Bite this book

It happens that a book might as well bark at you; its dog ears one too many of its prize-winning pages.

"God Laughs and Plays" is the first book I have finished reading so far this year. And there's no stopping me from unleashing again an urge to pore and mull over such watered-down notions on faith and finding joy, how these are suffused with the wildness of its rage and the grace of its wisdom, easing you into an introspection so chockful with a grin and chuckle every now and then.

God bless writers like David James Duncan. He with a maverick's sulphur in the stomach, a Zen master's zoom into sunlit sense of things, and a stand-up comedian's sass. All the world may be a stage for buffoons and charlatans, but Duncan affirms it's also a garden of wonder, a shore of fathomless possibilities, a temple in a playground along a river where fly-fishers can romp around like children.

"Duncan is a scandal both to the institutional church and to secular snobs; a truly dangerous man," a reviewer defines Duncan. Blame it on his writing, "a mind-bending trip through spiritual thought over the ages, with plenty of stops by the wayside of the troubled, politicized present." After all, this book as subtitled is a subversive trove of "Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalists Right."

Forgive me if my tongue is wagging like a tail regarding another reviewer's unabashed description of Duncan and his book: "He has been a denizen of the wilderness for forty years and has returned with liberating parables and allegories that are majestic, rib-tickling, and timeless. He has brought water to the desert of self-righteous 'Christianity' and in so doing, restores our faith in faith itself. Read it once and you will laugh. Read it twice and you will play again with God as you did when you were a child..."

And here's the publisher's postscript: "It is the vision of an activist sage. A sage ecologist. An ecological mystic." Now you see why I'm drooling rabidly.

His majesty, Miguel Syjuco

Makes my day, this latest news from Hong Kong where the winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize has just proven the world-class stature of Philippine literature.

For his debut novel Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco rules in the second year of what might as well be the literary Olympics among Asians writing in English. Illustrious feat, indeed. Here's the rest of the report:

"A panel of three internationally acclaimed authors and experienced literary judges named Filipino author Miguel Syjuco winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado, a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history.

The panel of judges for the 2008 prize praised Ilustrado: "The shortlist for the Man Asian prize testifies to the great vitality of the novel in Asian societies undergoing hectic and unexpected transformations. In the end, we had to choose; and Ilustrado seems to us to possess formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure. Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, it covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour."

The prize winner was announced at a celebratory dinner at The Peninsula Hong Kong. Miguel Syjuco was awarded USD 10,000. Ilustrado was selected from shortlist of five: Kavery Nambisan (The Story that Must Not be Told), Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (The Lost Flamingoes) of Bombay, Miguel Syjuco (Ilustrado), Yu Hua (Brothers), and Alfred A. Yuson (The Music Child)."

In an earlier interview with The Guardian after he found himself shortlisted for the prize, Syjuco explained it was "like someone coming into my dark room and throwing open the curtains."A vindication, indeed, that dispelled the doubts lurking inside and around him while he hunkered down along the process of seeing his first novel through the light of day. "This whole Man Asian Prize hullabaloo suggests maybe my literary experiments and ideas-- which many people have suggested I compromise but which I refused to-- are not misguided," he said. "Perhaps now I can share my work with the world. I also hope the Man Asian Prize will help spotlight the writing of my Filipino countrymen."

Take a peek at the plot of Syjuco's prize-winning novel: Miguel, the central character, is the acolyte of a prominent man of Philippine letters, Crispin Salvador. The author has been found dead in the Hudson River, and soon Miguel is investigating both his death and the disappearance of a manuscript about the corruption of rich Filipino families. He winds up tracking Salvador's life through his poetry, novels, memoirs, interviews and more, building a narrative that spans four generations of history.

Can't wait to read the entire novel, can you? In the meantime, here's a high five to the Filipino novel in English and skywritten congratulations to Miguel Syjuco. Bravo!

Worthy of his words

W hat do prize-winning writers Toni Morrison, Michael Chabon, Jane Smiley, Rick Moody, etc. have in common? An ode to Obama, that’s what they might as well have written.

Writers welcome a literary U.S. president-elect, affirms an Associated Press article. “A peer, a thinker, a man of words--his own words,” thus they agree about the author of two best-selling books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

About the forthcoming White House ruler, the AP story also reveals that Obama used to write poetry in his college days and even caught the attention of critic Harold Bloom who thought Obama had the spark of a Langston Hughes.

“I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase. I was very impressed,” lauds Morrison, Nobel laureate for literature and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, about Obama’s Dreams from My Father. “This was not a normal political biography.”

Chabon and Smiley, also Pulitzer awardees both, agree. Chabon confesses he admires Obama because of “his writing, the quality of his prose.” Such is the source of his charisma, attests Smiley who appraises an Obama speech as “more convincing in a politician than the usual thing of speaking the words of a raft of hack speechwriters.”

