I WAS going to feature the recently concluded UP National Writers Workshop in Baguio this week, as I’ve been promising for a couple of weeks now, but I’m going to have to push that back again because of news just in about another major workshop—the Dumaguete workshop now co-sponsored by the National Commission on Culture and the Arts and Silliman University.
Director-in-Residence Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas has just announced the full list of accepted applicants, who will be trooping to Dumaguete very soon for the workshop, which will last from May 3 to 21.
The following writers made it: for poetry—Gian Paolo Simeon Lao (Ateneo de Manila University); Dominique Allison Santos (University of Santo Tomas); Jacob Dominguez (University of Santo Tomas); Oscar Serquina, Jr. (University of the Philippines-Diliman); for fiction—Aaron James Jalalon (University of the Philippines-Mindanao); Jenette Ethel Vizcocho (University of the Philippines-Diliman); Gilda Ysobel Galang (Ateneo de Manila University); Anne Carly Abad (Ateneo de Manila University); Gino Francis Dizon (Ateneo de Manila University); Jose Carlo Flordeliza (De La Salle University); Ida Anita Del Mundo (De La Salle University); Samantha Echavez (University of the Philippines-Diliman); and for creative nonfiction—Kelly Marie Tulio Conlon (University of the Philippines-Mindanao); Miro Frances Capili (University of the Philippines-Diliman); and Christina Mae del Rosario (Ateneo de Manila University).
I wasn’t involved in the selection process, but I heard that many talented young writers applied this year. To those who didn’t make it, do try again next year—the Dumaguete workshop’s 50th anniversary. Many of us who went through those portals just might make the trip back with you.
THE COUNTRY'S newest literary sensation, Montreal-based Miguel “Chuck” Syjuco, was in town recently to promote his Man Asian prizewinning novel Ilustrado, published by Macmillan. A large crowd gathered at the Filipinas Heritage Library last April 14 (he also spoke at the Ateneo earlier that day) to meet the author and buy the book. Along with fellow writer Tony Hidalgo, I was asked to say a few words at what amounted to the book’s Philippine launch, and here’s what I said:
“At the risk of sounding like a parody of one of the many literary characters and hangers-on that inhabit Ilustrado, allow me to share a few quick impressions about the book.
“First of all, I like any book whose author knows what a Parker Vacumatic fountain pen is and whose protagonist uses one. It’s a romantic anachronism in the age of email, and it sets the tone for the constant tug of war between past and present that provides the tension in this grandly ambitious novel.
“Is it an easy read? Most definitely not. Is it worth buying and reading? Most definitely yes.
“It’s a relentlessly intelligent book, by which I mean that every word and turn of phrase seems to have been deliberately thought out and chosen. There’s a complex uniformity, or perhaps a uniform complexity, in the way everyone speaks, whether they’re PhDs or blog kibitzers, and it’s all by design.
“While much of the book will be rich and new for the Western reader, that will probably not be the case (at least as far as newness is concerned) for the Filipino reader, whose satisfaction will come from recognizing the familiar rather than from novelty and surprise. There are analogues galore, thinly disguised references to people and things we know too well: the Lupases sound suspiciously like the Lopezes, the Changcos the Cojuangcos, and President Fernando Estregan can only be the ultimate actor-president.
“These are all devices and diversions that have been tried before by Filipino novelists trying to wrap their heads around our bizarre and baroque realities. Like I’ve often mentioned—and Ilustrado is just the latest iteration of this idea—we like our novels writ large, tragic love stories set against the backdrop of flaming revolution, featuring Crisostomo Ibarras returning from some Western horizon to find themselves in a home that’s inexorably changed beyond their grasp.
“What’s new for us is how Syjuco foregrounds the Filipino in the world, and in the world of ideas, through his use of the characters of Crispin Salvador and his eponymous narrator—both of them Pinoys privileged in more than an economic sense. These are wickedly bright Filipinos no one can fool, except maybe themselves. They know, first of all, a plethora of words and what they mean—words like bricolage, meniscus, mackinaw, and oubliette, including words I’d never heard of, like tofurkey. They’re clearly parallel creations, both in search of lost daughters and lost women, perhaps of lost families and lost countries.
“I’m not going to spoil things for you by talking about the ending; let me just say that while I did labor, at times, to hack my way through the jungle of books-within-books that crowd this landscape, the ending is brilliant and poignant, and well worth the effort of the expedition. “This is a book full of names and things, with a proper noun seemingly punctuating every other slot in the sentence; you’ll find everything from Schumann to Shoemart, from Thucydides to Tim Yap.
“My favorite image comes from a scene where a boy observes a parade of men on tall horses—‘centaurs in a field of wheat,’ as Syjuco describes them. It’s a thoroughly alien image, of course, but it best demonstrates, for me, the wonderment at foreign objects—from his girlfriend Madison to the architecture of Gaudi—that Syjuco shares with the reader. I see this fascination with the foreign as the Filipino’s claim upon the world, as if to say, we know these things, they’re no longer just yours.
“While his discursive prose is unfailingly sharp, Syjuco’s strongest suit is actually dramatic dialogue; there’s a hilarious scene where Miguel interviews Crispin’s sister Lena, or tries to; where he sits down to dinner with the typically dysfunctional Gonzaleses; and where Sadie performs a sex act on him in the car. All of these involve expertly orchestrated utterances, more a series of outbursts and manifestations than a real conversation.
“There’s no doubt, however, that Miguel Syjuco—the novelist who’s here with us today—is conversing with us, posing the age-old questions about who and what we are. Again, the questions may not be new, but rarely if ever have they been dealt with so stylishly.”
Bravo, Syjuco!
(With many thanks to Dino Manrique for the photo.)