Tara FT Sering’s Amazing Grace

The title is a bit off, especially if you’re an anti-religion, former Catholic school boy  freak who knows the song. But still, it’s a Tara Sering book, so it’s easy to assume that the title refers to the ‘amazingness’ of the protagonist whom the author named Grace.

Chick lits often give happy endings a.k.a. closing scenes of a wedding, a wet kiss, make-up sex, what-have-you. “Amazing Grace,” interestingly, does a feminist stance. The couple won’t end up with each other. And it’s not the woman’s fault.

To sum it up: Grace meets Mike (epitome of male beauty, as usual), the two become a couple, the relationship runs for two years, and then the conflict: Mike is assigned to Singapore. Before leaving, however, the guy proposes to Grace, giving her and the readers hope that there will be problems, but things are to end up fine.

Andrea Pasion’s Have Baby, Will Date

The purpose of Philippine chick literature is to give readers cheap romantic thrills (“kilig”), and this is what Andrea Pasion’s “Have Baby, Will Date” practically does. The book brings you to the conio girl world of Denise, a hot and pretty (surprise!) freelance photographer purely surrounded by beautiful men. The story opens with Denise lying in a hospital bed, having just given birth to a baby girl she named Simone.  The delivery is a result of a one-night encounter with a guy named Coby who, based on the book’s initial description alone, is destined to become the protagonist’s ever-after guy.

The book plays on formulaic plots with enthusiasm that you have to give it credit.  Supposedly representing the empowered modern city girl, Denise initially declines Coby’s offer of marriage because, well, it’s just plain sex.  The protagonist’s best friend/sidekick Joanne does a consistent job in the book: she’s a mother who gives motherly statements. Joanne hates Coby at first, and as expected this will change as the guy turns out to be a keeper.

Dibidi and Division: Chris Martinez’s Our Lady of Arlegui

Several literatures illuminating the conflicts and biases between Christians and Muslims have already been written, and Chris Martinez’s “Our Lady of Arlegui” provides a hilarious addition. The one-act Filipino play depicts the short but very memorable encounter between Rhett, a young Christian film geek, and Anisah, a 40-ish Muslim vendor of DVDs in Quiapo’s Arlegui Street. Rhett is looking for the classic film, “400 Blows” when an Optical Media Board raid ensues, which highlights the culture of “staged” hiding and creates a rationale for conversation.

The Cur[es/se] of A Nation: Bob Ong’s Kapitan Sino

“Laman pa rin ng kalye si Aling Precious, tinitingnan ang bawat taong nagdadaan, hawak ang walis tingting pero wala nang winawalis. Maya-maya pa eh tinanaw ng aleng palawalis ang magkabilang dulo ng kalye, saka nangulangot, at tiningnan ang daliri: walang laman. Tinuhog ulit ang ilong nang pagkalalim-lalim (11).”

Bob Ong’s 7th book is not far from what he has written in the past, as the short novel presents a fascinating amalgamation of all the ideals that he has shored up in his former works. It touches on the search for personal triumph (ABNKKBSNPLAko?/Stainless Longganisa), the need to reform Filipino’s negative cultural traits (Bakit Baligtad Magbasa ang Mga Pilipino), the existence of God in relation to negotiating predetermination and creation of a personal destiny (Paboritong Libro ni Hudas/Mac Arthur), the supposed role of a citizen in his/her community and the need to form decisions with sense and wisdom (Alamat ng Gubat).

What If A Dream Dreams A Dream and Dreams A Dream: Edgar Calabia Samar’s Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog

“Write what you know”, is a mantra that literature and creative writing professors tell their students. Edgar Calabia Samar takes this seriously by creating a character whose desires revolve around the realm of writing itself. Daniel, the hero of the art piece, discloses the chapters of the novel by being a storyteller that repeatedly shifts in voice, person, situation, and mood. Why do novel writers separate the “real” literary work from the “making” of the literary work when they can simply fuse and package them into one book? More, why do novelists need to think of a plot of the novel when the very “making” of the novel can pass as a great plot? Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog is created by a writer who creates a main character dreaming to be a writer who formulates philosophies and employs narrative voices which he has learned from a dozen of other popular writers which the main character uses to imagine characters that he is imagining, or dreaming, to write. This project, this creation of labyrinths through playing with the scheme of “writer within a writer within a writer ellipsis” , is what makes Samar’s work a difficult read, if difficult means trying painfully to find “what The Author Samar wants to say” according to the conventional structuralist/beginning-muddle-end method of literary interpretation.

Another Bob Ong, Please: Vlad Gonzales’ Isang Napakalaking Kaastigan

Isang Napakalaking Kaastigan

The first page recounts the author’s kindergarten experiences, and readers can’t help recalling the same scene in Bob Ong’s ABNKKBSNPLAko?. Actually, if one is going to scan the Philippine lit bookshelves, one will feel an earnest desire of local publishing houses to come up with books that will equal if not outdo the success of the Bob Ong series. Aside from this book, there are Eros Atalia’s “Peksman, Nagsisinungaling Ako” and Bud Tomas’ “Wala lang,” which are both written in comical-but-wait-there-is-depth-and-drama-somewhere-yes-I’m-Bob-Ong-but-hello-I’m-not mode. Even National Artist Virgilio Almario employs a Bob Ong element in his new book which he entitled “Supot ni Hudas.”

But why should I complain? Many students are now flocking National and Powerbooks to search for local books with the same BobOngish mode, and before I know it they’re already reading F. Sionil Jose. And Amado Hernandez. And even Edel Garcellano! This might be a sign of an upcoming golden age of Philippine literature! And god, Bob Ong is its father.

Popularity, Sexuality and the Not Quite Unreality: Carlos Malvar’s Roles

In his recently published novel entitled Roles, Carlos Malvar attempts to capture the present realities and sensibilities of Manila’s higher-class, young adult generation through deploying a set of familiar high school characters in the fictionalized yet familiar-sounding exclusive school named “The Montessori of Asia and the Pacific”. Knowing the setting and the title and reading the first chapter of the novel are enough to predict how this work is projected to pursue: every character amounts to and plays a specific role, and every role will be given detachable blocks of substories to give way for character and plot development.

It is interesting to point out though that the title Roles also explores the idea of the plot ironically resonating itself inside an inner plot. In this novel, the characters are united by the challenge to join the auditions of the reality show “You’re It,” but the reality show actually already starts at the very beginning of the novel, the omniscient lenses of the chameleon narrator catching every role that every character plays.