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.

Column: The need for more libraries, or for better bookstores

The need for more libraries, or for better bookstores
Rebecca Arcega

Last year, I spent two months vacationing in Wellington, New Zealand and found myself having less control over my time than I’d hoped for.

Not having easy Internet access also left me out of the loop, so I wasn’t able to keep up with the online activities that inspired me to keep working on the Philippine Speculative Fiction blog (http://specfic.philsites.net)

Still, I found that there are some advantages to not being “wired.” One gets more time to think, for one. I think one of the many things about my trip was access to a public library. I was there at least twice a week, and in-between raiding my uncle’s private stash, I foraged in Upper Hutt and took home some titles that I was sure I wouldn’t easily find in the Philippines.

For me, the Upper Hutt Public Library was , quite simply, a little slice of heaven. It had been a while since I was last able to visit a decent library, about four years ago when I was doing research for a certain writing project, and I was able to enter the University of the Philippines Main Library again.

Every time I stepped through the doors of the Upper Hutt Library though, I was bombarded by conflicting emotions. One of them, I was surprised to find, was guilt. I kept thinking about certain people back home who would love the gorgeous selections. I made up my mind to email a friend about the extensive Dragonlance collection I saw, another friend about the newer Iain Banks titles, and someone else about the surprising number of Storm Constantine’s non-Wraeththu books. Hell, I even took pictures.

And I felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. I no longer set aside a sizeable amount of my earnings to books, and while I do love to read, I don’t dare call myself a bibliophile anymore.

Yet I was the one who had access to all those books.

It’s a more personal neurosis, I think - I wouldn’t ascribe it to a Pinoy trait, a “girl thing,” or anything so potentially explosive. I simply hate picking up a paperback at Powerbooks and sitting down to read it, because I feel like I’m depriving other more worthy readers of good seats.

I think things like: there’s a kid out there somewhere who needs to read more Rimbaud than I do; I’m just here rereading Un Saison en Enfer for the nth time on a whim. I’ve already read enough and it’s time for me to write; I shouldn’t take up too much space or too many hours. It made me wonder if my self-esteem issues are still within normal, or if I should start seeing a shrink.

Also, it made me think about how quite a few of the active literati in the Philippines can afford to have their own private libraries. I imagine that really good writers consciously know that they will never have read enough, and in their heart of hearts they are always on the lookout for the next textual high.

The question is, how many of our would-be writers can actually afford that high, and how many can’t?

Loving libraries

Growing up, I was a big fan of libraries. I lived within campus during my university years, so I could library-hop in my spare time. My favorites at the time were the UP Main Library (treasure trove!), the Engineering library, and the Fine Arts library. The last time I had to do research there as an alumna, I had to go through a rigorous (and IIRC, somewhat costly) process just to secure a “special” library card. I just don’t know if students from other schools would have an equally hard time.

But in high school, I used to live one hour away from my campus in Malolos, yet I braved the heat and the traffic during weekends just to be able to visit the town’s public library. Granted, I was very much the little nerd at the time: I grabbed at whatever meant access to books that I could read almost for free.

2007 Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing once spoke of the need for good libraries, saying that “In order to write, in order to make literature, there must be a close connection with libraries, books, with the tradition.” We always hear talk of Pinoy writers needing to write more. But as a good friend once said and I never forgot: “The more I read, the more I want to write.” Some of us tend to notice it off the bat - our most productive times are when we are in the company of other artists, when we’re being forced to catch up with a reading list, when we’ve just experienced something awesome and we’re driven to share it with other people. In short, when we’re being inspired.

And in other countries, they have places where you can just walk in and be inspired, and you have no excuse not to be. When somebody says “I think you should read ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ by Susanna Clarke,” you don’t have to shell out P600 just to take that godawful thick but hugely entertaining title home. You don’t have to commute 20 miles to the library at the metropolis or strain your eyes reading pirated ebooks (which are usually badly formatted and poorly spellchecked, by the way) just to catch up with the artists you admire.

We already have a fair number of great bookshops and publishing houses, but I’m wondering if they would ever be able to afford customer-friendlier sales schemes. At Dymock’s bookshop, you can even return a brand-new book within a certain number of days, and as long as it’s in excellent condition you can exchange it for another title - with adjustments duly made to the cost, of course! To be honest, I don’t know if our local bookshops operate with a similar principle, but I’d sure love to see something besides the traditional “No return, no exchange” policy.

