng pangyayari, na hindi naman pala ganoon kahalaga kapag nabasa na ang kasunod na labas. Sa pagsisimula naman, minsa’y may lagom o halos tuwirang pag-uulit ng huling eksena sa sinundang labas para ipaalala sa mambabasa kung saan naputol ang mga pangyayari. Nakabuti man o nakasama, malinaw na nahubog ang maraming nobela sa ganitong paraan, at nakaapekto rin sa halos isteryutipikal at de-kahong karakterisasyon (ang mga babaerong tauhan ni Pascual, halimbawa, sa Ibong Adorno at Makulit at Malikot), upang hindi na lumikha ng kumplikasyon sa pagpapaunawa sa mambabasa. Hindi ito naiiba, siyempre pa, sa kondisyon ng mga soap opera, na umaabot ng mahigit limang taon (gaya ng Mara Clara nina Judy Ann Santos at Gladys Reyes) o tinatapos na agad nang wala pang isang buwan (tulad ng Till Death Do Us Part nina Kristine Hermosa at Diether Ocampo), dahil sa usapin ng ratings at ng kakabit nitong airtime revenue mula sa sponsors.

Hanggang sa kasalukuyan, patuloy ang paglalathala ng tatlong nabanggit na magasin ng mga de-seryeng nobela at malinaw na mahalagang puwersa na kailangang isaalang-alang kung ibig maging makatarungan sa pagtatasa ng kalakaran ng nobela sa bansa, higit kung tutuusin sa mga gawad na tulad ng Palanca na dumarating lamang tuwing ikatlong taon sa wikang Filipino at Ingles lamang! Kahit ang ilang manunulat na lumikha na ng pangalan sa akademya ay pinasok din ito, gaya ng pagseserye muna ni Cirilo F. Bautista ng kaniyang Galaw ng Asoge sa Liwayway bago iyon inilathala ng UST Publishing House noong 2005.

Subalit ang sabihin na iyon lamang ang namamayani at tunguhin ng nobela sa kasalukuyan ay isa rin namang kawalang-katarungan sa aktibong produksiyon ng marami ring kabataang may pagkadismaya rin sa mismong formulaic na produksiyon ng mga texto sa Liwayway. Noong nagdaang taon, ginulat ni Ricky Lee ang marami sa paglalathala ng una niyang nobela, isa sa mga belated na pangyayari sa panitikan, lalo pa’t napagtibay na ang posisyon ni Lee sa kasaysayang ito simula pa noong panahon ng Sigwa. Kung tutuusin, kahit sa kaniyang mga kuwento at sanaysay, isa na sa mga unang nagpakilala ng istratehiyang postmoderno sa panitikan si Lee, na isinulong niya rito sa nobelang Para Kay B (O Kung Paano Dinevastate ng Pag-ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa Atin). Makikita rito ang matinding pagkadismaya mismo sa katiyakan ng mga naratibo sa mga simula at wakas nito, kaya sa dulo’y biglang tila mag-aalsa-balutan ang mga tauhan upang humingi ng rekonsiderasyon sa kanilang kuwento. Maaaring naimpluwensiyahan ang paglalarong ito ni Lee ng exposure niya mismo sa mass media, lalo na sa TV, bilang creative consultant ng ABS-CBN sa mga teleserye nito. Sinabi ni Lee na nagpahinga siya sa pagsusulat sa telebisyon nang tatlong taon at nagsulat lang siya nang nagsulat ng nobela, ang una’t totoong mahal niya. Nakatapos siya ng tatlo. Nagkaroon siya ng patikim sa ikalawang nobela, ang Aswang, na batay sa ilang pahinang nalathala na ay mukhang mas kamangha-mangha ang pagpapatawa: dahil gaya ng sinimulan ni Rabelais at Cervantes, na minana nina Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose at Foucault’s Pendulum) at Kundera (The Joke at The Book of Laughter and Forgetting), pagtawa ang isa sa mga manipestasyon ng pagkadismaya, ang pagtawa bilang isa sa mga huling instrumento ng tao sa harap ng patuloy na pagguho ng lahat ng maaari niyang panaligan. Kaya siguro nananatiling buhay sina Pilandok, Juan Pusong at Mariang Kalabasa sa mga Boy Bastos at Inday Jokes, kung bakit mga aklat ni Bob Ong ang bestseller sa kasalukuyan, kung bakit humahataw ang hits at tadtad ng comments ang bawat entri sa Hay! Men! o inaabangan ang hagalpakan sa performatibong paglalahad ng mga texto ni Yol Jamendang sa mga kampus at bar.

Dahil nga kamakailan lamang naglabas ng nobela si Lee, bagama’t kapanahon siya nina Jun Cruz Reyes at Lualhati Bautista, mas malalim ang naipundar ng dalawang nahuli, sa isang banda, sa paghubog ng estetika ng nobela sa sensibilidad ng mga kontemporanyong manunulat. Maliban sa holy trinity ni Bautista na ‘Gapo, Dekada ’70 at Bata, Bata… Pa’no Ka Ginawa?, kamakailan ay naglabas din siya ng pinakabago niyang nobela, ang Desaparesidos. Ang madilim na daigdig ni Bautista (bagaman may pag-asa, may pag-asa pa rin naman) ang mamanahin pa rin ng ilan sa mga manunulat.

Si Jun Cruz Reyes naman ang kikilalaning mentor ng marami sa mga batang nobelista, sa bisa ng pang-uuyam at pagpapatawa (bagaman malungkot din, ang konsepto niya mismo ng “galak at lumbay” na humuhubog sa malikhaing predisposisyon umano ng mga Pilipinong alagad ng sining) ng mga binatilyo niyang tauhan mula sa “Utos ng Hari” hanggang Etsa-puwera. Nauna ang mga nobela ni Norman Wilwayco, ang kung paano ko inayos ang buhok ko matapos ang mahaba-haba ring paglalakbay at Gerilya bilang post-milenyum na extensiyon ng pagkadismaya ni Reyes. Bagaman iisa ang tauhan ni Wilwayco sa dalawang nobela, si Tony De Guzman, makikita ang iniusad ng politika ng batang nobelista. Sa paglalakbay, higit pang personal ang tugon ni Tony sa pambabaliw sa kaniya ng global na realidad ng paggawa (nagtatrabaho siya sa isang IT company): siya ang nagdulot ng pag-crash ng buong sistema na literal na nagpasuweldo sa kaniya noong simula, ngunit nag-alis din naman ng trabaho sa kaniya noong huli. Subalit pagdating sa Gerilya, makikitang higit nang sinisiyasat ni Wilwayco ang bisa ng kolektibong pagkilos bilang tugon sa sistemikong pandarahas. Naroon na si Tony de Guzman kasama ang iniibig niyang si Maya bilang mga kasapi ng kilusan.

Maliban kay Wilwayco, nakapaglathala rin ng mga aklat sina Zosimo Quibilan, Jr. (Pagluwas), Eros Atalia (Peksman, Mamatay Ka Man, Nagsisinungaling Ako), at T.S. Sungkit, Jr. (Batbat hi Udan) na ang nobelisasyon ay nasa mismong potensiyal ng misrekognisyon sa kanila bilang nobela. Koleksiyon ng vignette ang aklat ni Quibilan subalit humahabi sa wakas ng lahat ng isang mas malawakang bisyong nobelistiko. Samantala’y halos eseyistiko (at binansagan pa ni Jun Cruz Reyes na “mahabang dagli”) ang akda ni Atalia subalit ang mismong mala-sanaysay na istratehiya ay maaaring basahin bilang isang uri ng pagkadismaya sa mga inaasahan sa kung ano ang naghahati sa mga anyo, o kung bakit ba hindi pa rin winawasak ang kasagraduhan ng kombensiyon ng mga anyo, tulad ng paggamit naman ni Sungkit sa mga pamamaraan ng epiko sa kaniyang nobela. Sa harap ng mga ito, sinabi ni Conchitina Cruz sa isang panayam kamakailan na “koleksiyon ng sanaysay ang susunod niyang aklat ng tula.” Hindi ba’t naroon sa mga ganoong pagwasak sa inaasahang mga kategorya ang espiritu ng nobela, ng mismong nobelisasyon? Subalit simula pa nga lamang ang mga ito, marami pang kailangang patunguhan ang pagkadismaya, hanggang sa mismong problematisasyon ng ikatlong daigdig bilang kategorya’t paglalagom ng realidad natin na lubhang imperyalistiko pa rin ang tanaw (mula sa labas, ng tagalabas).

Mabuti’t marami-rami pa ring proyektong naghihintay pa ng paglalathala sa kasalukuyan na malalaki ang pangako na magpapatuloy sa hindi pagpapanatag hindi lamang sa kalakaran ng produksiyon ng nobela sa bansa, kundi mismong sa kalagayang intelektuwal ng bansa. Katatapos ni Allan Derain sa kaniyang M.A. Tesis na isa ring nobela, ang ang banal na aklat ng mga kumag. Tinatapos ni Alvin B. Yapan ang rebisyon ng ikalawa niyang nobela, ang kasunod ng Ang Sandali ng mga Mata na nalathala noong 2006, ang Sambahin ang Katawan. Naghihintay naman ng publikasyon ang mga nobela nina Mes De Guzman (Dyanggo Rancho), German Gervacio (Hari Manawari) at Genevieve Asenjo (Ang Lumbay ng Dila). Sa darating na taon ay isasalang sa palihan ng Naratibo ang nobela ng mandudulang si Rogelio Braga, isang Muslim na naninirahan at nagtatrabaho na ngayon sa Cebu.

Nitong nagdaang Pebrero, nagbigay ako ng panayam ukol sa relasyon ng nobela at tula, sa pagdiriwang ng Pinoypoets ng kanilang ikalimang taon. Doon ko inilatag ang personal kong kondisyon ng pagsusulat ng nobela (Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog) bilang manunulat na nauna nang nakapagpalathala ng aklat ng tula (Pag-aabang sa Kundiman: Isang Tulambuhay). Sa huli, ito sa palagay ko ang kondisyong humuhubog sa personal kong pagmamalay sa estetika at pakikitalad sa harap ng produksiyon ng nobela, hindi na lamang dito sa Pilipinas, kundi maging sa daigdig, lalo pa’t napakabilis na ng pagsasalin ng mga akda mula sa ibang wika patungo sa Ingles, at ang paglalathala sa mga ito at ang pagdating ng kopya sa Pilipinas, sa pamamagitan man ng Amazon o Fully Booked o Booksale. Nananatiling posturang gitnang-uri ang ganitong pagdanas ng konsumpsiyong intelektuwal ng produksiyon mula sa ibang bayan, subalit isang realidad na hindi basta-basta maitatatwa at maaaring pagpikitan ng mata. Sa panayam, na dinaluhan ng mga indibidwal, karamiha’y kabataan ding manunulat, na may sari-sarili nilang pakikiharap sa hamon ng pagkatha sa kasalukuyan, sinimulan kong pagmunian kung paanong niloloob ng nobela ang tula, at napakahalaga ng ganitong asersiyon bilang pundasyon ng magkasabay na pagkilala at di-pagtanggap sa hating ibinibigay sa mga produksiyong textual.

