Column: Who’s Preying on Whom?: Two Experiences

Who’s to blame for children not liking classical Filipino literature? Here are two viewpoints…

Reaction 1: Literature has to be experienced

By M. S. A. Sereno

When I first read Mga Ibong Mandaragit, I was 14, a high school senior with bad study habits, and even worse Filipino reading skills. Our teacher had given us a list of books and told us to write a report on one of them; I had rather shortsightedly chosen the longest, the one featuring “what happened after the Fili” and then had forgotten all about it until a day before the deadline. I spent an afternoon hacking through what felt like huge, thorny thickets of words and emerged from my room with a migraine pounding at what remained of my brain. Needless to say, I did not enjoy reading that book.

That experience doesn’t give me the right to pronounce judgment on “Mga Ibong Mandaragit,” of course. To be honest, I read the book too quickly to form a coherent, lasting impression, and now all I can recall is a sort of grudging resignation to the events unfolding throughout its pages and unrelenting dislike towards one of the main characters.

All I can say is that the author wrote well and his work can be read, difficult as it may be. And it was hard reading; I don’t doubt that if I had more time – say, several days or a week – I’d still have found it difficult. Many students probably feel the same way.

So while I disagree with her, I have a lot of sympathy – in the sense of shared experiences of pain – for Connie Veneracion, the author of The Birds of Prey and Batjay, a (by now) infamous article posted on her blog (<http://houseonahill.net/the-birds-of-prey-and-batjay/>).

In the article, Ms. Veneracion wrote about how difficult it was to read the book, then went on to tackle her issues with overly complex usage of language and elitism in literature.

She calls Mga Ibong Mandaragit “[a] case of substance muddled by incomprehensible form” and goes on to ask “What is so objectionable about the use of simple language in literature? Is literature naturally elitist and meant to be appreciated only by a few? Is it what makes it special? Is that what makes it good?”

Near the article’s ending, she writes, “Just what is the difference between [classic literature and popular literature] if not old age? Language evolves. Culture evolves. If we keep on defining literature based on the number of obsolete words used, literature will always be something for the enjoyment of men who like to shut themselves up in a room dissecting letters.”

Fighting words. (My knee-jerk reaction: “But… we don’t define literature based on the number of obsolete words! And… I’m not a man, nor do I dissect letters!”) Quite a few writers and bloggers responded: slamming Ms. Veneracion’s insistence on “quick and easy payoffs”; emphasizing the value of working hard to understand great literature; bemoaning the increasing inability, especially among the young, to read Filipino well; showing how important art is to life.

I was moved to tears by Exie Abola’s response, Preying on Ignorance, which appeared as a column and was also reposted on his blog at <http://dogberryexie.blogspot.com/2008/05/preying-on-ignorance.html>. He wrote: “While entertainment strokes our ego and makes us content with ourselves and the world we live in, art calls us to go beyond our comfort zone, to expand the limited spheres of our existence. It admonishes us to become more than who we already are. … Art disturbs us into living.” What a beautiful way to put it.

But the reactions, well-written and passionately argued as they were, left me wanting. It took me a while (a long while) to articulate precisely what I felt they lacked, and in that interval more blog posts were written, more comments posted. There were so many posts that reading all of them and sorting through the web of links and trackbacks took me several hours. But having gone through what I could find I still didn’t see something: a reaching out to people who didn’t like reading, an offer to help readers trapped in the mire of “philistinism” make their way out and begin learning, an answer to the question: “You say this is wrong – so what now?”

Putting myself in the shoes of someone who agreed with Ms. Veneracion – and that type of reader is not uncommon – reading the reactions would only make me more entrenched in my wrongly-held beliefs, more convinced of the strength of my position.

To that hypothetical me, people insulting Ms. Veneracion’s intelligence and/or ranting about stupidity (called for though it may be) would serve as more evidence, yet again, of the elitism of the Filipino literati. And no matter how beautifully written other posts on literature might be, they still wouldn’t reach me. How could they? I would read them without fully understanding their arguments, because I wouldn’t actually have experienced the beauty of literature – despite all assumptions to the contrary.

Elitism?

The original article is indeed as guilty of elitism as the literati it accuses: in its case a reverse elitism, a prejudice against difficult reading and books considered “high literature” (a concept still valid to most of the people who agreed with Ms. Veneracion).

However that does not diminish the fact that there really is elitism in the way many Filipinos view, read, and write literature. That there are people disgruntled with the current status quo – or at least their perception of it – should come as no surprise, and though some of them take it to extremes it doesn’t excuse the apparent lack of material written to change their perspectives, especially in light of the amount of effort that has gone into discrediting Ms. Veneracion.

What would have been a possible alternative? For starters, impassioned defenses of literature, the worth of art, and the Filipino language might have fared better had they been tempered with attempts to bridge the divide rather than widening it. We could say: deep and thoughtful reading is important too, enjoyable as dipping into junk food manga with titles like Perfect Girl Evolution and Kateikyo Hitman Reborn! might be. And look – some books are difficult, yes, nobody’s saying aren’t, but they aren’t impossible, and trying is certainly worth it. Trying to understand why is just as meaningful as knowing what. You don’t have to like something because critics and professors say it’s good; come to think of it, you don’t have to like something even if you think it’s good (for instance, though I think Haruki Murakami is a good writer I don’t like his work, for reasons entirely my own). You don’t have to like anything. But you could at least try – try to read, to understand, to form your own, informed, opinion.