Right now, I live near a mall. This mall has a National Bookstore outlet. I notice one specific teenage boy poring through the books in the Filipiniana section almost every time I visit. But every time I approach him to try and ask him about himself, he shies away, as if he’s expecting that I wanted the space to browse through the Filipiniana section for myself.

I can’t help but think this boy should be in a library, not sneaking around in a bookstore.

I don’t blame publishers for wanting to make money. I certainly don’t hate bookshops, especially ones that make it a point to stock not only bestsellers, but Really Good Books. All this helps in furthering literacy in the country. But you still have to ask what’s slowing us down, what’s making it harder for the rest of us to catch up.

Make no mistake here, I’m not nursing a resentment for people who have the means to buy the next bestseller hot off the shelves and think P200 for a hardcover is a great buy - for the record it’s a huge bargain, but I think I’ll wait for the paperback to go on sale. But I do want to call more attention to the rift that is being created by lack of access to information. Are we really asking to breed more novelists, when even local novels cost P500 a pop, our cost-effective presses can only produce a limited number of quality titles, and our benchmarks of modern literature are only available via Amazon.com? Are we serious about expecting people to become better writers, when it’s so difficult for them to even have an idea what good writing is?

Moreover, and just to be clear, what I’m saying is not “How can we guilt-trip the haves into slowing down for the have-nots?” but “How can we empower the have-nots so they can finally catch up?”

I’m aware that inequalities will persist. It doesn’t follow that just because we will have more and better libraries, we’ll be able to breed better writers - i.e., that people will actually go to those libraries, and read, and be inspired. It’s not that simple.

Still, if we’re serious about our dedication to literacy, and if we’re serious about wanting to pull our fellow writers up to global standards, we should at least acknowledge certain realities about the playing field. There’s “coddling” and there’s “helping,” and right now we’re still at that stage where we need all the help we can get.

Column: Reading Dangerously

Promoting reading and love for books might seem the most innocuous of advocacies, and perhaps–from a certain perspective—kind of boring. Other people seem to harbor an existential sort of fascination with the name of our organization; on our part, the only advantage is that we are not in any danger of being automatically considered as unreconstructed bluestockings, especially when confronted with lofty frat boys. Not that we—or any reader—should care. However I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve run into our share of Lovecraftian weirdness. Publishers and editors have recounted numerous stories of being stalked by aspiring writers. But reams of psychological suspense and slasher novels are written about and starring bibliophiles, and for good reason.

A mysterious self-confessed male person sent me a caustic text message asking why most published Filipino writers are “elitist, pompous, boring, university-bred asshats” and “why can’t we have Filipino versions of Charles Bukowski and William Burroughs?” A day or so later he followed it up with a question–addressed to ‘Read Or Die’–what ‘a priori’ meant because he’d started reading Arthur Schopenhauer. I didn’t reply to his earlier messages and had no phone credit when the a priori question came up. He repeatedly insisted that I reply because he had nobody to ask and he was only a minimum-wage earner employed by the government and a lapsed alcoholic with poetic pretensions who’d started to get back to reading again, specifically philosophy texts. I had to bite and replied via Yahoo Messenger with a hash definition of ‘a priori’ (throwing in ‘a posteriori’ for good measure). He thanked me politely enough. I found the entire thing rather intriguing. Civil servants reading Schopenhauer! There was hope for this country yet.

The next day he sent another message to ‘Read Or Die’ saying that he’d also started reading the Marquis de Sade and then followed it up with a polemic bemoaning the inadequacies of English-Filipino dictionaries. I sent a brief reply saying that this could possibly be addressed by mass circulation of translated texts but wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen. He made some sort of derisive rejoinder–I’d begun to notice that he was rather touchy and unpredictable–and then asked for my email and MySpace page. I didn’t reply.

That’s when he started flooding. He kept sending ‘Hey, Read or Die’ messages and ‘Why aren’t you answering me? Are you feeling threatened?’ I deleted the messages as they came because my inbox had very limited capacity, and honestly, only an idiot would take the bait this time around.