Binuksan ko roon ang tanong: Kailangan bang pumili ng anyo? Nakikita ko ang sarili ko, halimbawa, na pipiliing pumili sa pagitan ng tula at nobela sa hinaharap, sa simpleng dahilan sa bawat araw ay dumarami nang dumarami ang ibig kong isulat (kailangang tumugon; kailangang magpasimula) at kasabay noon ay hindi naman humahaba ang buhay ko para gawin ang mga iyon. Kahit sa nobela ko’y sinabi ng pangunahing tauhan na si Daniel na ayaw niyang tumula, na hindi siya magiging makata, ibig kong ipakita na sa daigdig na ito, may mga taong patuloy na naiisip ang tula, nananaginip ng pagtula, na may tula nga, na opsyon ang pagmamakata. Na sa isang bayan na pinipilihan ang rasyon ng bigas, rasyon ng tubig, pagtaya sa lotto, may nangangarap pa rin ng sining, ng tula. Na hindi kontraryong realidad ang mga iyon.

Subalit nobela ang pipiliin kong isulat, kung sakali, dahil sa daigdig natin ng prosa, lalong nagiging mahalaga ang nobela sapagkat sa kinathang daigdig na ito ng tuluyan, na mas hindi pangingimiang pasukin ng karaniwang mambabasa, iyong mga wala nang panahon dahil pipiliing manood ng In My Life o Kimmy Dora, sa sinehan o pirated dvd, kaysa bumili o magpaphotocopy ng mga nobela namin, naipaaalala ang pangangailangan ng tula, kung bakit kasintanda halos ng sibilisasyon ng tao ang pagtula. Na kung ang nobela ay isang pagsisiyasat sa kondisyon ng pagiging tao, malaking bahagi nito ay isang pagsisiyasat sa relasyon ng tao sa tunog, sa larawan, sa salita, sa signifikasyon ng mga bagay, ng kaniyang daigdig, sa kaniyang sining, sa tula. Walang anyong pampanitikan na pumapatay sa isa pang anyo. Mayroon lamang umaalala sa dati, hindi nakalilimot, niloloob. Niloloob ng nobela ang tula upang kilalanin mula rito ang sarili niyang pagkahumaling sa salita, at pagnanasang magsalita tungkol sa daigdig, makipag-usap sa daigdig. Upang ipaalala sa mundo na sa loob ng nobela, sa ating bayan, sa ating daigdig, may linya, may saknong, may tula, patuloy na may mga pinipiling magmakata: may hindi basta-basta nilulunod ng tuluyan, may hindi basta-basta nalulunod nang tuluyan.

Naroon ang ubod ng sarili kong pagkadismaya at pagwasak. Sino nga ba ang may pakialam pa sa lahat ng ito, sa lahat ng inurirat ko’t inilatag para sa kasiyahan ng akademya, dahil sa akademisasyon ng panitikan, at ng pagkatha, at ng pagiging malikhain? Dahil wala, nasa gilid na lamang ang panitikan ng interes ng nakararami na nalululong sa bisyo ng telebisyon at internet at iba pang adiksiyon, o kubkob pa rin ng trabahong pinapatay na rin ang diwa upang makapag-isip pa o makaharap sa mga bagay na magtutulak sa atin para mag-isip pa nga. Patuloy ang aking pagkadismaya, at pagkadismaya ng iba pang kahenerasyon ko (nawa) na patuloy na tatangayin sa kawalang-kapanatagan ang kasaysayan na ito ng ating panitikan at bayang kumbakit kaydaling inibig at pinag-ukulan natin ng pagtingin.

*This is a longer version of the paper I read at the PEN National Conference held last December 5, 2009 in CCP. An earlier version of this was also my Ph.D. comprehensive exam response to the questions given by Dr. Teresita G. Maceda of UP Diliman last September 23, 2009.

The New Atisan

2010-12-31T18:17:00.005+08:00

4 December 2010, Cebu City. Photo taken by G. L. Asenjo.

New year, new directions.

During the Philippine PEN International Literary Conference held in Cebu City last December 4-5, 2010, I went to Fort San Pedro with novelist Genevieve L. Asenjo. In between poses for her DSLR, we talked about our literary projects and shared our views on the future of Philippine literature. During that time, she just launched her online site, Balay Sugidanun, while the old Atisan Novels had been in hiatus for almost two months, with not much update for almost half a year.

I told her of how conflicted I was with what I wanted to do with this site, which was reflected in its cycle of active-inactive days, and perennial language and tone shifts. I knew I wanted it to host my readings and thoughts on the novel--but the idea was not solid enough for it to sustain my interest. Most of the novels I read are foreign titles, but there was always this bugging thought: why do I have to write about them online when thousands of other bloggers from all over the world already do--and I surely don't want to duplicate what one of my favorite sites, the Complete Review, is doing to an impressive number of international novels on a regular basis.

So should I focus on the Filipino novels, then? Being also a novelist, it seemed natural and controversial at the same time to talk about what other Filipino novelists are doing. Besides, there's this other project I initiated, Tapat--a journal of the Filipino novel that should have come out in 2010 but didn't, for many reasons, but is still pushing through this coming year despite all the setbacks. The journal was conceived in order to add to publishing opportunities for writers of the novel in Filipino; what do I intend to contribute with this blog?

My conversation with Bevs opened the possibility of making this a resource site--a site that will include biographies of Filipino novelists, interviews on the craft of novel-writing, summaries and resources on novels, translations of selected novel chapters in Filipino to English, comprehensive bibliographies of secondary materials, and once in a while, my essays on the novel. Quite ambitious, I admit. To make it more manageable, I intend to begin with novelists with only a novel published to date. From there, I'll work my way to the ones with two novels published, and so on, until I reach the likes of Edgardo M. Reyes and Lualhati Bautista who began writing decades ago and continue to publish up to the present.

Being a writer in Filipino, there was naturally the desire to contribute to the online use of Filipino language via this blog, but the opportunity to introduce Filipino novels and novelists to readers from all over over the world weighed far heavier. That explains the choice of language. I will still occasionally post in Filipino, however--mostly essays I wrote for other publications or lectures I delivered somewhere else, so that they also become available to many other readers.

I will try to update as regularly as possible; I'm targeting a new material on the site at least every three days, fingers crossed. Happy new year!

Broken Record

2010-10-17T08:41:00.000+08:00

I promised to write, but I also warned you about my track record with regard to promises I made online. But I did write, only not here--I've been constantly updating on my IWP experiences in my Facebook, along with some photos.

Since this is supposed to be a blog about novels, I'd just like to share that the biggest surprise for me during my first week here in the US was the libraries themselves: the Iowa City Public Library is just across a public market and the University of Iowa Main Library, which provided all of us writers in residence access, is open until 2 AM on weekdays and we're allowed to borrow up to 999 books at a time. The books were overwhelming; I decided to go first with the writers I long wanted to devour but whose books were not all readily available in Philippine bookstores and libraries.

On my first borrowing visit to the UI Main Lib, I brought 13 books back with me to the Iowa House Hotel, where we're staying, including these six books by Bolaño, which were the first I consumed with childish delight:

I know Nazi Literature in the Americas was already available in the Philippines in National Bookstore branches before I left in August, but I was not able to buy a copy, and I needed to read it in order to compare its last chapter with Distant Star--which is an extended reimagination of that chapter. I wanted to write my thoughts about these books here but most of them were already included in my drafts for the introduction of my Ph.D. dissertation, which I've been hardly working on for weeks now. I'm sorry I can't share them now.

As soon as we were given our VISA debit cards during our second week here, I bought a Kindle in Amazon. You know how much I loved the smell of paper in books we read and couldn't buy; I was honestly having withdrawal symptoms the first few days, but thought it might not be so different for writers who were amidst the transition from typewriters to computer (which I witnessed, but was probably too young, not yet in love with the written words, to care). I began reading via Kindle with China Mieville's The City & The City--a novel about two cities that exist in the same space but in different realms, and so the people from each city were taught early on to "unsee" the other city, otherwise they commit their highest crime of breach. I did not get to finish the book because it was in PDF and I decided later to read only the books that are actually released as ebooks (mostly with .mobi extensions), and now I sadly can't find a free copy of that novel in mobi/prc/epub. (If you do, it wouldn't hurt to share it with me, I guess.)

So I finally found the excuse to read David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, the first book I finished in Kindle. It was not Mitchell's best for me but the part where Jacob helplessly had to leave his son in Japan in the end had the madness & sadness of lyricism whose addressee was not present, would never be embraced. I loved Mitchell's earlier novels, even the autobiographical and--compared to the first three--plain Black Swan Green, and so reading this one felt like being patient with, and understanding of, the youngest sibling of your best friends.

I intend to write a separate entry on the Thousand Autumns, like a did to each novel I read in the past, but I'm still considering the way to go about it here, in this blog, that will feel right to me. Somehow, after several entries on different novels, I still feel that there's something lacking, there's something I'm not doing right, that's why I keep on having this periodic hibernation, even if I haven't really stopped reading.

And so expect another period of silence, and then, if I'm lucky enough, a significant change here.

I Will Not Sleep Tonight

2010-08-27T20:55:00.003+08:00

In the next three months, I will try to blog about my International Writing Program experience as much as I can. (But readers of this blog must know that I've never been very good with virtual promises.) Tonight I will not sleep, because my flight is at 6:30 AM tomorrow, and Ruel Panganiban, a friend from way back to my X-101 years, promised to bring me to the airport at 3:00 AM. He'll arrive here, with probably two or three of our other former dorm mates, at a little past midnight. I need not sleep tonight.

I haven't even begun packing yet, thinking that it will not take me an hour to finish everything. I only need to put my clothes in the travel bags, anyway, and I'm ready to go. And what else will I bring with me? Of course: vitamins, common medicines, toiletries and personal effects. But also: copies of my books (thanks to Anvil for providing me with copies of Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog; in case you haven't heard, they recently had a second printing of my novel--only a year after its release! people are actually buying the book!--and the quality of the paper is much better than the 2009 edition), and some of the anthologies I edited, or where my works had been published, including Lámang (special thanks to Gian Abrahan of LIRA for working to give me a few copies of the chapbook).

I also intend to bring Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet to accompany me at the airport and during the flight. This book Allan Derain gave to me in exchange for Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary, which I got from Booksale for PhP 40.00 a few years ago. I long wanted to read Pessoa, but could not find any of his books anywhere. I'm lucky that Allan had this unfinished masterpiece and that I also had the book he wanted. I began reading The Book of Disquiet this afternoon at the US Embassy, while waiting for Ian and Jenny for our final briefing. It promised to be the book I wanted it to be: tender and disquieting, something that will rob me of my sleep.

I Was Reading

2010-08-23T13:01:00.000+08:00

17 July 2010 in Panukulan, Polillo, Quezon.

I never stopped reading. If you were my Facebook friend, you knew that I was alive and just did not have the time to post updates here. And that I was reading.

I finished several titles in between work on my second novel (Sa Kasunod ng 909) and my dissertation's introduction: Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado, Gina Apostol's The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata and Bibliolepsy, Alfred A. Yuson's Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe, Colm Tóibín's The Master, Karel Čapek's War with the Newts, Paul Auster's Man in the Dark, and all of Bob Ong's books (finally!) except for Kapitan Sino, which I haven't bought yet. I also re-read Ambeth R. Ocampo's Makamisa: The Search for Rizal's Third Novel (triggered, of course, by the closing sections of Apostol's Raymundo Mata), and began reading the first volume of The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, newly released by Penguin Classics, with new translations by Malcom C. Lyons. I might find time to write about my thoughts on them in the future. (I obviously didn't include here exclusively non-fiction works; most of them I read as research materials for things I'm working on right now.)