I was dismayed to see a writer denigrate “simple” and “easy” literature in her reaction to Ms. Veneracion’s article. Not only is it entirely possible for a book to be both simple and complex, easy to read and thought-provoking, what sort of mindset is the putting down of “simple and easy writing” perpetuating? Wouldn’t this just reinforce the association, “incomprehensible = deep”? Wouldn’t this just encourage some writers to make their work as complex and linguistically obscure as they can, for the sake of appearing profound? Wouldn’t this just be off-putting and discouraging to many would-be readers?

It isn’t very effective to answer “If they’re put off, they should work harder” even though it may be true. I had a professor who, in the first day of class in a general education subject, filled the board with so many equations many of my classmates lost whatever drive or energy they had and just gave up on getting a good grade. He said he did this to highlight the seriousness of the subject. That may be so, but he probably should have said something about the importance of physics first, or maybe mentioned its applications to real life, the beauty and simplicity of its principles – little things, which might have been obvious to him but were totally new to his students – before stunning his audience into near-insensibility.

It’s true: we should work harder. We shouldn’t stop trying. We ought to challenge ourselves, to struggle, to learn. But our quest for understanding doesn’t involve looking down on those who are just beginning to learn (maybe even unwilling or unable to learn) or attempting to drag down people who’ve advanced to higher slopes and steeper ground. There’s no reason to draw anything downwards when there are still so many ways to go up.

Reaction 2: The rift between writer and reader

By M. R. R. Arcega

I confess it’s been ages since I last read Mga Ibong Mandaragit, and that was when it was required for high school. I didn’t retain any of it. That probably means I didn’t like it and wasn’t inspired in any way by it.

However, I don’t consider that my fault. I don’t consider it Amado Hernandez’s fault either. So whose fault is it?

I believe this is essentially what’s being discussed in one of the hottest topics in the Philippine blogosphere: who’s to blame for children not liking classical Filipino literature?

Somehow, this historically significant novel by Amado Hernandez became representative of every classical work turned out by Filipino authors, and indeed by every piece of “high literature” ever written. And Connie Veneracion, who brought it up in the first place, became the demon in the dark which everybody had to hunt down, because now she represents a lot of things that are wrong with the readership of the country.

I’m not going to say that not being able to appreciate classical literature should not be given attention as a national problem: it matters, and it definitely merits further discussion. But I do wonder if the discussion should proceed like this. Reading through the reactions, and through the offending column itself, one wonders if Connie Veneracion’s column truly deserved the ire it garnered, or if it just turned into an effigy because it’s high time for these issues to come to light.

Perhaps we needed something to demonize, to pour all our frustrations about literacy and literary appreciation onto, and this column just happened to come up at exactly the right time.

A different (we cannot exactly say “deeper,” as some of the reactions have in fact gone so far as to overanalyze particularly inflammatory sections) analysis of Miss Veneracion’s column would yield a genuine concern for the country’s educational standards. The classics are losing an audience among readers - especially young readers - with more contemporary tastes, and our educators are failing to address that loss.

Thanks to the opinions exchanged, it became clear that there IS resentment between readers and literary writers in the Philippines, and it has been brewing under the surface for ages. It’s certainly not a one-way street - some readers resent writers for feeling like they’re being deliberately alienated from the text and then made to feel inferior about it. But some writers also feel alienated from their intended readers because the latter don’t make an effort to understand their work - and even passionately discourage each other from doing so!

The thing is, this whole war appears to be going badly, as it’s now lending itself more to typecasting than to any sort of righteous indignation. If there was a rift between writers and readers before Ms. Veneracion’s article was written, it could well have grown after our respected literary bodies have turned it into something to be blindly despised.

Of course, this doesn’t mean many of the children who actually have to sit through Mga Ibong Mandaragit will be affected by this whole ordeal. A great many of them still 1) don’t have access to the Internet or 2) have difficulty comprehending old Tagalog, or both. The problem of why some classical required reading material in our schools comes across as incomprehensible is not solved - however, the problem of why people have a negative view of the classics is brought to light.

I believe no writer actually consciously makes oneself hard to understand. At the same time, no person who actually likes to read would outright say “That’s just one of those snobby intellectuals/dead writer dudes spewing nonsense again, don’t waste your time with that.” People generally want to understand and be understood - especially if it’s impressed upon them that something is Important, in the sense that they could not have been free Filipinos if it had not been written and published. Literacy is still prized in the Philippines both as a personal achievement and a tool for success.

I don’t side with Ms. Veneracion on this issue; I don’t even like the way she wrote her column. But I don’t doubt her dedication to literature. It’s clear enough from her words that the last thing she wants to do is to turn her children into illiterate louts, or indeed even to “anti-literary snob” louts. She does encourage reading, although she discourages being told what to read, and how to enjoy it — which is something I definitely endorse.

And I definitely don’t like how people contributed to the growth of the already massive rift between the people who earnestly work toward a deeper understanding of high literature (aka aspiring writers) and the people who simply wish it was easier to appreciate historically and culturally significant text, because it is difficult to achieve an immediate connection with it (aka “philistines”).