So much has been said about how the Obama candidacy took the upper hand by tapping the tools of modern communication for whiz-bang organization and cohesion of campaign strategy. But without the instinctive undercurrent of character, something that Obama oozes enough for such abstractions as hope and redemption to hold water, his message would have left his listeners high but dry. The sheer force of sincerity beyond the electric gift of gab. That’s what drive his messages home, finally. That’s what surges through his unprecedented and almost improbable rise to power.

Small wonder he looms over the podium with an aplomb above the usual political lip service, as when he dares to be self-deprecating during a dinner talk, tongue-in-cheek candor matched only with a burp-worthy wit: "I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

At last here comes a talking head who can literally steer clear from the bumbling and rambling woes, the foot-in-the-mouth affliction, of a George Bush.

Regarding possibilities despite the daunting tasks ahead, it’s easy to see why an Obama speech is enough for writer Rick Moody to be teary-eyed.

“I think the larger issue is cultural,” he explains. “There's a trickle down from the top in the way art exists inside and outside of the culture as a whole. Here in the USA, you could feel in the Bush years how little regard there was for it. People who disliked art, literature, dance, fine arts, they had a lot of cover for this antipathy.”With a president who seem to carry the torch for writers, that rag-and-boneshop-of-the-heart tribe, Moody thinks, “There's reason to believe that we are in for a much better period.” You bet, so far so good.

Attuned to the swathe of sweetness and light in the wake of Obama's election, here's a new stomp-the-feet-at-the-rooftop song and video just launched by Will.I.Am (the genius reponsible for the stirring "Yes, We Can" MTV, which proved popular among YouTube viewers, and cued in Oprah Winfrey to believe the rap song is partly responsible for this watershed moment in world history.) Sway, all together now, and sing: It's a new day!

Priming up the Pinoy pen

If there's one thing we Pinoys can suck sweetly off the imperial toes of our American heritage, it’s how we’ve come to colonize the English language. Really, we've appropriated it in our tongues like second skin. Go listen to the chorus of Call Center agents, and agree.

Imagine the taste of sewer between gnashed teeth, therefore, when I eagerly got hold of The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (edited by J.D. McClatchy) more than a decade ago. Ethnocentric subjectivity be damned, but not only me believes the best of our wordsmiths can hold water with the world’s best.

What a wet blanket (a hanky is not enough) for my face hot with dismay to discover that the seemingly ample anthology featured poets from Vietnam, among others, but none from the Philippines!
Over the years, I guess many of our kabayan can only gaze green-eyed in envy at other Asian writers, particulary the Indians, whose inkwells have swept the shore of world literature with the sheer tidal wave of genius: Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai and her daughter Kiran, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, etc. Oysters in their open palms, all that Bookers and Pulitzers. So much so that I sometimes wish to shake hands even with a beggar in the streets of Mumbai.

A few weeks ago, another Indian made a splash as 33-year-old Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger clawed out the competition in this year's Man Booker Prize, which honors the best fiction written in English by an author from the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. Now, two Indians are again among the five candidates culled from a long list of 21 semi-finalists for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.

But, whoopee, two Filipinos also made it to the top five. Alfred Yuson's Music Child and Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado (the Grand Prize for the Novel at this year's Palanca Awards) will slug it out with the works of Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (India), Kavery Nambisan (India), and Yu Hua (China).

In last year's inaugural of Man Asian Literary Prize, the new Olympics for Asian literature in English, Jose Dalisay had the honor of hoisting the flag of Philippine writing with his entry Soledad’s Sister, but eventually bowed to Chinese writer Jiang Rong for his novel Wolf Totem. This time around, hope bobs up twice for the announcement of the winner next month.

Fingers crossed for Yuson and Syjuco, and all hands as well for Carlos Bulosan, Jose Garcia Villa, Nick Joaquin, Bienvinido Santos, NVM Gonzalez, F. Sionil Jose, Eric Gamalinda, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Luisa Igloria, Rick Barot, Nick Carbo, etc. for rippling up the Filipino imagination around the globe. Mabuhi ang Pinoy!

Ato ni, bay!

More than once in a blue moon, a Cebuano book, particularly a collection of Bisdak poems, comes like comet. Panagsa ra gyod kaayo. And how it blazes over the benighted state of Cebuano publishing!

Indeed, the launching of my friend Adonis Durado's debut book, Dili Tanang Matagak Mahagbong, tomorrow calls for celebration. The event, which also features a visual arts exhibit by my friends Radel Paredes and Josua Cabrera, is a homecoming of sorts for Donz who's now based in Bangkok, Thailand as a graphic designer.

The book is long overdue, and should be a beacon of inspiration both for old and young writers in Cebu who, againts the current, continue "to endure burning to give light" to Cebuano literature.

Tagay, bay!