There had been other things that kept me busy, literary-wise: I wrote two introductions to two poetry books--a chapbook anthology for LIRA's 25th year, and Francisco Monteseña's first book, which was part of the UBOD New Authors Series II; I sat as panelist in the 16th Ateneo Heights Writers Workshop; I moderated the discussions among novelists Alvin B. Yapan, Genevieve L. Asenjo and Jun Cruz Reyes as part of Ateneo's Buwan ng Wika celebrations; I was also asked to judge the Timpalak Tula this year; I worked on 12 chapters for the new edition of a high school textbook on Asian Literatures; I was asked to be AILAP's next Director (it doesn't sink in yet, even if I'm now still working on the proposal for next year's Ateneo National Writers Workshop); I proofread Jun Cruz Reyes' latest novel to be released by Anvil this year; I was asked to sit as reader for two graduate creative writing theses; and to top it all, I was accepted for residency in this year's International Writing Program by the University of Iowa.

Yes, I'd be leaving the country this Saturday and won't be back until mid-November. Because of this, some things were necessarily put on hold: the release of Tapat's inaugural issue, my dissertation defense, the outline of a third novel, the revisions for the second poetry collection.

Now don't ask me what I'd been doing that were not literary at all. I might say I went to the beach (in Nagsasa, Botolan, Polilio) with friends from the X101, Kagawaran, and JHNS, respectively--or that I learned how to drive, got my driver's license, bought a secondhand car, and went to road trips with high school friends. But really, I was only deeply in love with someone that I chose to just read more and more.

And in case you want to know, this is my latest Facebook status:

Edgar Samar spent his last weekend in the Philippiness before the International Writing Program writing messages to people he'd miss--all of them friends, in one way or another, some past loves, others former students, or mentors, or dorm roommates, a few fellow writers, favorite cousins, childhood neighbors, grade school seatmates, high school barkada, JHNamers, & even those who began only as readers of his works, as if it was a real goodbye, as if the trip wasn't only for 3 months, as if he was not missing them, missed them, already, as if he could send all those letters for real.

I did send some of those letters.

Ilustrado (2010)

2010-04-16T15:23:00.003+08:00

1. There was never a much anticipated release of a Filipino novel in recent years, even within the Manila-centric literary community, until Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008 and was eventually picked up by major international publishing houses. Reviews were written even before its publication, and I know some people already formed opinions about the novel even before they saw the book (and not the early drafts that Syjuco entered in the Palanca & Man, which by their very nature were tentative, subject to revisions, revisions which Syjuco claimed to have agonized with in the months between the prizes and its publication early this year). This anticipation is somewhat akin to what The Bridges Ablaze had--the novel in question in Ilustrado, supposedly the final book written by Crispin Salvador who was found dead in the Hudson River. The Bridges Ablaze aimed to echo the dream of Rizal's Noli: to uncover the country's social malaise. In a speech before his death, Salvador declared that, "Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world. ... Your grievances with me are because you say I have failed. Though I only failed because I extended myself further than what any of you ever attempted."

2. I sadly missed the lectures that Syjuco gave (in Ateneo & at the Filipinas Heritage Library) when he launched the books in the Philippines, but I made sure to grab myself a copy of the Philippine edition by FSG at the National Bookstore the other day. The book is prologued by the fictive Miguel Syjuco who used an equally fictive epigraph from a newspaper, the content of which set the novel's thematic gravitas: death, home/country, name, remembrance. The mention of Crispin's own Dulcinea paid homage to the novel form's comic beginnings, that was further developed when Syjuco introduced Erning Isip, the trickster-hero of popular Filipino jokes ("our true shared history," Salvador claimed), as character. There was a one-sentence paragraph in Syjuco's prologue that suggests he might have seen Salvador dying, if he was not directly involved nor complicit to his mentor's death at all.

3. The first few pages recalled a famous statement from one of Donald Barthelme's stories: "Fragments are the only forms I trust." Excerpts from a biography in progress, blog entries, interviews, sections of Salvador's previous works intervened with the character Syjuco's narrative of his own return to the Philippines (in order, probably, to run away from "the toothlessness of exile")--but Syjuco paradoxically presented his choice of fragments here that become suspect. The character Syjuco is also a writer who wanted to "talk about things that go untalked about," much to his family's disappointment. His digest of Manila as history & geography, of its development & stasis, upon his airplane's landing showed Syjuco the novelist's aesthetic concentration & power.

Everything changes, nothing ends. The character Syjuco said that this was Ovid's aphorism that Salvador shared with him--the words of another being passed on as an act that is potentially endless in itself, especially now that Syjuco just also shared it with us.

Even from the start, it was clear that I was holding a metabook. I wondered if the book could ever regain its "unconsciousness of itself," when the form would not speak for/of itself. It is the kind of amnesia that might surprise & excite me as a reader in the novel's post-postmodern era, or whatever we might call this age of writing that Syjuco's Ilustrado somewhat anticipates.

4. Miguel the narrator, also called our protagonist in the italicized third-person narrations of his story, grew up in a "modern, ancestral home" they called Ourtopia, which pushed him to take "simple acts pertaining to movement, to locating [himself] in the world." This constant movement would eventually lead him out of the country, making him awkwardly unable to reply when someone asked him, "How can you write about the Philippines?" Miguel, in the third person, thinks in another section that "the thing is to write a straight narrative. Go back to basics. Emulate A Passage to India." This is clearly to question the very nature of Ilustrado itself, self-mockery being sometimes a byproduct of self-consciousness that characterized postmodern novels: the hope that political questions can sometimes be addressed by formal decisions in art.

5. Young Miguel's introduction to Filipino writers in English such as Nick Joaquin, Gregorio Brillantes and Paz Marquez Benitez, became a way for the world (thanks to the guaranteed international readers of Ilustrado) to acquaint itself of this country's much-neglected body of works. Years later when Miguel went back to the Philippines he saw the literati of his country as "the merry, mellowed, stalwartly middle-class practitioners of the luxury of literature in the language of the privilege." These are the same people who would dismiss each of Salvador's works in a word: it was either elitist, Manila-centric, provincial, polemical, to name a few. Sometimes in our hypocrisy our imagination of the center is not even in the margins of the world's consciousness. In a long section where Miguel changed channels one after another, we were made to realize how texts come as assault, even those images that wanted to be modern archetypes of personae that populate the contemporary Filipino imagination: the religious leader (Reverend Martin), the hero/antihero (Lakandula), and the actress-mistress (Vita Nova).

6. Miguel's introduction to Crispin Salvador's works was through the latter's "One Stone for Two Birds" where the protagonist was named Miguel by coincidence. These incidents of name-mirrors in texts being written and read became the novels motif on questions of identity vis-a-vis fictionality. When we were allowed to read from excerpts of Salvador's works, we knew that these "interruptions" act as foils--that we did not have to read them for themselves but for the way they created harmony or acted as counterpoints to the "real" narrative. Every main character in those works was either a Salvador or a Syjuco.

In the end of Chapter 6, after Miguel's dream of Salvador writing the former's story, their positions as subject and writer being confused, conflicted, which by now became almost the novel's habit, Miguel recounted his long walk by the river of Salvador's death. It was quite a determined mentor-mentee moment where Salvador shared his thoughts on writing, the nation, and the past, where the call is "to change the country by changing its representation." Of course, it somehow foreshadowed the book's major turn in the end, which made me think how Syjuco's project would have been different if we knew it all along, if it was not presented as a last narrative trick. Perhaps I was just worried that conversations about the book would only revolve ultimately on Syjuco's decision to have that twist (which I won't say what; you have to finish the book yourself), diluting the gravity of its concerns content-wise.

Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read

2010-02-22T11:33:00.003+08:00

Last year Guardian ran a series called 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read, and divided the installments according to themes: Love, Crime, Comedy, Family & Self, Science Fiction & Fantasy, War & Travel, and State of the Nation. Later they added a few more titles in a series they called The Ones That Got Away, which was supposedly the readers' recuperation to the editors' oversights. I combined the two lists and arranged the titles according to author's first name. The ones that got away are marked with an asterisk after the year of publication.

As you can see, the combined list does not even reach a thousand. I double-checked and found out that the titles in their installments do not perfectly correspond to the ones in their "definitive list." For instance, Virginia Woolf was not in the Family & Self installment, certainly a major slip, but was later in their definitive list. This is, needless to say, not their definitive list. Titles read in Atisan Novels are linked.