So, in attempting to answer the questions I asked earlier, I’m saying now that it’s nobody’s fault that I didn’t like the text. That doesn’t make me a bad Filipino, or make Ka Amado a bad writer, or even my literature teachers bad educators. But if I dislike all classical works just because I didn’t understand it, that’s different - there is definitely a problem.

As a reader, I found it particularly interesting that the default reaction of literary writers to being told “we don’t understand you and we don’t like it” would appear to be “you’re just not trying hard enough!” This in itself I think speaks of another deep-set problem: one of modern writers losing touch with their readership. And it would be disastrous for all of us - readers and writers alike - if this issue is not properly addressed, and soon.

On the other hand, as a writer, I find it exhilarating that some people - young people, especially - are revisiting Mga Ibong Mandaragit and making an honest effort to understand it, if only to see what the hoolaballoo is about. I hope this doesn’t stop at Ka Amado’s novel, suddenly controversial again after so many years - I hope young people are able to see that their appreciation and understanding of a text, especially of a classical text, is not limited to what they are handed out in class or on their textbooks.

However, I am also appalled that literary advocates needed to roast, spit and burn a fellow literary advocate alive just to prove a point.

May 24, 2008 | Filed Under Latest, Read or Die | 3 Comments

Updates

Our column in Manila Bulletin still comes out weekly so you can check it out for our current preoccupations etc. The first phase of Write or Die is (nearly) finished; we’ll start a new round come June 2008.

In the meantime still working on the ‘new’ public site of Read Or Die so people emailing us re: broken links etc, we’ll be back up to snuff soon, i.e., by next week. RoD is undergoing some major re-engineering (not so much re-organization). We started out as a book club, but after RodCon 2007, RoD has evolved into something much bigger, and we’ve had to give serious thought about its sustainability and how it can be effective not just as a book club, but as a reading advocacy, and we don’t think that we can do this by ourselves any longer. We’ve been amazed at the level of support that we have received but we frankly can’t catch up anymore and we don’t want to let this entire thing grind to a halt simply because most of us have had to deal or are dealing with major career and lifestyle changes etc. We were just a bunch of readers who had no ambitions aside from meeting other like-minded geeks, but Read or Die is not, well, it’s not about us, really, and it hasn’t been for a long time. Corny ba? Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, watch out for a more detailed announcement in the next couple of weeks.

April 6, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

Announcements

Vibal Foundation opens internship program for online writing

Vibal Foundation is opening an internship program for college students interested in writing using digital platforms starting April 7, 2008. This is in line with the Foundation’s mission of encouraging young people to harness the potential of the Internet as a communication tool.

The internship program will involve writing articles for the Foundation’s flagship projects: WikiPilipinas.org, a free and collaboratively written encyclopedia of Philippine content; POC, a news website; and creating metadata information for Filipiniana.net, a digital library containing Philippine books, documents, and multimedia resources.

Interns will be requested to render at least 100 hours of on-site work. They will be provided with a stipend throughout the internship and a certificate of completion once they have finished the program.

Interested parties are requested to email their CVs to Christian Pangilinan (Program Coordinator) at chris@wikipilipinas.org.ph. They may also contact the Vibal Foundation office at 7129156 to 59 loc. 343.

Vibal Foundation is a non-profit organization whose aim is to foster information literacy through the creative use of digital technology and new media.

Katext Mo Sa Katotohanan Poetry Contest>The Filipinas Institute of Translation, Inc. (FIT) launches “Katext Mo Sa Katotohanan” (Your Text Mate For Truth), a dalit poetry writing contest through the popular SMS/text messaging. FIT has sponsored similar contests in the past using other indigenous literary forms like the tanaga and diona.

Dalit is a traditional poetic form consisting of four mono-rhyming lines of eight syllables each. It is highly metaphorical and conveys an insight on human life and experience. Here is an example:

Ang sugat ay kung tinanggap
Di daramdamin ang antak
Ang aayaw at di mayag
Galos lamang magnanaknak.
(When one submits himself to wounding,
The intensest pain is bearable;
When one is unwilling,
Even the merest scratch can fester)

Writers and poetry enthusiasts can join the contest which has a very contemporary theme—the value of telling the truth. Writing poems is an effective way of expressing communal feelings and at this time in our national life, communal action.

Ang tunay na Filipino
Nagsasabi ng totoo
Naglilingkod sa totoo
Ilalaban ang totoo.
- Rio Alma

Contestants can text their poems at 0915-7832810. Or email them at dalitext@yahoo.com. Poems must strictly follow the dalit rhyme and meter. Cut-off time is at 5pm every Friday. Weekly winners gets a prize of P2,000.00 Consolation prize winners will receive certificates. For details, call 9221830 or email at mentioned address.

NBDB Book Club Meeting: Sudden Fiction Anthologies

The NBDB Book Club will be reading two volumes of the country’s best collection of sudden fiction stories.

Written by the finest writers of this generation, Mga Kuwentong Paspasan and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers (both volumes published by Milflores Publishing) contain 30 stories in Filipino and 41 short stories in English. Both volumes are edited by Vicente Garcia Groyon.