The next day he seemed relatively calmer and told me about his band and said in a self-mocking tone that for some reason he’d started thinking of me as the the Jack Kerouac to his Neal Cassady. I didn’t reply. Despite the underlying mockery, I thought the comment must either point to an incredibly naive and romanticized view of the Beat poets or to an equally incredible conceit (Neal Cassidy was Jack Kerouac’s psychedelic muse, Ginsberg’s ’secret hero.’) He recommended several books for Read or Die to read–aside from his obvious partiality for skid row writers with destructive personalities and European philosophers with more of the same, his taste also seemed to run towards biting suburban American novels with soft and dry cores, like ‘Bridges of Madison Country.’

He spammed me again later that evening with more demands and goading sarcastic comments. I turned off my phone. The next afternoon he ventured with an almost timid question asking me if I’d read Nietzsche and if so which books would I recommend. I should also have ignored this, but I found him interesting and quixotic and sad despite his rudeness and high-strung temperament. I replied with “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and “Beyond Good and Evil.” He asked me why I did not pick something like “The Gay Science” which was purportedly symptomatic Nietzsche. I said that I hadn’t chosen the books I did based on whether or not they are ‘representative,’ but on the basis of philosophical and aesthetic continuity. He asked me who Zarathustra was. I replied and recommended a few books on German history and philosophy and left it at that. He didn’t, of course.

”Wow,” said Anon. “You’ve even read Nietzsche? You must be a famous professor, writer or columnist. Or somebody really old, which is why you take so long to reply, your fingers must be rheumatic.”

I did not reply.

Anon continued: “You must be all of 60, I’d say. Why aren’t you replying Ms. Read or Die? Have I offended your refined intellectual sensibilities again with my lower-class boorishness? Somebody like you who’s read German philosophy and has the luxury to found a book club for equally privileged bourgeois kids… I wouldn’t be surprised. How old are you?”

I wondered where he got the energy to write polysyllabic texts.

”You must be horrendously ugly as well. Buried in your books.”

Well, I was only human. I replied that I was not elderly, rich, refined or privileged. I also didn’t know about being ugly.

Anon shot back with a rather nasty query about what sort of milk formula my parents fed me so that I would have developed a penchant for the canon of German philosophy.

I didn’t reply.

“My dear Ms. Read or Die,” Anon sneered. “Cat got your tongue again? Please spare the time to talk to me and bridge the gap, however fleeting, between the working class and the upper class.”

”I don’t know why you keep harping on the question of our respective backgrounds, Mr. Pseudo-Semi-Proletarian,” I sneered back. “Please keep your illusions to yourself. As for mending the class war, if you’d read Marx–which I assume you have since you’re so obsessed with your social condition–you would know that’s rank heresy. You should be shot in the head. Good day.” My fingers were starting to hurt.

”Pseudo?” howled Anon. “I’m a true-blue-dyed-in-the-wool peon, Ma’am. I was a gasoline boy, sold sweepstakes tickets, worked in a farm, subsisted for a while as a gutter poet, took out an eleven-year research fellowship in Alcoholism, and am now staring at a bleak, pathetic and altogether boring future as a cog in this accursed government machinery. But you wouldn’t know that, of course. What’s your name?”

Didn’t reply. He went on to talk about classical music, jazz (inclusive of malicious asides regarding Steve Cooke) and why am I not replying, was I guilty, was I threatened.

Anon: Forget about being Jack Kerouac. You are clearly Tinker Bell to my Peter Pan. Hey, Tink. Are you there?

I turned off my phone again.

Received more text messages the next morning, which I again ignored though it was getting harder to send my own text messages, and met a fellow RoD member for lunch, who was witness to yet more messages. Apparently Mr. Working Class had taken a half day from work and biked home and on the way came up with ever sharper and provoking retorts guaranteed 100% to ensure him a fair hearing. This included a vague Marxist critique of Vivaldi and rhapsodies on the jazz canon as well as more sly digs about my status in life and possible intellectual pretensions.

Anyway, you get what we’re up against. If it’s not bleeding heart writers, you have pseudo-proletarian poets who think we’re their ticket to fame (Lord knows where they get the idea). Mia was of the opinion that—from a strictly interpersonal perspective—it was another variation of sexist playground behavior. Get the girl’s attention by calling her rude names, shivering, in the meantime, with the delicious anticipation of having her pull your hair in retaliation. I don’t exactly revel in the attention but I did find this person interesting and wondered how he conducted his real-life interactions. He struck me as abrasive, lonely, insecure and a bit schizophrenic. He’s also terribly articulate (in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a good poet–he did style himself in those terms) and I think his anger at social injustice is very real. There’s also quite a lot of vain grandstanding and self-delusion. All in all, a novelistic package.