A Sivanandan: When Memory Dies (1997)*
Abbé Prévost: Manon Lescaut (1731)
Ahdaf Soueif: The Map of Love (1999)
AG Macdonnell: England, Their England (1933)
AL Kennedy: Day (2007)
Alain-René Lesage: Gil Blas (L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane) (1715- 1735)
Alan Bennett: The Uncommon Reader (2007)
Alan Furst: Night Soldiers (1988)*
Alan Garner: Red Shift (1973)
Alan Hollinghurst: The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: Watchmen (1986-87)*
Alan Paton: Cry, The Beloved Country (1948)
Alan Warner: Morvern Callar (1995)
Alasdair Gray: Lanark (1981)
Alastair Maclean: The Guns of Navarone (1957)
Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (2000)
Albert Camus: The Plague (1947)
Albert Cohen: Belle du Seigneur (1968)*
Alberto Moravia: The Time of Indi?erence (1929)
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (1932)
Aldous Huxley: Crome Yellow (1921)
Aldous Huxley: Island (1962)*
Alejo Carpentier: The Kingdom of This World (1949)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
Alessandro Manzoni: The Betrothed (1827)
Alex Chance: The Final Days (2008)*
Alex Garland: The Beach (1996)
Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-45)
Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers (1844)
Alfred Bester: The Stars My Destination (1956)
Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929)
Alfred Hayes: In Love (1953)*
Algis Budrys: Rogue Moon (1960)
Alice Munro: Who Do You Think You Are? (1978)
Alice Walker: The Color Purple (1982)
Alison Lurie: Foreign Affairs (1984)
Alison Macleod: The Wave Theory of Angels (2005)*
Amin Maalouf: Samarkand (1989)
Anaïs Nin: Delta of Venus (1978)
André Brink: A Dry White Season (1979)
André Gide: Strait Is the Gate (1909)
André Gide: The Counterfeiters (1925)
André Gide: The Immoralist (1902)
André Malraux: La Condition Humaine (1933)
Andrew O'Hagan: Personality (2003)
Andrew Miller: Ingenious Pain (1997)
Andrey Kurkov: Death and the Penguin (1996)
Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984)
Angela Carter: Wise Children (1991)
Angela Thirkell: Before Lunch (1939)
Angela Thirkell: Trooper to the Southern Cross (1934)*
Angus Wilson: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956)
Anita Brookner: Look at Me (1983)
Anita Loos: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925)
Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Anna Sewell: Black Beauty (1877)
Anne Enright: The Gathering (2007)
Anne Tyler: Breathing Lessons (1988)
Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist (1985)
Annie Proulx: The Shipping News (1993)
Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929)
Anthony Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1960)
Anthony Burgess: Earthly Powers (1980)
Anthony Burgess: The End of the World News (1982)
Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda (1894)
Anthony Powell: Afternoon Men (1931)
Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers (1857)
Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)
Anthony Trollope: The Way We Live Now (1875)
Antoine de Sainte-Exupéry: The Little Prince (1943)
Antonia White: Frost in May (1933)
Aphra Behn: Oroonoko or The Royal Slave (1688)
Armistead Maupin: Tales of the City (1978)
Arnaldur Indridason: Silence of the Grave (2001)
Arnold Bennett: Clayhanger (1910)
Arnold Bennett: Riceyman Steps (1923)*
Arnold Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale (1908)
Art Spiegelman: Maus: A Survivor's Tale (1973-1991)
Arthur C Clarke: Childhood's End (1953)
Arthur Koestler: Darkness at Noon (1940)
Arundhati Roy: The God of Small Things (1997)
AS Byatt: Possession (1990)
AS Byatt: The Virgin in the Garden (1978)
Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife (2003)
August Strindberg: The Red Room (1879)
Bao Ninh: The Sorrow of War (1994)
Barbara Kingsolver: The Poisonwood Bible (1998)*
Barbara Pym: Excellent Women (1952)
Barbara Pym: Less Than Angels (1955)
Barbara Vine: A Dark-Adapted Eye (1986)
Barbara Vine: A Fatal Inversion (1987)
Barbara Vine: King Solomon's Carpet (1991)
Baroness Emmuska Orczy: The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905)
Barry Hines: A Kestrel for a Knave (1968)
Ben Okri: The Famished Road (1991)
Benjamin Disraeli: Sybil or The Two Nations (1845)
Bernard Cornwell: Sharpe's Eagle (1981)
Bernard Malamud: The Assistant (1957)
Bernhard Schlink: The Reader (1995)
Bernice Rubens: I Sent a Letter to My Love (1975)*
Beryl Bainbridge: According to Queeney (2001)
Beryl Bainbridge: Master Georgie (1998)
Beryl Bainbridge: The Bottle Factory Outing (1974)
Bibhutibhishan Banerji: Pather Panchali (1929)*
Bohumil Hrabal: I Served the King of England (1983)
Booth Tarkington: Penrod (1914)
Booth Tarkington: The Magnificent Ambersons (1918)
Boris Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Bram Stoker: Dracula (1897)
Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho (1991)
Brian Moore: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955)
Brian W Aldiss: Non-Stop (1958)
BS Johnson: The Unfortunates (1969)
Carl Hiaasen: Tourist Season (1986)
Carol Shields: Unless (2002)
Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
Carson McCullers: The Member of the Wedding (1946)
Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon: No Bed for Bacon (1941)
Cees Nooteboom: All Souls Day (1999)
Cesare Pavese: The Moon and the Bonfire (1949)
Chaim Potok: My Name is Asher Lev (1972)
Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
Charles Dickens: Bleak House (1852-53)
Charles Dickens: David Copperfield (1849-50)*
Charles Dickens: Dombey and Son (1848)
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1861)
Charles Dickens: Hard Times (1854)
Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit (1855-57)
Charles Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)
Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist (1838)
Charles Dickens: The Pickwick Papers (1837)
Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain (1997)
Charles Maturin: Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)
Charles Portis: True Grit (1968)*
Charles Simmons: Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel (1987)
Charles Webb: The Graduate (1963)
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre (1847)
Charlotte Brontë: Shirley (1849)
Charlotte Brontë: Villette (1853)
Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Daisy Chain (1856)*
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Herland (1915)
Chester Himes: A Rage in Harlem (1957)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Half of a Yellow Sun (2006)*
China Miéville: The Scar (2002)
Christina Stead: The Man Who Loved Children (1940)
Christopher Isherwood: Goodbye to Berlin (1939)
Christopher Isherwood: Mr Norris Changes Trains (1935)
Christopher Priest: The Prestige (1995)
Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club (1996)
CJ Sansom: Dissolution (2003)
Clarice Lispector: Near to the Wild Heart (1990)*
Clive Barker: Weaveworld (1987)
Colette: The Vagabond (1910)
Colin Dexter: Last Seen Wearing (1976)
Colin Dexter: The Remorseful Day (1999)
Colin MacInnes: Absolute Beginners (1959)
Colm Tóibín: The Blackwater Lightship (1999)
Compton Mackenzie: Whisky Galore (1947)
Cora Sandel: Alberta and Jacob (1926)
Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses (1992)
Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian (1985)
Cormac McCarthy: No Country for Old Men (2005)
Cormac McCarthy: The Road (2006)
CS Forester: The African Queen (1935)
CT Rawi Hage: De Niro's Game (2006)
Dacia Maraini: The Silent Duchess (1990)
Dan Simmons: Hyperion (1989)
Daniel Defoe: A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)*
Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders (1722)
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Daniel Defoe: Roxana (1724)
Daniel Keyes: Flowers for Algernon (1966)
Daphne du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel (1951)
Daphne du Maurier: Rebecca (1938)
Daphne du Maurier: The Parasites (1949)
Dashiell Hammett: Red Harvest (1929)
Dashiell Hammett: The Glass Key (1931)
Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (1930)
David Lindsay: A Voyage to Arcturus (1920)
David Lodge: Changing Places (1975)
David Lodge: Nice Work (1988)
David Lodge: The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965)*
David Madsen: Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf (1995)
David Malouf: Remembering Babylon (1993)
David Mitchell: Cloud Atlas (2004)
David Nobbs: The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1975-78)*
David Peace: Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999)
David Peace: Nineteen Seventy Seven (2000)
Denis Diderot: Jacques the Fatalist and His Master (1796)
Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke (2007)*
Derek Raymond: I Was Dora Suarez (1990)*
DH Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover (1960)
DH Lawrence: Sons and Lovers (1913)
DH Lawrence: The Rainbow (1915)
DH Lawrence: Women in Love (1920)
Dodie Smith: I Capture the Castle (1948)
Don DeLillo: Underwold (1997)
Don DeLillo: White Noise (1985)
Donald Westlake: Drowned Hopes (1990)*
Donna Tartt: The Secret History (1992)
Doris Lessing: Canopus in Argos (1979-83)*
Doris Lessing: Memoirs of a Survivor (1974)
Doris Lessing: The Grass is Singing (1950)
Dorothy L Sayers: Murder Must Advertise (1933)
Dorothy L Sayers: Whose Body? (1923)
Dorothy Richardson: Pointed Roofs (1915)
Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)
Douglas Coupland: Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
Douglas Coupland: Microserfs (1995)
E Phillips Oppenhein: The Great Impersonation (1920)
E Phillips Oppenheim: The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent (1934)
EC Bentley: Trent's Last Case (1913)
Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912)
Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men (1905)
Edith Templeton: Gordon (1966)*
Edith Wharton: Ethan Frome (1911)*
Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence (1920)
Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth (1905)
Edmund Crispin: The Case of the Gilded Fly (1944)
Edna O'Brien: The Country Girls (1960)*
Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Coming Race (1871)
EF Benson: Queen Lucia (1920)
EL Doctorow: The Book of Daniel (1971)
EL Doctorow: The March (2005)*
Elfriede Jelinek: The Piano Teacher (1983)
Elias Canetti: Auto-da-Fé (1935)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Death of the Heart (1938)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Heat of the Day (1948)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Last September (1929)
Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford (1853)
Elizabeth Gaskell: Mary Barton (1848)
Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South (1855)
Elizabeth Gaskell: Ruth (1853)
Elizabeth Jenkins: The Tortoise and the Hare (1954)
Elizabeth Smart: At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945)
Elizabeth Taylor: Angel (1957)
Elizabeth von Arnim: The Caravaners (1909)*
Elmore Leonard: 52 Pick-Up (1974)
Elmore Leonard: Get Shorty (1990)
Elsa Morante: Arturo's Island: A Novel (1957)
Elsa Morante: History (1974)
EM Delafield: The Provincial Lady (1930)
EM Forster: A Passage to India (1924)
EM Forster: A Room With a View (1908)
EM Forster: Howards End (1910)
Émile Zola: L'Assommoir (1877)*
Émile Zola: The Debacle (1892)
Émile Zola: Therese Raquin (1867)
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Eric Ambler: The Mask of Dimitrios (1939)
Eric Hodgins: Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House (1946)
Erich Maria Remarque: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
Erich Segal: Love Story (1970)
Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Ernest Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
Erskine Caldwell: Tobacco Road (1932)
Erskine Childers: The Riddle of the Sands (1903)
Esther Freud: Hideous Kinky (1992)
Evelyn Waugh: Black Mischief (1932)
Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall (1928)
Evelyn Waugh: Men at Arms (1952)
Evelyn Waugh: Put Out More Flags (1942)
Evelyn Waugh: Scoop (1938)
Evelyn Waugh: The Loved One (1948)
Evelyn Waugh: Vile Bodies (1930)
F Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night (1934)
F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925)
Fanny Burney: Evelina (1778)
Fay Weldon: The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983)
Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman (1967)
Flora Thompson: Lark Rise to Candleford (1945)
FM Mayor: The Rector's Daughter (1924)
Ford Madox Ford: Parade's End (1924-28)
Ford Madox Ford: The Good Soldier (1915)
Frances Iles: Malice Aforethought (1931)
Francis Coventry: The History of Pompey the Little (1751)
François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532-34)
Françoise Sagan: Bonjour Tristesse (1954)
Frank Herbert: Dune (1965)
Frank Norris: McTeague (1899)
Frank Norris: The Octopus (1901)*
Franz Kafka: The Trial (1925)
Frederick Forsyth: The Day of the Jackal (1971)
Frederick Manning: The Middle Parts of Fortune (1929)*
Frederick Marryat: The Children of the New Forest (1847)
Friedrich Durrenmatt: The Pledge (1958)
Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment (1866)
Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
Gabriel García Márquez: Love in the Time of Cholera (1985)
Gabriel Garcia Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)
Gao Xingjian: Soul Mountain (1990)*
Garrison Keillor: Lake Wobegon Days (1985)
Gene Wolfe: The Book of the New Sun (1980-83)
Geoffrey Household: Rogue Male (1939)
Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle: Molesworth (2000)
George Eliot: Adam Bede (1859)
George Eliot: Daniel Deronda (1876)
George Eliot: Middlemarch (1872)
George Eliot: Silas Marner (1861)
George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss (1860)
George Gissing: New Grub Street (1891)
George Gissing: The Odd Women (1893)
George MacDonald Fraser: Flashman (1969)
George Meredith: The Egoist (1879)
George Meredith: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859)
George Orwell: Animal Farm (1945)
George Orwell: Burmese Days (1934)
George Pelecanos: Hard Revolution (2004)
George Pelecanos: The Big Blowdown (1996)
George RR Martin: A Song of Ice and Fire (1996-)
George V Higgins: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1972)
Georges Simenon: The Blue Room (1965)
Georges Simenon: The Madman of Bergerac (1932)