The book club meeting will be held on March 15,Saturday, 10 a.m. at the Ortigas Foundation Library. Award-winning writer Tara FT Sering will moderate the discussion.

Mga Kuwentong Paspasan and Very Short Stories for Harried Readers are available at National Bookstore branches for P290 each.

For more details about the NBDB Book Club, please call 926-8238 or 631-1231 local 222 and 228.

Everyone who has read the featured books is invited to come. Admission is free.

March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Latest, Events | 5 Comments

Coming soon (or sooner)

Busy on a personal level but there have been some new things going on club-wise. Extensive developments, one might say. Am preparing for the RoD magazine which will be published by National Book Store this April and we’re coming out with a new website (yeah, like what’s new–hopefully there should be something a little bit relevant in it though). The second quarter of the year ought to be interesting for the organization.

In the meantime we’re trucking on with the columns. We’ve just finished wrapping up the last part of Write or Die for Gawad Likhaan and are taking a short breather. Until April, that is, and then…

March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | 1 Comment

Column: Planetary Pariahs: Bradbury and the Influence of Edgar Allan Poe

Our column last Saturday (February 23). Kristel dishes the dirt on Bradbury (I love these people). I wrote a two-part column before that about er Genji monogatari and the Arabian Nights (you’d know we’re pressed for time when we post something like thesis dissertations in the Manila Bulletin bless their generous hearts).

Planetary Pariahs: Bradbury and the Influence of Edgar Allan Poe
By Kristel Autencio

I. “Bradbury is the Louis Armstrong of science fiction”

More than sixty years after publishing his first story and creating a career full of contradictions, Ray Bradbury has firmly cemented a reputation as an oddity of American Letters. As part of the so-called Golden Age of science fiction in the 1940’s and 50’s, he achieved a fanatical following through his mass production of off-beat stories, spitting them up by the dozen for pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, and Imagination! He later gained mainstream celebrity for his brilliant novels, The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451. One novel is a pioneer-type tale about humans colonizing the planet Mars, the other a futuristic allegory warning against the dangers of censorship. Both of them are generally accepted as part of the SF canon. Aside from that stories had also appeared, in such highbrow publications as Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, and Collier’s and he has been awarded both the National Medal of Arts and the O. Henry Memorial Award. He also earned lavish praise from more “literary” (as opposed to “pulpy”) writers such as Chistopher Isherwood and British writer Kingsley Amis. Is he then a hack, or a genius, a veritable master of the bizarre or simply a writer of childhood elegies? Not many have ridden this fence like he has, balancing between what Amis calls his “dime-a-dozen sensitivity” and literary respectability.

His reputation among SF circles is shifty as well. Despite being constantly mentioned in the same breath as other SF greats such as Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke, many science fiction purists refuse to recognize Bradbury as a legitimate SF writer, and have criticized his stories’ “science,” with good reason. In Bradbury’s fiction, Venus skies are full of rain and not toxic ammonia, and improbable rocket ships scoop out burning pieces of the sun while the crew recites poetry.

Even his stories that are supposedly set in planets like Mars reek heavily of Americana–readers imagine Ohio with a pink sky rather than a hostile, alien world. Bradbury’s imagery is far removed from the exact scientific logic in the fiction of his contemporaries. Science for them is never poetic, never irrational, the fulcrum for their stories’ believability. Bradbury simply chucks it out of the window. Therein lies the presumption that perhaps Bradbury operates not by the logic and laws of typical SF writers but by an entirely different frequency altogether. Despite having rocket ships and time machines, his fiction is not in the tradition of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, where the logistics of the story, however fictional, take precedence over imagery and symbolism.

Ray Bradbury’s body of work has much more in common with that of American Gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe.

1. “Bradbury is of the house of Poe.”

Beyond overt homages to Poe’s talent, Bradbury has also incorporated much of Poe’s style into his fiction. Foremost of this is Poe’s deft use of setting as an ingredient, not only to as the backdrop for his unforgettable characters, but also as a symbolism, a indication that there is something rotten just below the surface. From Prince Propero’s Gothic chambers (”The Masque of the Red Death”), the decaying House of Usher, and the catacombs of Montresor (”The Cask of Amontillado”), the setting acts as an additional character, oftentimes more memorable and quotable.

Bradbury’s greatest strength is his poetic sensibility as “existential fabulous.” Much like Poe, he relies heavily on atmosphere, often imbuing them with metaphor. The texture varies greatly however, employing nostalgia and dark foreboding with equal deftness. Oftentimes, Bradbury’s characters may not have any faces but readers always remember his settings. Seldom in science fiction words would you encounter passages such as these, more remarkable because Bradbury is describing a drive through lonely Martian roads.

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in the dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain…. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. (“The Martian Chronicles”)

In one of his most haunting short stories entitled “The Scythe,” a story about a farmer who has dominion over people’s death by cutting wheat, Bradbury successfully evokes the American Midwest in the time of the Great Depression through the imagery of vast rolling wheat fields contrasted with the mention of unemployment, starvation and dust. Roderick Usher’s ancestral home operates in the same way in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, using a dilapidated house instead of wheat fields. Through carefully crafted images of “decayed trees…a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible and leaden-hued”, the deterioration of an entire family line become inevitable.