I don’t think that I’d like to be his friend, though (least of all a readymade amanuensis/Muse), and I could really do without the provoking messages and constant demands for attention. Ignoring him seems to be a good way to force him to temper himself. He apologized one night for his foul comments and said that he was only trying to get my attention. Well, I don’t know if he’s that desperate for my upper-class conversation or if he sees me, possibly the first female of his acquaintance who’s read his German philosophers (for whom he professes his usual mixture of contempt and ambivalent admiration), as a reflection of his own brilliance. He does seem intent to carve out some sort of half-crazed, half-fantastic, overall debased Beat-Marxist fairytale where rich girl dwelling in ivory tower breathing in the rarefied air of dead books and dead knowledge meets poor boy, the genius poet with a violent and melancholic past. And together they fight illiteracy and capitalistic exploitation.

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”.

Read Or Die Column: The 2007 National Book Development Board Readership Survey

*We’re not posting all our columns to the blog–because we forget, but once (or right after) the online edition comes out I’ll try to re-post the column here. To those asking: the column comes out every Wednesday and Saturday at the Youth and Campus section of Manila Bulletin.

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

by Kristine Mandigma (2/2/2008)

The National Book Development Board (NBDB) presented the results of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey on November 28, 2007 at the Discovery Suites, Pasig City. I attended the presentation as a representative of Read Or Die along with several publishers, educators, librarians, and other reading advocates.

The National Book Development Board is the government agency tasked with strengthening the book industry in the Philippines. Under its Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez and its dynamic Executive Directory Atty. Andrea Flores, the NBDB has expanded its programs to include a strong advocacy for reading. The NBDB Readership Survey is one of their most important projects. A previous readership survey was conducted in March 2003 by the Social Weather Station (SWS)

The survey was conducted as a rider of 65 questions in the June 2007 survey done by the Social Weather Station (SWS).  The March 2003 was conducted as a rider of 41 questions. According to a statement issued by NBDB Chairman Dr. Dennis Gonzalez, it covered the following topics: reading preferences, patterns of purchase and acquisition, influences on book selection and non-schoolbook readership, and attitudes towards books and reading.

The highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey are as follows. I am replicating—with permission—the contents of the summary issued by the National Book Development Board for the benefit of the general public who may not have access to the survey results (alas, readership surveys are not as exciting as the latest rumors about pork barrel scandals). You may also acquire a copy of the survey as well as the full complement of statistical data at the National Book Development Board Office, 2/F NPO Building, EDSA cor. NIA Northside Road, Diliman, Quezon City.

Highlights of the 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

The percentage of book readers in 2007 (83%) has decreased as compared to 2003 (90%).

Nearly all (96%) book readers in 2007 read non-school books (NSBs), while only three-fourths (76%) of book readers in 2003 read NSBs.

Among book readers:

• Those who have read NSBs in the NCR decreased in 2007 compared to 2003.

• All other groups who have read NSBs increased.

Among NSB readers:

Weekly/monthly readers of NSBs decreased in 2007.

Those who read NSBs a few times a year or less than once a year increased in 2007.

Packaging is what is noticed by the highest number, but not a majority, of NSB readers.

The blurb found at the book is also noticed.

Most NSB readers, however, do not notice information such as the NSB publisher, date of publication, author, and whether or not the NSB has several good reviews.

Overall, the percentage of NSB readers increased from 68% (76% of 90% book readers in 2003) to 80% (90% of 8% book readers in 2007).

The 2007 NBDB Readership Survey says that Filipinos are starting to read non-school books at an earlier age.

NSB readers are starting to read a year younger.

From 17.2 years in 2003, the average age of those who start to read NSBs decreased to 16.4 years in 2007.

The readers of non-schoolbooks in classes ABC began doing so at an older age compared to 2003. However, readers of NSBs in classes D and E started to read NSBs at a younger age in 2007.

What do Filipinos read?

For both 2003 and 2007, the Bible is the most popular non-schoolbook read. Romance books come in second.