Gerald Durrell: My Family and Other Animals (1956)
Gerald Hanley: Consul at Sunset (1951)*
Gerald Hanley: See You in Yasukuni (1969)*
Gerald Kersh: Night and the City (1938)*
Gerard Woodward: I'll Go to Bed at Noon (2004)
Giorgio Bassani: The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1962)
Giovanni Guareschi: The Little World of Don Camillo (1948)
Giuseppe di Lampedusa: The Leopard (1958)
GK Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
Glen Duncan: Death of an Ordinary Man (2004)*
Gore Vidal: Williwaw (1946)
Graham Greene: A Gun For Sale (1936)
Graham Greene: Brighton Rock (1938)
Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana (1958)
Graham Greene: The End of the Affair (1951)
Graham Greene: The Ministry of Fear (1943)
Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory (1940)
Graham Greene: The Third Man (1950)
Graham Greene: Travels With My Aunt (1969)
Graham Swift: Waterland (1983)
Greg Bear: Darwin's Radio (1999)
Günter Grass: The Tin Drum (1959)
Gustave Flaubert: Bouvard and Pécuchet (1881)
Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary (1856)
Gustave Flaubert: Sentimental Education (1869)
Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami (1885)
Gwyneth Jones: Bold as Love (2001)
H Rider Haggard: King Solomon's Mines (1885)
H Rider Haggard: She (1887)
Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia (1990)
Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird (1960)
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
Haruki Murakami: Norwegian Wood (1987)
Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1995)
HE Bates: Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944)
HE Bates: Love for Lydia (1952)
Heinrich Böll: The Bread of Those Early Years (Das Brot der frühen Jahre) (1955)*
Helen Dunmore: The Siege (2001)*
Helen Fielding: Bridget Jones's Diary (1996)
Henning Mankell: Sidetracked (1995)
Henri Alain-Fournier: Le Grand Meaulnes (1913)
Henry Fielding: Joseph Andrews (1742)
Henry Fielding: Tom Jones (1749)
Henry Green: Living (1929)
Henry Handel Richardson: Maurice Guest (1908)
Henry Handel Richardson: The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930)
Henry Howarth Bashford: Augustus Carp, Esq By Himself — Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man (1924)
Henry James: Portrait of a Lady (1881)
Henry James: The Ambassadors (1903)
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw (1898)
Henry James: The Wings of the Dove (1902)
Henry James: Washington Square (1880)
Henry Miller: Tropic of Cancer (1934)
Henry Roth: Call It Sleep (1934)
Herman Melville: Moby-Dick or, The Whale (1851)
Herman Melville: The Confidence Man (1857)
Herman Wouk: The Caine Mutiny (1951)
Hermann Broch: The Death of Virgil (1945)
Hermann Hesse: Narziss and Goldmund (1930)
Hermann Hesse: Steppenwolf (1927)
Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game (1943)
HG Wells: Tono Bungay (1909)
HG Wells: The History of Mr Polly (1910)
HG Wells: The Island of Dr Moreau (1896)
HG Wells: The Time Machine (1895)
HG Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black (2005)
Honoré de Balzac: Eugénie Grandet (1833)
Honoré de Balzac: La Comédie Humaine (1830-1848)
Honoré de Balzac: Le Père Goriot (1835)
Howard Jacobson: The Mighty Walzer (1999)
Howard Spring: Fame Is the Spur (1940)*
HP Lovecraft: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941)*
Hubert Selby Jr: Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)
Iain M Banks: Consider Phlebas (1987)
Iain Banks: The Crow Road (1992)
Iain Banks: The Wasp Factory (1984)
Iain Sinclair: Downriver (1991)*
Ian Fleming: Casino Royale (1953)
Ian Fleming: Goldfinger (1959)
Ian Fleming: You Only Live Twice (1964)
Ian McEwan: Atonement (2001)
Ian McEwan: Enduring Love (1997)
Ian McEwan: The Child in Time (1987)
Ian Rankin: Black & Blue (1997)
Ian Rankin: Exit Music (2007)
Ian Rankin: The Hanging Garden (1998)
Ira Levin: The Boys From Brazil (1976)*
Irène Némirovsky: Suite Française (2004)
Iris Murdoch: Under the Net (1954)
Iris Murdoch: The Black Prince (1973)
Irvine Welsh: Trainspotting (1993)
Irwin Shaw: The Young Lions (1949)
Isaac Asimov: Foundation (1951)
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Enemies, a Love Story (1972)
Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Family Moskat (1950)
Ismail Kadare: Chronicle in Stone (1971)
Italo Calvino: Invisible Cities (1974)
Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees (1957)
Italo Svevo: Confessions of Zeno (1923)
Ivan Goncharov: Oblomov (1859)
Ivan Turgenev: Fathers and Sons (1862)
Ivan Turgenev: First Love (1860)
Ivy Compton-Burnett: Manservant and Maidservant (1947)
Ivy Compton-Burnett: Parents and Children (1941)*
Jacqueline Susann: Valley of the Dolls (1966)
Jack London: Martin Eden (1909)
Jack London: The Call of the Wild (1903)
James Baldwin: Go Tell It On the Mountain (1953)
James Buchan: A Good Place to Die (1999)*
James Buchan: Heart's Journey (1995)*
James Dickey: Deliverance (1970)
James Hadley Chase: No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939)
James Hilton: Lost Horizon (1933)*
James Hogg: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824)
James Hynes: The Lecturer's Tale — A Novel (2001)
James Jones: From Here to Eternity (1951)
James Joyce: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
James Joyce: Finnegans Wake (1939)
James Kelman: How Late It Was, How Late (1994)
James M Cain: Double Indemnity (1943)
James M Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934)
James Michener: Tales of the South Paci?c (1847)
James Robertson: Joseph Knight (2003)*
James Salter: A Sport and a Pastime (1967)
James Salter: Light Years (1975)
James Salter: The Hunters (1956)
Jane Bowles: Two Serious Ladies (1943)
Jane Smiley: A Thousand Acres (1991)
Jane Smiley: Moo (1995)
Jaroslav Hasek: The Good Soldier Svejk (1923)
Javier Marías: A Heart So White (1992)
Jay McInerney: Bright Lights, Big City (1984)
JB Priestley: The Good Companions (1929)
Jean Cocteau: Les Enfants Terribles (1929)
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761)
Jeanette Winterson: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
Jeanette Winterson: The Passion (1987)
Jed Mercurio: Ascent (2007)
Jeff Noon: Vurt (1993)
Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex (2002)
Jeffrey Eugenides: The Virgin Suicides (1993)
Jerome K Jerome: Three Men in a Boat (1899)
Jerzy Kosinski: The Painted Bird (1965)
Jim Crace: Being Dead (1999)
Jim Crace: Quarantine (1997)
Jim Thompson: The Getaway (1959)
JB Priestly: Angel Pavement (1930)*
JG Ballard: Empire of the Sun (1984)
JG Farrell: The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
JG Farrell: Troubles (1970)*
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997)
JL Carr: A Month in the Country (1980)
JL Carr: A Season in Sinji (1967)
JL Carr: The Harpole Report (1972)
JM Coetzee: Disgrace (1999)
JM Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
João Guimarães Rosa: The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (1956)
Joan Didion: Play It As It Lays (1970)
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis: Dom Casmurro (1899)
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1871)
Joe Haldeman: The Forever War (1974)
Johann David Wyss: The Swiss Family Robinson (1812)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
John Berger: G. (1972)
John Buchan: Greenmantle (1916)
John Buchan: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915)
John Cheever: The Wapshot Chronicle (1957)
John Cowper Powys: A Glastonbury Romance (1932)
John Crowley: Aegypt (1989)*
John Crowley: Little, Big; or, The Fairies' Parliament (1981)*
John Dickson Carr: The Hollow Man (1935)
John Dos Passos: Three Soldiers (1921)
John Dos Passos: U.S.A. (1930-36)
John Fante: Ask the Dust (1939)*
John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969)
John Fowles: The Magus (1966)
John Galsworthy: The Man of Property (1906)
John Grisham: A Time to Kill (1989)
John Grisham: The King of Torts (2003)
John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)
John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)
John King: The Football Factory (1996)*
John Lanchester: The Debt to Pleasure (1996)
John le Carré: The Constant Gardener (2001)
John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974)
John McGahern: Amongst Women (1990)
John Mortimer: Charade (1947)
John Mortimer: Titmuss Regained (1990)
John Steinbeck: East of Eden (1952)
John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men (1937)
John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
John Updike: Couples (1968)
John Updike: The Rabbit Omnibus (1960-90)
John Updike: The Witches of Eastwick (1984)
John Wyndham: Day of the Triffids (1951)
John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
Jon McGregor: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002)*
Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections (2001)
Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn (1999)
Jonathan Safran Foer: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)
Jonathan Swift: A Tale of a Tub (1704)
Johnston McCulley: The Mark of Zorro (1919)
José Maria de Eça de Queiroz: The Crime of Father Amaro (1875)
José Saramago: Blindness (1995)
Josef Skvorecky: The Miracle Game (1972)
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness (1902)
Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim (1900)
Joseph Conrad: Nostromo (1904)
Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent (1907)
Joseph Conrad: Under Western Eyes (1911)
Joseph Conrad: Victory: An Island Tale (1915)
Joseph Roth: The Radetzky March (1932)
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Uncle Silas (1864)
Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time (1951)
Joyce Cary: Mister Johnson (1939)
Joyce Cary: The Horse's Mouth (1944)
JP Donleavy: A Fairy Tale of New York (1973)
Jules Verne: A Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864)
Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)
Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989)
Julian Barnes: Before She Met Me (1982)*
Julian Barnes: Flaubert's Parrot (1984)
Julian Maclaren-Ross: Of Love and Hunger (1947)
Julio Cortazar: Hopscotch (1963)*
Junghyo Ahn: Silver Stallion (1990)
Junichiro Tanizaki: Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961)
Kate Atkinson: Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995)
Kate Chopin: The Awakening (1899)
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Remains of the Day (1989)
Kazuo Ishiguro: The Unconsoled (1995)
Ken MacLeod: The Night Sessions (2008)
Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Kenzaburo Oe: Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness (1969)
Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner (2003)
Kilgore Trout: Venus on the Half-Shell (1974)
Kim Stanley Robinson: The Years of Rice and Salt (2002)
Kingsley Amis: Lucky Jim (1954)
Knut Hamsun: Hunger (1890)
Kobo Abe: The Face of Another (1964)
Kurban Said: Ali and Nino (1928)
Kurt Vonnegut: Sirens of Titan (1959)
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)
Lao She: Rickshaw Boy (1936)
Larry Niven: Ringworld (1970)
Laurence Sterne: A Sentimental Journey (1768)
Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759)
Laurie Lee: Cider with Rosie (1959)
Lawrence Durrell: Justine (1957)
Len Deighton: Bomber (1970)
Len Deighton: The Ipcress File (1962)
Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina (1877)
Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace (1869)
Leonardo Sciascia: To Each His Own (1966)
Leonora Carrington: The Hearing Trumpet (1976)
Leopoldo Alas Clarin: La Regenta (1884-85)*
Leslie Thomas: Tropic of Ruislip (1974)
Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)
Lewis Grassic Gibbon: Sunset Song (1932)
Lionel Shriver: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003)
Louis de Bernières: Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1993)*
Louis-Ferdinand Céline: Journey to the End of the Night (1932)
Louisa May Alcott: Little Women (1868)
LP Hartley: The Go-Between (1953)
LP Hartley: The Shrimp and the Anemone (1944)
Lynne Reid Banks: The L-Shaped Room (1960)
M John Harrison: Light (2002)
MacKinlay Kantor: Andersonville (1955)
Madame de Lafayette: The Princess of Clèves (1678)
Magnus Mills: The Restraint of Beasts (1998)
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman (1968)
Malcolm Bradbury: The History Man (1975)
Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano (1947)
Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre: Fantômas (1911)
Marcel Proust: Remembrance of Things Past (1913-27)
Margaret Atwood: Cat's Eye (1988)
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin (2000)
Margaret Drabble: The Millstone (1965)
Margaret Mitchell: Gone with the Wind (1936)
Margery Allingham: The Fashion in Shrouds (1938)*
Margery Allingham: The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)*
Marghanita Laski: The Victorian Chaise-longue (1953)
Marguerite Duras: The Lover (1984)
Maria Edgeworth: Castle Rackrent (1800)
Maria Edgeworth: Ennui (1809)
Marie Darrieussecq: Pig Tales (1996)
Marilynne Robinson: Gilead (2004)
Mario Puzo: The Godfather (1969)
Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis (2003)*
Mark Danielewski: House of Leaves (2000)
Mark Haddon: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003)
Mark Twain: A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court (1889)
Mark Twain: Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
Mark Twain: The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
Martin Amis: Money (1984)
Martin Amis: The Information (1995)
Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
Mary E Braddon: Lady Audley's Secret (1862)
Mary McCarthy: The Group (1963)
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein (1818)
Max Beerbohm: Zuleika Dobson (1911)
Maxim Gorky: Mother (1906)
May Sinclair: The Three Sisters (1914)
Mervyn Peake: Gormenghast (1950)*
Mervyn Peake: Titus Groan (1946)
Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
Michael Crichton: Jurassic Park (1990)
Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain (1969)
Michael Frayn: Spies (2002)
Michael Frayn: Towards the End of Morning (1967)
Michael G Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (1975)
Michael Green: Squire Haggard's Journal (1975)
Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (1936)
Michael Marshall Smith: Only Forward (1994)
Michael Moorcock: Mother London (1988)
Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient (1992)
Michael Sadleir: Fanny by Gaslight (1940)*
Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels (1974)*
Michel Faber: Under the Skin (2000)
Michel Houellebecq: Atomised (1998)
Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote (1605)
Miguel de Unamuno: Peace in War (1897)
Mike Stocks: White Man Falling (2006)
Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (1966)
Mikhail Bulgakov: The White Guard (1955)*
Mikhail Sholokhov: And Quiet Flows the Don (1934)*
Miklos Banffy: They Were Counted (1934)
Milan Kundera: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1978)
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1982)
MM Kaye: The Far Pavilions (1978)
Molly Keane: Good Behaviour (1981)
Mordecai Richler: Solomon Gursky Was Here (1990)
Mrs Henry Wood: East Lynne (1861)
Mulk Raj Anand: Untouchable (1935)
Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji (11th century)*
Nadine Gordimer: July's People (1981)
Naguib Mahfouz: Khan Al-Kahlili (2008)*
Naguib Mahfouz: Palace Walk (1956)
Nancy Mitford: Love in a Cold Climate (1949)
Nancy Mitford: The Pursuit of Love (1945)
Nathanael West: The Day of the Locust (1939)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon (1999)
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (1992)
Neil Gaiman: American Gods (2001)
Nella Larsen: Passing (1929)
Nelson Algren: The Man with the Golden Arm (1949)
Nevil Shute: A Town Like Alice (1950)
Nicola Barker: Darkmans (2007)
Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (1938)
Nicholson Baker: Room Temperature (1990)
Nick Hornby: High Fidelity (1995)
Nigel Balchin: Darkness Falls from the Air (1942)
Nigel Dennis: Cards of Identity (1955)*
Nigel Williams: The Wimbledon Poisoner (1990)
Nikos Kazantzakis: Zorba the Greek (1946)
Nina Bawden: Carrie's War (1973)
Noel Streatfeild: Ballet Shoes (1936)
Norman Douglas: South Wind (1917)
Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead (1948)
Octavia Butler: Kindred (1979)
Olaf Stapledon: Star Maker (1937)
Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
Olivia Manning: The Fortunes of War novels (1960-80)
Orhan Pamuk: My Name Is Red (1998)
Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game (1985)*
Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)
Ousmane Sembène: God's Bit of Wood (1960)
Owen Wister: The Virginian (1902)
Pat Barker: Regeneration (1991)
Patricia Cornwell: Postmortem (1990)
Patricia Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
Patricia Highsmith: The Price of Salt (1952)*
Patricia Highsmith: The Talented Mr Ripley (1955)
Patrick Hamilton: Hangover Square (1941)
Patrick Hamilton: The Slaves of Solitude (1947)
Patrick McCabe: The Butcher Boy (1992)
Patrick O'Brian: Master and Commander (1969)
Patrick Suskind: Perfume (1985)
Patrick White: Riders in the Chariot (1961)*
Patrick White: The Tree of Man (1955)
Patrick White: Voss (1957)
Paul Auster: In the Country of Last Things (1987)
Paul Auster: The New York Trilogy (1985-86)
Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky (1949)
Paul Scott: Staying On (1977)
Paul Gallico: The Snow Goose (1941)
Paul Golding: Senseless (2004)*
PD James: A Taste for Death (1986)
PD James: Cover Her Face (1962)
PD James: The Children of Men (1992)
Penelope Fitzgerald: The Blue Flower (1995)
Peter Carey: Illywhacker (1985)
Peter Carey: Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
Peter Carey: True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
Peter De Vries: Slouching towards Kalamazoo (1983)
Peter Høeg: Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (1992)
Philip K Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
Philip K Dick: The Man in the High Castle (1962)
Philip Kerr: March Violets (1989)*
Philip Larkin: A Girl in Winter (1947)
Philip Roth: American Pastoral (1997)
Philip Roth: Portnoy's Complaint (1969)
Philip Roth: The Human Stain (2000)
Philippa Pearce: Tom's Midnight Garden (1958)*
Pier Paolo Pasolini: The Ragazzi (1955)
Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782)
Piers Paul Read: A Married Man (1979)
Poppy Z Brite: Lost Souls (1992)
Primo Levi: If Not Now, When? (1982)
Rabindranath Tagore: The Home and the World (1916)
Rafael Sabatini: Captain Blood His Odyssey (1922)
Rafael Sabatini: Scaramouche (1921)
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man (1953)
Ramsey Campbell: The Influence (1988)
Randall Jarrell: Pictures from an Institution (1954)
Raymond Briggs: When the Wind Blows (1982)
Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep (1939)
Raymond Chandler: The Long Goodbye (1953)
Raymond Queneau: Zazie in the Metro (1959)
RC Sherriff: The Fortnight in September (1931)*
RD Blackmore: Lorna Doone (1869)
Rebecca West: The Fountain Overflows (1957)
Rebecca West: The Return of the Soldier (1918)
Reginald Hill: Bones and Silence (1990)
René Goscinny: Asterix the Gaul (1959)
RH Mottram: The Spanish Farm trilogy (1924-26)*
Richard Aldington: Death of a Hero (1929)
Richard Condon: The Manchurian Candidate (1959)
Richmal Crompton: Just William (1922)
Richard Ford: Independence Day (1996)
Richard Ford: The Sportswriter (1986)
Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon): Brewster's Millions (1902)
Richard Hughes: A High Wind in Jamaica (1929)
Richard Jefferies: After London; Or, Wild England (1885)
Richard Llewellyn: How Green Was My Valley (1939)
Richard Matheson: I Am Legend (1954)
Richard Powers: The Time of Our Singing (2003)*
Richard Price: Lush Life (2008)
Richard Rayner: The Cloud Sketcher (2000)*
Richard Wright: Native Son (1940)
Richard Yates: Revolutionary Road (1961)
RJ Ellory: A Quiet Belief in Angels (2007)
RK Narayan: The Painter of Signs (1976)
Robert A Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
Robert Graves: Count Belisarius (1938)
Robert Graves: I, Claudius (1934)*
Robert Harris: Enigma (1995)
Robert Harris: Fatherland (1992)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped (1886)
Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island (1883)
Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Identity (1980)
Robert Plunkett: My Search for Warren Harding (1983)
Robert Stone: A Flag for Sunrise (1981)
Robert Tressell: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914)
Robert Walser: Institute Benjamenta (1909)
Robert Westall: The Machine-Gunners (1975)
Roberto Bolaño: The Savage Detectives (1998)
Roddy Doyle: The Commitments (1987)
Roger Zelazny: Lord of Light (1967)*
Rohinton Mistry: A Fine Balance (1995)
Rohinton Mistry: Family Matters (2002)
Ron Butlin: The Sound of My Voice (1987)
Ronald Firbank: Caprice (1917)
Ronald Searle: Hurrah for St Trinian's (1948)
Ronan Bennett: Havoc In Its Third Year (2004)
Rosamond Lehmann: Invitation to the Waltz (1932)
Rosamond Lehmann: The Echoing Grove (1953)
Rosamond Lehmann: The Weather in the Streets (1936)
Rose Macaulay: The Towers of Trebizond (1956)
Rose Tremain: Music and Silence (1999)
Ross Macdonald: The Underground Man (1971)*
Ross Macdonald: The Way Some People Die (1951)*
RS Surtees: Handley Cross (1843)
Rudolf Erich Raspe: The Surprising Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (1785)
Rudyard Kipling: Kim (1901)
Rupert Thomson: The Insult (1996)
Russell Hoban: Riddley Walker (1980)
Ruth Rendell: Judgment in Stone (1977)
Ruth Rendell: Live Flesh (1986)
Saki: The Unbearable Bassington (1912)
Saki: The Westminster Alice (1902)
Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children (1981)
Salman Rushdie: Shame (1983)
Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988)
Samuel Beckett: Molloy (1951)
Samuel Butler: Erewhon (1872)
Samuel Butler: The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Samuel Johnson: Rasselas (1759)
Samuel R Delaney: The Einstein Intersection (1967)
Samuel Richardson: Clarissa (1748)
Samuel Richardson: Pamela (1740)
Samuel Selvon: The Lonely Londoners (1956)
Sara Paretsky: Blacklist (2003)
Sara Paretsky: Toxic Shock (1988)
Sarah Waters: Affinity (1999)
Sarah Waters: Fingersmith (2002)
Sarah Waters: The Night Watch (2006)
Saul Bellow: Herzog (1964)
Saul Bellow: Humboldt's Gift (1975)
Saul Bellow: More Die of Heartbreak (1987)
Saul Bellow: The Adventures of Augie March (1953)
Sebastian Barry: A Long Long Way (2005)
Sebastian Faulks: Birdsong (1993)
Shirley Hazzard: The Transit of Venus (1980)
Shirley Jackson: The Haunting of Hill House (1959)
Shiva Naipaul: Fireflies (1970)
Shusaku Endo: Silence (1966)
Shusaku Endo: The Sea and Poison (1958)*
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette: Claudine à l'école (1900)
Sidone-Gabrille Colette: Chéri (1920)
Sinclair Lewis: Elmer Gantry (1927)
Sinclair Lewis: Main Street (1920)
Siri Hustvedt: What I Loved (2003)*
Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage (1915)
Somerville and Ross: Some Experiences of an Irish RM (1899)*
Spike Milligan: Puckoon (1963)
Stanislaw Lem: Solaris (1961)
Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm (1932)
Stendhal: The Charterhouse of Parma (1839)
Stendhal: The Red and the Black (1830)
Stephen Baxter: The Time Ships (1995)
Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage (1895)
Stephen Donalson: chronicles of Thomas Covenant (1977-83)*
Stephen King: Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Stephen King: Misery (1987)
Stephen King: The Shining (1977)
Steven Erikson: Malazan Book of the Fallen (1999-)*
Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper (1936)
Sue Townsend: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (1982)
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (2004)
Sybille Bedford: A Legacy (1956)
Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (1926)
Tabucchi: Sostiene Pereira (1994)*
TH White: The Sword in the Stone (1938)
Theodore Dreiser: An American Tragedy (1925)
Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie (1900)
Thomas Bernhard: Extinction (1986)
Theodor Fontane: Effi Briest (1896)
Thomas Hardy: A Fair of Blue Eyes (1873)*
Thomas Hardy: Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
Thomas Hardy: Jude the Obscure (1895)
Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891)
Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
Thomas Hardy: The Woodlanders (1887)
Thomas Harris: Black Sunday (1975)
Thomas Harris: Red Dragon (1981)
Thomas Hughes: Tom Brown's School Days (1857)
Thomas Keneally: Confederates (1979)
Thomas Keneally: Schindler's Ark (1982)
Thomas Love Peacock: Headlong Hall (1816)
Thomas Love Peacock: Nightmare Abbey (1818)
Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks (1901)
Thomas Mann: Death in Venice (1912)
Thomas Mann: The Magic Mountain (1924)
Thomas Pynchon: Gravity's Rainbow (1973)
Thomas Pynchon: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Thomas Pynchon: V (1963)
Thomas Pynchon: Vineland (1990)
Thorne Smith: Topper Takes a Trip (1932)
Thornton Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927)*
Tim O'Brien: The Things they Carried (1990)
Timothy Mo: Sour Sweet (1982)
Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753)
Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751)
Tobias Smollett: The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)
Tobias Smollett: The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)
Tom Sharpe: Blott on the Landscape (1975)
Tom Sharpe: Porterhouse Blue (1974)
Tom Wolfe: The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987)
Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987)
Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon (1977)
Toni Morrison: The Bluest Eye (1970)
Truman Capote: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958)
Umberto Eco: Foucault's Pendulum (1988)
Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose (1980)
Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (1906)
Vassilis Vassilikos: Z (1967)
Vasily Grossman: Life and Fate (1960)
Victor Hugo: Les Misérables (1862)
Victor Pelevin: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf (2008)
Victor Serge: The Case of Comrade Tulayev (1950)
Vikram Seth: A Suitable Boy (1993)
Viktor Shklovsky: Zoo, or Letters Not About Love (1923)*
Vladimir Nabokov: Ada or Ardor (1969)
Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita, or the Confessions of a White Widowed Male (1955)
Vladimir Nabokov: Pale Fire (1962)
Vladimir Nabokov: Pnin (1957)
Voltaire: Candide (1759)
VS Naipaul: A Bend in the River (1979)
VS Naipaul: A House for Mr Biswas (1961)
W Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale — Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)
Walker Percy: The Moviegoer (1961)
Walter Greenwood: Love on the Dole (1933)
Walter M Miller Jr: A Canticle for Leibowitz (1960)
Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress (1990)
Walter Scott: Ivanhoe (1819)
WE Bowman: The Ascent of Rum Doodle (1956)
WH Hudson: Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest (1904)
WM Thackeray: The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844)
Wilfred Sheed: Office Politics (1966)
Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone (1868)
Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White (1860)
Will Self: Great Apes (1997)
Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000)
Willa Cather: A Lost Lady (1923)
Willa Cather: My Ántonia (1918)
Willa Cather: One Of Ours (1922)
Willa Cather: The Professor's House (1925)
Willem Elsschot: Cheese (1933)
William Boyd: A Good Man in Africa (1981)
William Boyd: An Ice-Cream War (1982)
William Boyd: Any Human Heart (2002)
William Burroughs: Naked Lunch (1959)
William Eastlake: The Bamboo Bed (1969)
William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying (1930)
William Faulkner: Sanctuary (1931)
William Gaddis: The Recognitions (1955)
William Gerhardie: The Polyglots (1925)
William Gibson: Neuromancer (1984)
William Golding: Lord of the Flies (1954)
William Golding: To the Ends of the Earth trilogy (1980-89)
William Irish: Phantom Lady (1942)*
William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair (1848)
William Maxwell: Chateau (1961)
William Maxwell: So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980)
William Morris: News From Nowhere (1890)
William Styron: Sophie's Choice (1979)
William Trevor: Death in Summer (1998)
Winifred Holtby: South Riding (1936)
WR Burnett: The Asphalt Jungle (1949)
Wu Cheng'en: Monkey (1590s)
Yashar Kemal: Memed, My Hawk (1955)
Yasunari Kawabata: Beauty and Sadness (1964)
Yevgeny Zamyatin: We (1924)
Zadie Smith: On Beauty (2005)
Zadie Smith: White Teeth (2000)
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

