Names and words have power. (Those who, for whatever reason, don’t like to read are depriving themselves of additional potency—more nutrition for the mind and the soul, if you will.) For example, a friend of mine jokingly said that the name of this column, “Inkcanto,” was magical. That made me laugh.
After all, if this column really has magical powers, it would be able to magnetize and enchant the sexiest woman in the Philippines into loving it.
Model and actress Sam Pinto, FHM Philippines’s sexiest woman for 2012, during a break from her cover shoot for The New You Magazine (The Awesome Body Issue) now available in bookstores.
Wow. Names and words have power. Start reading now.
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If you’re a Filipino and you haven’t read any book by a Filipino author then it’s the best time for you discover Philippine Literature—because there really is such a thing, you know. If you read the books featured here, you’d be doing yourself a favor.
Dumot by Alan Navarra (Visprint, Inc.). According to the author, “dumot” is a Hiligaynon word that means “vindictiveness”. It’s also—again, according to the author—a pun on the French word “du mot,” which means, “the word.”
Dumot is a very angry book. But, unlike another very angry book, Mondomanila by Norman Wilwayco, the former’s anger is directed at contemporary urban/corporate life. Mondomanila, you may say, more squarely directs its anger over social inequalities and the violence and oppression that the power structure inflicts against the poor. You could say there’s even a “righteous” anger to it.
By comparison, Dumot is more, well, intellectual and formal (as in “form”) in its approach. There’s only the flimsiest thread of a “plot” and even then, that’s presented as a vague suggestion. All that’s hinted at is how the book’s protagonist, Michael Perez, is resigning out of disgust from his company—perhaps especially because his boss is an insufferable, clueless, narcissistic prick.
That said, Dumot employs, among its arsenal of devices, letters, memos, e-mails, bulleted information, and illustrations rendered with manic concentricity. For Michael Perez, it’s not simply Filipino life’s unrelenting privations that royally piss him off: rather, its superficial triteness in everyone’s response to these that’s rage-inducing. It’s a superficiality that dehumanizes precisely those who are already too vapid to care—and so these non-people who defaulted on their humanity are deserving and easy targets for his ire. For Michael Perez, to be angry is to be human.
Navarra does an excellent job in finding a form for his work—there’s an artful craftiness to the book’s combination of verbal and visual elements that make it an engaging read. The overall design gives a grey gun-metal, steely elegance to his words—and while critic Angelo Suarez calls attention to the book as being “design for design’s sake,” as a reader I would call attention to the excellence of Navarra’s writing: his quick, precisely-aimed bursts of language are perfect for rendering literary art to a generation now more used to reading FB statuses, Tweets, instant messages and inter-office memos sent online.
Also, 'Dumot' has free stickers!—made especially for the alphabetically-challenged. Inkcanto photo for InterAksyon.com.
After the Body Displaces Water by Daryll Delgado (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House) is a short story collection that can be considered as feminist writing—but without the heavy-handed, blunt-object-to-the-head politics. The main character in most of Delgado’s stories is a woman. These women find themselves in rather interesting situations.
You will feel newly-washed after reading this book—with a hint of brine on your skin.
In “Conversation,” the two main characters are lovers, a man and a woman, who remain nameless throughout the story. They’re both quite drunk. The man, in fact, is carrying empty bottles of soda and brandy in a plastic bag. Then the woman essentially flips out. Clearly she has issues. Is it because she wants to have kids and, for some reason, they don’t?
Another story I liked (perhaps my favorite in the collection) is “In remission”, about a woman who decides to get away from everyone and everything—her well-paying career, her friends, her family—after she’s diagnosed with terminal cancer. However, a one-night stand with a waiter has consequences that make her re-think her previous resolve to die alone.
Delgado’s “Summer with scouts, pirates and pregnant rats” is a joyride through the main character’s nostalgia for her lost youth. There’s a scene where she has rather desultory sex with her boyfriend—she’s distracted because she’s worried about a big, disgusting rat loose in the house.
Delgado’s prose comes through as clearly as a bell in a Zen monastery, and she knows how to create scenes and details that pack emotional truth. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection, especially those parts in her stories where the sense of time gets fuzzy and (seemingly) breaks down, turning the narratives into stranger stuff approaching the vagaries—and the sensuous intimacies—of memory.
Ultraviolins by Khavn (University of the Philippines Press) is a spectacle of derangement that you simply must experience. The stories were originally written in Tagalog but all are provided with English translations.
Contrary to what some of you might presume, Khavn’s first name is not “Chaka” and he’s unlikely to be related to the singer.
In the book, you will meet loveable characters like Buynok, who performs in a carnival. His act? He eats live chickens. See what happens when, one night, instead of a live chicken, the mythical Ibong Adarna falls into Buynok’s hands.
You will also see a story title like “The rapist in my heart” while another story is titled “dedbol” (which is Tagalog slang for “dead”)—both of them feature violence on a level that is absurd and comical at turns.
If you’re the sort who can only appreciate stories for their “moral lessons” then Ultraviolins may shock and disgust you—especially if the only violence you encounter in the books you read is the Twilight or Hunger Games or even the Harry Potter variety.
Khavn, who is a slasher—he’s a filmmaker/poet/fictionist/pianist/singer/songwriter—defies any easy description that one may use to categorize Ultraviolins. And, compared to a lot of so-called post-modern or post-post-modern stuff, Ultraviolins has the pleasant quality of not being boring.
Perhaps it is this non-boringness that spurred acclaimed speculative fiction author Cory Doctorow to take note of “The Family That Eats Soil,” one of Khavn’s stories in the book. Getting noted by Doctorow is no mean feat, considering that he’s been called the William Gibson of his generation.
Inkcanto photo for InterAksyon.com.