Top scorers in the popularity of NSBs are:

1. Bible (67%) (38% in 2003)

2. Romance (33%) (26%)

3. Cooking (28%) (7%)

4. Comic books (26%) (0%)

5. Religion/Religious/Inspirational (20%) (9%)

Why do Filipinos read?

As in 2003, the main reason for reading non-schoolbooks is still for information, or to gain knowledge.

However, more NSBs are reading NSBs for enjoyment in 2007, compared to 2003.

Whose books do Filipinos read?

In 2007, 46% of readers of non-schoolbooks read NSBs by Filipino authors only.

43% read NSBs by both Filipino authors and foreign authors.

9% read NSBs by foreign authors only.

In the rural areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino and foreign authors increased significantly (20%+) in 2007.

In the urban areas, readers who read NSBs by Filipino authors only increased slightly (5%+) in 2007.

Means of acquiring books

NSB readers in 2007 acquired the NSBs they read by:

1. Receiving the books as gifts (42%)

2. Borrowing from others (41%)

3. Reading books from the library (27%)

4. Buying (19%)

5. Renting (18%)

Among all groups of NSB readers, receiving NSBs as gifts and borrowing from others are the most prevalent.

In what language do Filipinos prefer to read books?

Tagalog (Read: 50%) (Preferred: 32%)

English (Read: 35%) (Preferred: 15%)

Cebuano (Read: 5.97%) (Preferred: 4.6%)

Bisaya (Read: 5.73%) (Preferred: 4.41%)

Ilocano (Read: 4.72%) (Preferred: 4.1%)

Arabic (Read: 1.98%) (Preferred: 1.94%)

Ilonggo (Read: 1.18%) (Preferred: 0.91%)

Source: 2007 NBDB Readership Survey

In conclusion

The summary outlined above gives us a pretty descriptive picture of the state of reading in the Philippines. While questions have been raised about the sampling methods and the structure of survey questions along with the terminology used by the SWS (the unfortunate use of ‘Tagalog’ for one), the study itself yields interesting results.

According to Dr. Linda Luz Guerrero, Vice President of SWS and presenter of the survey results, Filipinos read an average of three books a year. That is not so much interesting as very sad. A couple of people questioned this claim, citing the phenomenal popularity of Harry Potter. I don’t really see the connection, unless it’s discovered that those three books that Filipinos read annually are all Harry Potter titles, in which case it would also be kind of funny. Furthermore, while the resurgence of reading brought about by Harry Potter should be celebrated, especially after the release of Book 7, a number of critics have rightly pointed out that reading Harry Potter doesn’t automatically turn people into readers.

Ron Charles wrote about Pottermania and the ‘death of reading’ in an article in the Washington Post. I think it’s an interesting viewpoint. While a lot of fans and reading advocates marvel at the fact that Harry Potter makes young people read through the sheer magic and pull of its storyline, and that it has become a unique phenomenon in the sense of uniting readers all over the world together, awaiting every new installment with a fervor that no author has generated since Charles Dickens with his considerably less media-oriented reading public, Ron Charles points out that such a unity “has almost nothing to do with the unique pleasures of reading a novel: that increasingly rare opportunity to step out of sync with the world, to experience something intimate and private, the sense that you and an author are conspiring for a few hours to experience a place by yourselves — without a movie version or a set of action figures. Through no fault of Rowling’s, Potter mania nonetheless trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide.” He emphasizes the importance of a ‘real engagement’ with books that can never be conditioned by marketing hysteria and that the practically monomaniacal obsession with Harry Potter by its readers may have paradoxically created “the literary equivalent of a loss of biodiversity.”

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if for most young Filipinos, those three books would indeed turn out to be Books 1-3 (or 4-7) of the Harry Potter series. Or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or the first three installments of Precious Hearts’ delightfully intriguing Stallion series. I know dedicated readers who are serial monogamists. They can subsist happily on a steady supply of a certain kind of story. While I would personally recommend a more balanced diet, as long as they’re not pointing at the sky and screaming about Dark Marks and trying to off each other through pointing wands, I’m okay with it. Reading is reading, as Dr. Ned Roberto—professor at the Asian Institute of Management and the resource person tasked with interpreting the survey results from a market-oriented perspective—pointed out. 83% of the population read books. It’s not a sign of the apocalypse. Let’s set aside distinctions between functional literacy and true literacy for now. Eight out of ten Filipinos read books. Compared with other Asian countries, that’s a respectable statistic.