The El Bimbo Variations (2008)

2010-02-14T13:29:00.009+08:00

1. In Peter Boxall's ever-tentative 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (which will have its third revision this year) that claims to chronicle "the history of the novel," Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style found a spot, arguing that pioneering anti-novels are necessarily part of the canon. Adam David's The El Bimbo Variations' homage to Queaneau's (among many other creators) earned its own place here in Atisan Novels, despite David's recognition of it as a "book of poetry" in the second printing's afterword.

2. Novel, of course, is not all about story. But if we demand story from David's book it will not fail us: its narrative source was the first two lines of a famous Filipino band's song, "Ang Huling El Bimbo," which was not unlike most of Eraserheads' songs--it has a story, it is not purely lyrical abstractions to which most pop songs exhaust their "creative" energies. It has specific characters, point of view, setting, tension, and insight--and when David decided to make 99 variations of its first two lines ("Kamukha mo si Paraluman/ Nung tayo ay bata pa"), we knew that novelization is not necessarily about a story, but the stories behind a story. Here we come face to face with plurality and endurance--two of the things we sometimes demand of art, aside from beauty, of course, which Paraluman, the simile to the object of the persona's nostalgia, should represent. In the Eraserheads song, the beloved died of the accident; in our lived reality, Paraluman is long gone. Beauty is no more. Beauty becomes memory. We are left with numbers, with probabilities, with the paradoxical attempts to create something new out of restrictive (mostly, traditional or popular) forms: diona, tanaga, dalit, ghost story, detective fiction, erotica. The stories behind the writing of these variations David did not hesitate to expose in the "Notes On These Pages," and to this framing of the book I'd give its better conflict and resolution: a writer revealing his gods and demons, explaining himself, remembering and forgetting and reminding himself of what current Philippine art needs to achieve.

3. But the two lines are not only content (signified), of course; they're also signifier. And so the majority of the experiments here dwelt with the function of words as sign, and their instability because of this, thus their tendency to variate. A missing or added letter or word, a repeated sound, the recurring or avoided letters in lipograms, univocalisms, tautograms, et. al., are a movement away from what we mean, but how we mean things, what we do to create meaning, even if meaning becomes almost obsolete in a world where we do not always value things enough to find time to look at them in 99 different ways.

The Judgment

2010-02-03T10:22:00.005+08:00

1. The Judgment is Chart Korbjitti's study of the complicity of communal opinion and traditional sense of normalcy in the destruction of an otherwise virtuous young man. The young man was Fak, who was rumored to take his mentally ill stepmother, Somsong, as wife after the death of his father Foo. Gossip directs the formation of extended narratives, and, interestingly, of actual lives: Fak became an alcoholic in a misguided attempt to avoid the people's judgment. This led to his ultimate ruin.

Meanwhile the people who spread the rumors had their own lives to think about, and Fak's scandal was only something in the periphery of their concerns, without realizing that the stories that only help them pass time was the root of someone else's tragedy.

2. Korbjitti exposed religion's central role in the formation of morality and its paradoxical difficulty in maintaining such morals for its own subjects. Fak's childhood revolved around the temple and "was filled with the smell of incense, the sound of chanting and the sight of the heavens and hells of Buddhist mythology." He was a model boy even before he became a novice. But when he disrobed to help his father with work, the abbot reminded him that "the world of man moves between extremes ... and lacks the serenity of religious life."

Fak would miss the insinuations that "teahouse" (as brothel) and "having rice soup for lunch" (as making love) suggest; it revealed how much he misunderstood the "world of man's" play with signifiers, which was consequently detrimental to his attempts to build true relationship with people. He trusted the headmaster of the school where he served as janitor, only to be betrayed in the end; he initially doubted the sincerity of Khai the undertaker, only to realize later that the old man was the only real friend he had. Fak tried to make work the source of his happiness, but there was an ironic commentary on his further dehumanization whenever he did.

3. There was also a critique on progress: while the village was being modernized (with the construction of road leading to the city, the arrival of electricity and various appliances with it), the people remained the same with their old beliefs and biases, except, of course, for Fak. In a narrative such as this, change seems a privilege exclusive to its hero. In the end Fak had to die, and his death only meant that he was no longer allowed knowledge of things and events in this world of man, for better or worse.

~ After Chart Korbjitti's The Judgment (1981)

Etsa-puwera (2000)

2010-01-31T09:55:00.006+08:00

1. Grand Prize winner of the Centennial Literary Prize, Jun Cruz Reyes's Etsa-puwera is a take on the history of marginalization, and the role of writing in such a history and in the reclamation of one's pasts. Our narrator is Ebong, whose ancestry he traced with the help of his Lola Sion's midday stories, where impossible things could happen, and his father Ruben's intermittent sharing of knowledge as historian, mostly disguised as legends or children's stories for adults. Ebong had a disclaimer early on: his was a patched-up version. How do we trust his narratives, then? Or what kind of truth do we look for when we read a novel that has claims to history?

In most cases, the stories are written after a series of overlapped voices. In one instance we were told that a section was based on an official document written by Padre Francisco, which was now interpreted by Ruben, then retold by Ebong, and finally was, of course, only part of Jun Cruz Reyes's design. Many times would Rebo assume the voice of his own characters in order to get a sense of their inner realities. I was not often convinced, but the ambivalence of his voice was, as mentioned, part of the ploy.

2. First in Ebong's ancestral lineage was Carrayyo of Cordillera, everything that one looks for in an epic hero, except that he did not have his luck in wooing the women of his tribe. Apo Ekkon, the god of the hunters and forest's wilds, intervened by sending him Oysang, a deer transformed into a beautiful maiden, to be his wife. They had three children before our hunter learned of the truth. The people made fun of Oysang's difference, and she had to leave her family and went back to being a deer because of this.

Carrayyo's youngest was also named Oysang, because she inherited the beauty of her mother. But she was as unlucky as her father in love because men shied away from her, and treated her like a "beautiful orchid at the top of a cliff," which no one would dare to pluck. After a tribal war between her Changyasan and the newly-founded Mafissoray, Oysang crossed paths with Padre Francisco de San Esteban or Apo Kiko, and was christened as Rosa. She was then made to live with the priest in the convent, to serve him and his sexual desires. But before gossip was spread about their true relationship, Rosa was given for adoption to old couple Enyong and Bartola.

Rosa had Teban as a playmate until their games went from catching one another in the waters into Teban touching her privates. This went on further until she got pregnant and they were forced to get married. Their immaturity and incompatibility made them decide to eventually go separate ways; their child also failed to survive. Teban went on to serve the revolution before he ultimately lost his ways and changed allegiances as often as he misunderstood what it was he was fighting for and against.

The difficulties of the war against the Americans made Rosa's adoptive parents give her to the opportunist Chinese Paulino Heneral Tan-yan, one of the first few who read Rizal's novels in Spanish, whose only claim to heroism was a rank given to him by equally opportunist Aguinaldo, to serve as his sex slave. The product of these trysts was Sion, Ebong's grandmother, even if Ruben was really Rosa's grandson to another child, the mute Ando, of a different father--the revolutionary leader Dionisio Balinghasay, more known as Papa Dune.

3. Ebong, from his real name Rebolusyon, was born in the mountains. From the various Filipino ethnoepics to Balagtas' Florante at Laura to Rizal's Noli Me Tangere to Macario Pineda's Ang Ginto sa Makiling, the mountains and forests had been sanctuary to the revolution. Reyes recognized this: "Lagi't laging ang kagubatan ang sanktwaryo sa panahon ng ligalig, noon hanggang ngayon at sa mahaba pang panahon. Doo'y may bisa pa ang dasal nila sa kanilang mga anito." Reyes, despite the plurality of voices in his novel, was not covert with his political position and sympathies.

4. The novel ends with the deaths of Sion, Ruben and Boybi, Ebong's friend--perhaps as foil to what Rebo could have been or could be; Sion decided to die believing she was no longer made for the fast changes in the present world--and the last two were both killed for political reasons. Ebong decided that the stories must end before his story, his own story, should begin. And he left us with a question: What do you think should we do now? Novel-reading demands action as a consequence.