In fact, Bradbury’s themes, his use of setting to generate a tone of foreboding and disintegration, and romanticizing of death and decay seem to be heavily rooted in the Poeian tradition. Bradbury’s sense of suspense also contains shades of Poe. Being able to successfully sustain action and anticipation through intricate and sometimes convoluted sentences have always been the specialty of Edgar Allan Poe’s fiction.

Both Bradbury and Poe use layer upon layer of imagery, often tactile, to achieve a slow-creeping, insidious kind of horror that is more than just shock value. Admittedly, both of them revel in the use of grotesque elements–Bradbury gravitates towards mummies and skeletons while Poe was latched on the concept of being buried alive–but unlike other writers who employ the same tricks, their images stay longer. They both value paranoia in their fiction. One of Poe’s most memorable characters kills a kindly old man because “one of his eyes resembled that of a vulture”. Bradbury, on the other hand, uses innocuous objects like a set of stairs, a jar filled with animal fetuses, and the carnival of your childhood and transforms them in the stuff of nightmares.

2. “Is Ray Bradbury a Luddite?”

This contradictory and often contentious relationship of his with science fiction and technology in general is the reason for much of flak he has received from the SF fans and fellow writers. Bradbury himself has written that he has been “criticized by many who observed that I was no writer of science fiction, I was a ‘people’ writer, and to hell with that!”. The perception, articulated here by Damon Knight writer and one of the first SF scholars:

“Although there is a large following among science fiction readers, there is at least an equally large contingent of people who cannot stomach his work at all; they say he has no respect for the medium; that he does not even trouble to make his scientific double-talk convincing; that–worst crime of all–he fears and distrusts science.”

Damon Knight, who recognizes Bradbury’s talent, doesn’t really think much of him as a writer of science fiction. This reading of Bradbury, however, purely on the merits of his scientific know-how and the general logic of his stories seems to be a little to myopic. Most SF writers and readers accept that for science fiction to be called good it must be “based on knowledgeable scientific extrapolation and cannot be inconsistent with known science” . But in a world where you need to upgrade your cellphone every other month, and the US military is supposedly developing “invisibility suits,” what is merely scientific extrapolation mere months ago is fast becoming obsolete. Good stories, not just SF ones, need something more substantial to hang on to. When Knight says that “Bradbury’s Mars, where it is not bare as a Chinese stage-setting, is a mass of inconsistency,” he is basically telling the truth. But claiming that “his imagination is mediocre” and that “he borrows nearly all his background and props, and distorts them badly” fails to take into account that other SF writers also employ these props, they are cliches by themselves, and only through skewing them a little does an SF writer’s literary gift manifest itself.

Realms of the science fiction today are fluid, with concepts such as drug-induced alternative realities, and genetic mutation as some of the trendiest themes. Writers like Philip K. Dick have successfully avoided this kind of censure from other SF folks, so why is Bradbury continually trapped in this controversy?

Knight was correct though in saying that instead of being born a century too late, Bradbury would have been a cast-away at any age. In fact, Edgar Allan Poe was too. Despite having a formidable reputation now, his almost sing-songy poems and his almost manic glee towards the grotesque made him the 19th Century equivalent of a pulp writer, always a notch below the likes of Hawthorne in terms of respectability. And perhaps writers of Bradbury and Poe’s vein need this kooky kind of reputation.

Bradbury’s name is recognizable to readers, even those who aren’t SF buffs. Half a century later and people still read his stories, still read his novels, the most formidable of which, reputation-wise is his literal “dime-novel” Fahrenheit 451. And Edgar Allan Poe, despite being known as merely the writer who writes “scary stories” was translated to French by no other than Charles Baudelaire and has had great influence to “Mallarme, Valery, and the Symbolists” and has been recurrent the poster-boy for American Gothic. Staying the consciousness of the people may be one of the benefits of their unique styles.

If staying power is the yardstick by which a writer’s style is deemed effective, then Poe and Bradbury pretty much has it won. Their works are admittedly uneven at times but these mutant parts construct unique literary creatures that are strangely attractive. Unafraid to seem like laughingstock, they didn’t conform their imagination to the prevailing norms of the time–whether the sedate literature of the 19th century or the exclusive requirements to become “SF enough”–but managed to blaze a trail of their own, the new writers all try to follow. They are the unique voices of their time; they are illusionists and they continue to dazzle us even now. “It is a great age to live in and, if need be, die in,” Bradbury says. “Any magician worth his salt would tell you the same”.

February 26, 2008 | Filed Under Latest, Read or Die | 4 Comments

Write or Die features Marne Kilates

The UP Institute of Creative Writing in cooperation with Powerbooks and Read Or Die present the third series of Write Or Die: Writers Write lecture-workshops. The discussions will be held every weekend from November 2007 to February 2008 in different Powerbooks branches and will be moderated by some of the best writers in the country. The purpose of the workshops is to promote the Gawad Likhaan: The University of the Philippines Centennial Literary Prize.

The workshops has three areas: Fiction (November 2007-December 2007), Non-Fiction (January 2008), and Poetry (February 2008).

Noted Bikol poet and translator Marne Kilates will be speaking on writing poetry in English on February 23, 2008 (Saturday) in Powerbooks Greenbelt from 2PM to 4PM. The talk is free and open to the public.