What is a source of concern and should be further studied is the nature of social shifts in reading habits. People read as a matter of course. What we should address is why they read the way they do. For instance, the number of NSB readers in the NCR has fallen drastically while the number of NSB readers in the Visayas has risen in a similarly dramatic fashion. Given that bookstores and libraries are concentrated in Manila, what are we to make of this? Attendees in the presentation put forth theories which ranged from the tentative to bold assertions about the increasingly hybrid nature of reading materials. Since readers in Manila have more access to a diverse array of (distracting) media—computers, video games, television shows, etcetera—they are not inclined to focus on just one media—in this case a book—to educate or entertain them. While it has been a long-held fear that the advent of the Internet will demolish reading once and for all, Dr. Roberto pointed out that the Internet may only have extended reading in ways that traditional print-bound readers would not have anticipated. And it’s not just the Internet. Reading has become a multi-media platform in other parts of the world. Books are turned into movies and movies are novelized. Novels serialized in the Internet are printed out and become instant bestsellers in China and Korea. Japan, ever the country of novelties, has introduced the cellphone novel. The wired denizens of Manila have yet to catch up on the more interesting trends or—on the part of publishers—to integrate non-book media in a way that will impact their reading, but they are susceptible to the technologies which would make these things possible.

Still, they must be doing something right over at the Visayas. One is inclined to paint a bucolic picture of diligent young readers bent over their books by the flickering light of a gas lamp—and in certain parts of the country this may well be an actual scenario, with less idyllic whitewashing and more focus on the fundamental truth of poverty and social inequality in the regions. Poor students who can’t afford to buy the latest gadgets or to go online whenever they feel like it will have to read more, if only because doing so might secure them better grades and a fighting chance to get into universities in Manila. The role of parents in such a situation is especially acute. Educators have always agreed that reading should start at home, but in the case of lower- to middle-class homes, this acquires an extra and perhaps more urgent dimension. Poor parents are more likely to buy their children books because these are perceived to give them leverage in terms of educational opportunities. In fact, Dr. Queena Lee-Chua—member of the NBDB Governing Board and one of the commentators at the presentation—noted that the NBDB and other concerned reading groups should make it a point to solicit feedback from parents in public schools with regard to how they implement reading in their homes or the relative importance of books in the familial hierarchy of needs.

Another interesting result is the fact that Filipinos—whether in the NCR or elsewhere—do not buy books the read. They get them as gifts. In a lecture on the history of the book in the Philippines last July, Dr. May Jurilla of the University of the Philippines pointed out that books in the Philippines have acquired a decorative, even aesthetic function, which has superseded its more utilitarian applications (i.e., as sources of information). This should explain the popularity of coffee table books in a country where cheap paperbacks rarely sell more than 1000 copies. Filipinos tend to display books—like wedding knickknacks and travel souvenirs—instead of, well, reading them. For some reason, the notion of a book as a decorative item has crossed over to the notion of a book as a worthy gift item, which would then presumably be enshrined as a decoration. Such is the circuitous nature of Filipino cultural exchanges. My mother—along with countless other Filipino mothers—has received several sets of perfectly useful dinnerware over the years. We have yet to touch a single spoon and instead eat off plastic ware. The dinnerware sits in pompous splendor in the kitchen cabinet, like remnants of an obscure shipwreck. In a trip to Barcelona, my mother bought me several huge volumes on Greek prehistory and archeology, which I couldn’t read as comfortably as I would have liked—inasmuch as you could derive relaxation from reading about how to date Mycenean helmets—because she insisted on shelving them inside more glass cases. I imagine the presence of similar glass shelves in similar living rooms all over the country. Come to think of it, this might also be the reason why there’s very little discourse of and about books in this country. I’m speaking in terms of general readership. It’s kind of hard to embark on a literary discussion—outside established if small literary circles—when most of your favorite books are shrink-wrapped.

To go back to the reading survey, I’m still thinking of ways through which we could effectively synthesize the results in order to map a coherent reading campaign though a more thorough research into Filipino cultural history and behavior with regard to the functions and symbolism of books in our society should also be part of such an enterprise. Filipinos do read. But like everything else in this country—the way we approach politics and revolutions, the way we behave in traffic, the way we pray in churches—the reasons why we do it are probably obscure even to us.

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.

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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.

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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: &#