The History of Danish Dreams

2010-01-24T11:46:00.004+08:00

1. Where does the essence of an entire century lie? Within many everyday events, replied Peter Høeg's narrator in The History of Danish Dreams, whose identity was revealed in the last two pages of the novel, when I no longer cared about his relationship with the main characters of his stories. Because this was an attempt to write a history, the history, of a nation's dreams (both an unusual and interesting subject to historicize), time is necessarily problematized even from the start. If history is embedded in time, time must exist for history to materialize; if time was an invention, it must be something that people can get rid of, not unlike their own history.

But our narrator would reveal: "I, too, have a dream of living in a chaotic universe where hours and minutes have no place... I, too, feel like trying to run from time, but it catches up with us all, even with me." This narrator, all throughout the narrative, would equate his individual longings and dreams to that of a collective, of the whole Danish dreams, and the only justification is that "he was born to the sensitivity and confusion of this century."

2. The triumphant melancholy of the chosen. This becomes the predicament of individuals whose lives were at the center of a developing narrative. Here we get to know Carl Laurids and Amelie Teander and their son Carsten, and Anna Bak and Adonis Jensen and their daughter Maria; Maria and Carsten would of course meet, get married, and have their own children. These people determined which among "many everyday events" would have significance, what dreams would they allow to surface: the dream of the nouveau riche "of having a total, one hundred percent firm grip on time," and yet the pretensions of middle-class lives that only burglars and thieves, like Adonis' father Ramses, could observe in the silence and intimacy of their burglary; and the dream of the Village, alongside the "idea of the waiting city [that] is not just an image... [but] also a historical fact." Space and class clearly predominate the issues of a century's longings.

These dreams then become a parody of archetypes, of people that would populate Danish narratives again and again in the past--lost children, charming soldiers, ambitious men, abandoned wives, insubordinate students, teen rebels, disagreeable mothers-in-law. In their soap opera world was the "art of reticence," and in the narrator's part, this reticence if fulfilled in the ultimate denial of form: "All things considered, we should all be grateful that this is not a novel." And the extent of this denial was in the desire, in the end, for the arrival of a new media, since "at this point in time, in Denmark, so many dreams are making themselves heard that it may no longer be possible to present them through the two-dimensional medium of paper." The future of the novel as we know it is challenged in an account that does not want to be called a novel.

3. Johannes V. Jensen, a Danish Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 1944, was a peripheral presence in the novel, and whenever he appeared, Høeg was clearly not sympathetic, especially for "all those trashy novels he had written in his youth [that] had given plenty of practice in the study of human nature, helped by a handful of crude theories."

But the sarcasm was not the same whenever Høeg would present the reading of novels in general as something that could swell one's "fantasy even further," or as just one in a series of thoughts that was preceded by the fantasy of killing someone and then, an imagined declaration of love. Or when Carsten was reading gilt-edged Danish literature, "in which grownup men describe the same loneliness as that which surrounds him." Or when Carsten was warned by his boss about James Joyce's Ulysess, which for the the former was "one long, scandalous piece of verbal diarrhea," even if he had never actually read it.

~ After Peter Høeg's The History of Danish Dreams (1988)

Your Face Tomorrow, 1: Fever and Spear

2010-01-09T19:50:00.004+08:00

1. The first volume of a novel-in-three-parts, Your Face Tomorrow, 1: Fever and Spear is Javier Marias' meditations on the dangers of telling someone something; that even if words as creations are creative, they have a destructive potential that could lead to a person's death, or even a whole nation's downfall. The paradox, of course, is that we are being told not to "tell anyone anything or give information or pass on stories." What are the dangers then that our narrator, Jacques Deza, had to face by this betrayal of his very own warning?

This is then a novel about how much people keep, even to themselves. It is about masks, and lies, and imaginings, that sometimes become truths in order for people to get the things they wanted, or believed they wanted. For in this world even our wants could be made-up. But: "the hardest part about fictions is not creating, but maintaining them, because, left to their own devices, they tend to fall apart." And so the hardness of politics and the ambivalence of literature would get mixed-up. Deza might be reading a book on history and yet fictive characters would populate his allusions. We thought we were reading a novel and then we would be presented with pictures and posters and facsimile of documents that might exist in reality.

2. This is also, naturally, about language, what it could and could not say, the language as fountains of our truths and our lies. This is about what one language finds difficult to say from another language--concepts, ideas, experiences. Deza, a Spanish from Madrid who now lives in London, recognizes how his own shifts in language--between Spanish & English--also trigger recognitions of what is home. Even if he could use both languages fluently (like many other bilinguals), only one of them could he really call his own. People may be able to use several languages, but they can only ever own one.

3. Time here moves slowly (unlike in detective or mystery novels, "to which Wheeler, like all people of a speculative or philosophical bent, was quietly addicted," or in an adventure novel such as Fleming's From Russia with Love, which was quoted heavily in this novel), because people are immersed in thinking and talking, mostly about what happened during the war--a past that Deza didn't share with his mentor Wheeler--and how people like Deza, the ones prescient, were recruited to help assess people, to understand what people would be capable of doing, to know what their face tomorrow would be, because "perhaps the future has more influence and imposes more obligations on us than the past, the unknown more than the already known." Marias here critiques how easily we could pass judgment on people and yet how difficult it is for us to understand ourselves. And so persecutions happened, and continue to happen, both in the left and in the government, and in our very own conflicted lives.

~ After Javier Marias' Your Face Tomorrow, 1: Fever and Spear (2002)

Shawarma Nights (2009)

2010-01-02T14:57:00.007+08:00

1. Shawarma Nights is the first of three sections in Vincent Jan Cruz Rubio's Paspas: Maiikling Kuwento, published posthumously by his family and friends. The six interconnected stories in this section felt like reading a novel--a novella, at least--and an eventual visit to VJ's blog revealed that they were actually intended as chapters of a novel, scheduled for publication in July 2006. (I am not aware of what happened, but I can understand that a lot of complications can happen between the writing of a book and its hoped-for publication.)

2. The epigraph, where the book's title was taken, was also from his blog: "Paspas tayo kung umibig. Minsan nasusugatan, pero naghihilom din. Paspas tayo kung huminga. Minsan naghahabol, pero napapawi rin. Paspas tayo kung mabuhay. Minsan nadarapa, pero bumabangon din. Tayo ay mga eksistensya ng kapaspasan--mga alipin sa mundo ng pagmamadali, hindi pananatili." And what did the ancients tell us about all this? My favorite of all Filipino proverbs: "Ang lumakad nang matulin, kung matinik ay malalim." Paspas. To live, and then to leave in a hurry, just like the woman who jumped off the crossing--central to the narrative, peripheral to the lives that revolve around music, sex, desires--the contents and discontents of our ids, the "hydrography" of our being--except, perhaps, for Jesus, the blind raconteur in "20/20," who harbored feelings toward the woman.

3. Of course I couldn't totally separate the writer from the text: the writer becomes text, is text, for VJ is--was--also a friend, a co-fellow in a national writers' workshop, a very promising contemporary, he who died ahead of us, was killed, and did not really decide to die, unlike Emma, the woman in his novella, he whose life was probably much like the plural lives in his stories that are trying to survive each day, with the illusion of a future--for what else would keep them from jumping off another bridge?

Pedro Páramo

2009-12-18T10:33:00.005+08:00

1. Pedro Páramo is the only novel Juan Rulfo wrote and yet it caused much envy, inspiration and influence on other important novelists of the 20th century, most notably Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The narrator here is Juan Preciado who went to Comala to find his father, Pedro Páramo; this was the last request of his mother before she died.

In the place where his mother grew up before she left his father, Juan encountered ghosts of people—Abundio, Eduviges, Pyada, Sixtina—in a now deserted site. Nothing is left of the place, even nature abandoned it. He said: “I hear the dogs howling and I let them howl, because I know there aren’t any dogs here anymore. And on windy days you can hear the wind shaking the leaves, but you already know there aren’t any trees.”

2. At some point in the story (its time is complicatedly non-linear that you cannot really say at what point something happens), Juan also died and was buried. But it didn’t end there because he realized he was still conscious and was actually speaking to corpses (“What happens to these old corpses is that when the dampness reaches them they begin to stir. And then they wake up.”), until he heard the agony of Dona Susanita, supposedly Pedro Páramo’s last (and mostly beloved) wife.

3. Intervening Juan’s narrative are back stories of Pedro Páramo as a child until the death of his other son, the one he reared, Miguel. Pedro Páramo could be Juan Rulfo’s critique of Christianity’s failure to save the bodies (and not just the souls) that suffered the inequalities of life on earth, especially in the face of any oppressive rule. Rulfo had to kill everyone in his novel, for, “you know what they say, that the dead never complain.”

~ After Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo (1955)

The Non-Existent Knight

2009-12-14T03:09:00.004+08:00

1. To be nothing within a closed helmet and armor (for what are they, then? whom to protect?) is Agilulf's predicament, obviously quite unlike all the other soldiers (armored, shielded) who mostly dislike him for being a model one: he "could not know what it was like to shut the eyes, lose consciousness, plunge into emptiness for a few hours and then wake and find oneself the same as before, link up with the threads of one's life again."

Calvino's novel then becomes a meditation on existence and nothingness, on what separates humanity from mere consciousness and voice, which Agilulf both had, aside from a name. But: "World conditions were still confused in the era when this took place. It was not rare then to find names and thoughts and institutions that corresponded to nothing in existence. But at the same time the world was pullulating with objects and capacities and persons who lacked any name or distinguishing mark."

2. But is Agilulf also--despite being disembodied--a man? Although he had "immunity from the shocks and agonies to which people who exist are subject," we would realize in the end that he depended on the very honor of his knighthood; he existed because of the recognition of that honor. When he found out that he probably lived on a lie he disappeared. He did not even have a carcass.

The people he touched became people who searched for his nothingness in order to fill whatever, whoever, is missing in their own lives: Bradamante, a lover; Raimbaud, a confidante; Gurduloo, a master.

3. A romance is often marked by a narrative complicated by some secrets and unknowns, mostly of confused blood relations that is the stuff of our everyday soap operas. "You are the daughter of the King of Scotland and of a peasant woman, I of the queen and of the Sacred Order, we have no blood tie," Torrismund told Sophronia, whom he believed as a child was his mother, later revealed to be her half-sister, before he eventually found out the truth, which, true to the thrust of romances, will make their love for each other possible.

Additionally, only in the fourth chapter would it be revealed that the story is being recounted by one Sister Theodora, who was tasked to do so by the abbess for the health of her soul, as an act of penance, even if she had doubts: that "maybe the time when one wrote with delight was neither a miracle nor grace but a sin, of idolatry, of pride," and that "one may go writing on and on with a soul already lost."

In the beginning she made us believe that she was having difficulties because she was writing about things she failed to experience herself, in the safety of her convent: the battles of war, and "that greatest of mortal follies, the passion of love." In the end it would be told however that she was also one of the characters in her tale, the one named Bradamante, who was running after Agilulf, making everybody convinced that "if a girl has had her fill of every man who exists, her one remaining desire could be for a man who doesn't exist at all."

4. There are moments when Sister Theodora would speak to the book itself, while deciding on what her narrative needs to move forward. Most of the time her novel-writing overwhelms with all the adventures that still need to be written, with all the possibilities looming. In Chapter 9, she tries to make maps, to make use of images, of lines, instead of words, in order to see her tale through; the irony of course is that we as readers do not see those lines and images but are rather confronted, still, with words.

~ After Italo Calvino's The Non-Existent Knight (1959)