Marne Kilates is a member of the Board of Directors of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) and is an Associate Fellow of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC). He has also won several Palanca Awards and the 1998 SEA (Southeast Asia) WRITE Award given by the Thai royalty. For more information please contact us at readordie.ph@gmail.com.

February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

Write Or Die: Gemino Abad

Much thanks to Prof. Butch Dalisay for mentioning us in his latest column and for agreeing to do Write Or Die last Saturday despite last-minute schedule changes. We had a very interesting discussion. I haven’t read most of Prof. Dalisay’s books though I admire his writing. After that talk, though, you may now consider me an official fangirl. (Was also great seeing Kyu again and thanks to Noemi for lending her presence and support).

I haven’t had the time to write about the January series of talks for Write Or Die. Hopefully I can sit and buckle down to it for this Saturday’s column (… or for the next).

We’re moving on to Writing Poetry starting February 9, 2008 (Saturday) with Professor Gemino Abad. His talk will be held at Powerbooks Trinoma from 2PM to 4PM. Currently Emeritus University Professor at the College of Arts and Letters at UP Diliman, Prof. Abad is one of the most gifted and well-known poets writing in English. This talk is seriously a pretty unique opportunity so please attend! Much thanks to Sir Jimmy for agreeing to come~

February 5, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

Filipina Stories

Filipina Stories WikiPilipinas.org is launching a special portal on Filipino women in partnership with Filipina Images and the UP Center for Women’s Studies in time for the celebration of Women’s Month in March 2008. An associated microsite on women’s studies will also be hosted in Filipiniana.net. Both the portal and the microsite aim to profile and celebrate the achievements of Filipinas through time and adversity.

To kick things off, WikiPilipinas and Filipina Images are sponsoring an essay writing contest called Filipina Stories with the theme “Uplifting the Image of the Filipina.”

The winning essay will receive P5,000. Runners-up will get P3,000 and P2,000 respectively. Deadline of submission of entries is on February 29, 2008.

For the complete contest rules, please visit the Filipina Stories contest page.

*Filipina Images is a collaborative blog by Lorna Lardizabal-Dietz, Noemi Lardizabal-Dado and Dine Racoma. Dedicated to reshaping and changing world views about Filipino women, it advocates the real representation of Filipinas across the globe. For so long, whenever one searches the word “Filipina” in Google or Yahoo, pages of search results pointing to dating and porn sites pop up. Filipina Images has changed all that but they need people to keep on blogging. Join the campaign.

February 2, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | 1 Comment

The “Why Nots” of Reading

(Have been lax in re-posting our Manila Bulletin columns here. Sry. Here’s the latest one by Mia).

The “why nots” of reading
By Mia Sereno

When one reads one will always encounter questions, whether they come in the form of exams and academic requirements, personal issues raised by the current text, or half-meant jokes of friends. The most maddening type of question is one that perversely combines a moral obligation to answer with the sly insinuation that there’s no such thing as a right answer, a shining example of which is the simple two-word query: “Why read?”

I’ve been hearing this for years but haven’t given it much thought, since I assumed that nobody expected me to take it seriously; in everyday life we throw around all sorts of “why”s to annoy people and test their patience, but rarely because we’re interested in the answers. (I have, however, heard of someone who, upon being asked about time travel, took out pencil and paper, sat down with the hapless questioner, and worked out the basic equations of special relativity. Whether it helped or scarred someone for life I cannot say.)

Recently, though, I’ve been trying to examine my reading in light of the fact that it’s a sort of obsession that has to be defended from my other obsession, namely, gaming. After trying to explain to a gamer friend that hey Reading Is Important and Books Are Cool (Just As Cool As Max-Level WoW Characters! Or, You Know, Gold Dragunovs!) I had “Why read (when I could be raiding/PVPing/shooting stuff instead)?” thrown in my face for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Because,” I said, “It’s fun. Why not?”

“Oh, okay.”

And that was that.

We say that books are instruments of intellectual growth, propagators of ideas, catalysts of visible change. That’s true. Reading books can be incredibly absorbing and enjoyable, just as fun (and addictive) as your hobby of choice. That’s also true. I don’t think that particular aspect of reading will change, no matter how many alternative forms of entertainment we can come up with in the future.

I was playing in my favorite gaming shop some time ago when a friend picked up the copy of the Iliad I’d stashed beside the keyboard.

“Why are you reading this? Schoolwork?”

“No reason, I just wanted to.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s cool.”

***

Reading on the edge

The first thing that entered my mind when our club president mentioned “reading dangerously” was not how some people meet in secret to read banned books, nor the plot of Fahrenheit 451, nor Salman Rushdie or Ken Saro-Wiwa or Jose Rizal (!), but how very easy it would be to get oneself killed or injured while reading. All it would take is a reader, her nose buried in a book, walking down a street then making a misstep: falling into an open manhole, for instance, or crossing a street at the wrong moment, or maybe colliding with a telephone pole…

Thankfully self-preservational instinct is a built-in feature, and so far I and others like me have managed to stay out of harm’s way by looking up from the book every so often, especially at the sound of honking cars.

It’s interesting to watch people who read while walking or commuting. One starts to wonder what it is about the book that’s so riveting the reader can’t put it down. Apart from students studying for exams, I’ve seen people devouring romance novels while crammed sardine-like into jeeps; schoolboys fighting over a comic book as they emerge from their classroom; distracted young men stumbling to a coffee shop counter while reading essays penned by a long-dead philosopher, bumping into any number of tables, chairs, and customers along the way.

What holds their attention? The list of books being read by such people with such dedication would probably yield many fascinating titles, and not a few surprises.

***

Living with books

How do you arrange your books, and how do you find places to put them? I think it’s a common problem for readers: you buy and buy and read and read until you run out of shelves — and then any space not occupied by a household appliance, piece of furniture, or person is commandeered by crazy book piles. In my case, I have three bookshelves, and most of the shelves have double rows of books. Trying to get one of the “hidden” books often results in the whole front row crashing down on the unfortunate person. My room often resembles a disaster area, except instead of rubble I have books and the occasional stray page.

Once I tried to organize my books. It took me the better part of a day, but the sense of satisfaction lasted for weeks. The ordered arrangement didn’t.

When looking for a book I’ve misplaced, I navigate shelves of physics textbooks mixed with high fantasy and apologetics, devotionals rubbing shoulders with science fiction anthologies, books about cats and drug addiction and Japanese history all lumped together. Then I try to make sense of the tragedies, cookbooks, and computer magazines. I dive into piles of hardcovers and paperbacks. Then I move on to the books stacked on the floor, inside my cabinets, and in the space under my desk and computer table.

Sometimes I feel that I should take better care of my books; should make sure, at least, that I know where things are instead of having vague combinations of Title-Author-Location floating around in my head. The problem is that I don’t let books stay on their shelves too long. I believe in re-reading good books, in taking them around with you and sneaking a few pages in between classes or while standing in line, in slipping them into backpacks and handbags so you can share them with friends you happen to meet, in going to sleep with your head pillowed on Arfken and then waking up because the Belgariad is giving you backache. We have our own ways of loving books. Mine involves literally living with them. Granted, it’s not a very healthy lifestyle…

***

Notes on reading science

I’m not the first to note that many writers are afraid of writing science. It’s funny, because some of those writers actually write science fiction. While I don’t believe that writers have to be good at science to write science fiction, I think that some knowledge of science — just the basics, mind, enough that you don’t actively fear it — would be helpful. It’s jarring to read a story that mentions or features something scientific when at the same time the writer’s dislike of the subject is all too obvious. Or, well, a story that tries to be scientific but fails badly. As a reader, I want to read fiction with science that’s not only solid, but graceful; something that incorporates science into its structure in a natural way, with as much regard for the story and the imagery as for the correctness of the numbers and terms.

It’s frustrating to read stories written by people who don’t treat the subject with the respect it deserves. Or treat it like it’s magic. I’ve read some critiques of modern science that castigate it for becoming the “mythology of our times” or call it a “religion,” and though I don’t agree with those critiques, I do admit that many people think of science as having a certain mystique. This sometimes happens in science fiction: scientists are portrayed as godlike intellectuals with superhuman brains and subhuman common sense (not to mention awful social skills), while science itself is shown more as an inexplicable magical force than a discipline that has its own share of flaws and weaknesses.

The fact remains, though, that it’s useless to go around telling people “science isn’t scary, try to learn more about it!” without doing anything to prove that science isn’t scary. The task is made doubly harder by the fact that some scientists (a minority, yes, but a rather visible minority) revel in being arcane and incomprehensible. They relish the awestruck fear their discipline induces. I remember one professor’s introductory lecture to a general education science course for non-science majors as one long speech on the difficulties of physics, jumping from Newton to Einstein to Bohr to Maxwell without pause or delay. As my classmates’ eyes glazed over he moved on to the difficulties of modern physics: string theory, quantum gravity, dark matter. He ended the lecture by writing Schrodinger’s wave equation on the board with a flourish and grinned at the resulting groans of despair.

What scientists should do is try to reach out to more people — except most scientists have spent so long writing papers for academic journals that they talk either in monosyllables or in sentences like “an analytic approach to the problem of finding the energy spectra for a particle in a finite potential well involves the solution of a pair of parametric equations and an approximation of the cosine function,” so it’s useless to listen to them anyway. Right?

…Not really. A lot of scientists are very articulate and comprehensible (not to mention charming conversationalists!); some of them write books for the general public, and do it with much verve and style. No, I’m not talking about Stephen Hawking — in my opinion A Brief History of Time is a bad introduction to the subject and only serves to reinforce a lot of misconceptions — but about people who have learned to talk about science in terms of everyday concepts that are familiar to just about anyone. This kind of “everyday” science is something that writers and readers of science fiction would do well to know.

However, it takes a little motivation to actually submit oneself to reading basic introductions to science — who wants to look at equations when you can be discussing concepts? — and it’s really much better to read something to whet the appetite first. So in the spirit of broadening knowledge, whetting appetites, and all that jazz, I would like to recommend the following books:

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman. The author was a brilliant, brilliant physicist with a wonderful sense of humor. His writing is a joy to read. If you can’t find this, try one of his other books (Surely You’re Joking…, etc) — reading about his life will dispel the myth of the scientist as a cold-hearted human with perfect logic circuits for a brain. (If you hate equations with a passion, skip Easy Pieces and look for the other books. You may change your mind about equations after reading Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman! — his enthusiasm is infectious)

Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. Another brilliant physicist, this time writing… physics fiction. Oh, it’s beautiful. This book is similar in structure to Calvino’s Invisible Cities, except you have Einstein and his friend Besso instead of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan and different modes of time instead of cities. The prose is exquisite, and some of the pieces are not so much vignettes as they are vivid paintings in the form of words. Lightman also wrote Good Benito, a book about a physicist who learns, loves, lives… Plus! Exciting research!

Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy by Kip Thorne. A renowned physicist (and co-author of one of the best general relativity textbooks in existence) tells the story of “a revolution in our view of space and time, and its remarkable consequences.” He writes from a first-person point-of-view, so you really feel like you’re in the thick of the action. I’ve used this both as a reference for a general relativity study group and as a rainy day read, and it just got better with every reading.

Paradigms Regained: A Further Exploration of the Mysteries of Modern Science by John Casti. I found this while looking for a textbook in my lab’s library, and I’ve held on to it ever since. (Of course if people start looking for it I’ll return it, but since nobody else is reading it…) It presents several interesting topics in a quasi-legal format: there’s a case (from the previous book, Paradigms Lost), a general overview of the background, an appeal, and a decision. The suspense regarding the decision lures you in; the content keeps you hooked.

Science Solitaire: Essays on Science, Nature, and Becoming Human by Maria Isabel Garcia.

I was so happy when this won the National Book Award last year, since it’s one of the most engaging books I had the pleasure of reading in 2007. The essays are wonderful, showcasing interesting ideas and perspectives that encourage the reader to look at nature with fresh eyes. Even better, it’s very easy to find (as compared to the other books, which might be unavailable in local bookstores) as it’s published by Ateneo Press and carried by a lot of major bookstores here.

***

Virtual bookshelves and soapboxes

Some time after we posted about online bookshelves on our blog, a Shelfari staff member left us a comment encouraging us to visit Shelfari and check out their new “bookshelf.” It certainly looks better than the old layout – the shelf-like feel is a nice touch – and the improved functionality makes tagging and organizing books easier. The “I’m reading,” “I plan to read,” and “Own” categories are particularly helpful additions, though the process for adding and categorizing books needs a little streamlining. URL is http://www.shelfari.com/ and our Shelfari page is at http://www.shelfari.com/readordiephilippines/.

Speaking of our blog – it’s at http://read-or-die.org/blog/, and it’s where we post event announcements, reading lists, book reviews, and the occasional opinion on just about any book-related topic we can think of. The opinion posts give us ways to let out steam (or hot air, as the case may be) and, happily enough, have also turned out to be venues for interesting, lively discussions. Blogging is after all not something done in a vacuum; the best part of having a blog is participating in a dialogue taking place among all sorts of people with all sorts of views. We exchange face-to-face interaction for electronic words that, while they may not carry as much visible feeling as actual conversations, can be linked, commented on, and ultimately spawn posts on other blogs.

I don’t hold with the view that the blogosphere is the new power in the world of media, but – derogatory soapbox analogies notwithstanding – my views on reading and literature are all the richer for the ideas I’ve seen presented, attacked, and defended on blogs.

***

Books About Town

Poet and critic Ronald Baytan will launch his first collection of poems, The Queen Sings the Blues, on February 2, 2008, Saturday, from 5:00 to 7:00pm, at Powerbooks, Greenbelt 4, Makati.

Published by Anvil, The Queen Sings the Blues brings together 47 poems written between 1992 and 2002. In this book, the queen croons the bluest of “songs of the vulnerable heart.” From the first impulses of love, the poems move to the different phases and faces of an othered existence—a decade’s musings on the catwalks of desire: from bathhouses to bars, from trains to rooms, from the closet to the stage. Dr. J. Neil C. Garcia, co-editor of the Ladlad series, writes: “The reader can only be blessed in the presence of such candor, the majesty and benevolence of this poet’s bravely loving and carnal
imagination.”

Ronald Baytan teaches literature at De La Salle University-Manila. He finished his Ph.D. in English Studies at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He is a co-editor of Bongga Ka ‘day: Pinoy Gay
Quotes to Live By (Milflores, 2002), and he is currently working on The Queen Lives Alone: Personal Essays.

Co-sponsoring the launch are Anvil Publishing, Inc., The Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center and the Department of Literature of De La Salle University-Manila, and Powerbooks. For more information, kindly contact Ms. Donna Nitura-Mina (524.4611 loc 541), Mr. Nelson Eleda (637.5141), or Ms. Joyce Bersales (747.1622).

February 2, 2008 | Filed Under Latest, Read or Die | 7 Comments

Butch Dalisay for Write Or Die

You are all invited to attend a talk on “Creative Non-Fiction” by Professor Butch Dalisay on February 2, 2008 (Saturday) from 2PM to 4PM in Powerbooks Trinoma. The talk is part of the Write or Die Writers Write series promoting the UP Gawad Likhaan.

Professor Dalisay is an award-winning writer whose latest novel “Soledad’s Sister” was shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize. He also writes a regular column in the Philippine Star.

The talk is free and you don’t need to register. Just drop by and bring your friends. See you there~

January 31, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

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