ALOYSIUSI POLINTAN provides Flash Reviews of
The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines by Vicente L. Rafael
(Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2005)
and
Sky Blue After the Rain: Selected Stories and Tales by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
(University of the Philippines Press, 2005)
and
The Light in One’s Blood: Select Poems, 1973-2020 by Gemino H. Abad
(University of the Philippines Press, 2021)
and
Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture by Doreen Fernandez
(Anvil, 2020)
and
All the Conspirators by Carlos Bulosan
(Anvil, 2001)
and
MOTHERLESS TONGUES: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation by Vicente L. Rafael
(ADMU Press, 2016)
and
Contracting Colonialism by Vicente L. Rafael
(ADMU Press, 1988)
The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines by Vicente L. Rafael
Flash Book Review No. 199: Of the three books I own by Vicente Rafael, I was able to finish this one first, probably because the dominant contexts presented in this book are the history topics most familiar to me—propagandists, heroes, and revolutions—as I was educated on Philippine history through textbooks and charts replete with names, dates, and places. Rafael's examination of translation (and its sub-technics and other events in colonial Philippines) as instrumental to the shaping of a people's identity and sense of nation, particularly in enabling Indios to aspire for freedom and independence, in whatever forms and means, heightened this fascination with nationalist movements in the 1890s. The foregrounding of scenes and characters in Rizal's novels Noli and Fili is a wise move in maintaining the benefits and drawbacks of translation while also stabilizing the motif of the following chapters. One of the reasons I'll keep reading his two other books and getting a copy of his other works is the way he paraphrases quoted texts from historical documents, which he did conscientiously, of course, towards extensive elucidation and the presentation of many alternative intepretations of the text at hand. What else could I want? This book is my prelude to the many splendored things to come as I equip myself with extensive knowledge on translation, which is more than just a ferrying over or a sort of linguistic task. Translation is a conscious act anchored on the desire for social mobility and, eventually, harmony, progress, and justice.
*
Sky Blue After the Rain: Selected Stories and Tales by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
Flash Book Review No. 201: A superficial reader might overgeneralize Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo's fiction as abounding in middle-class, suburban settings or necessarily limited to socialite characters of Creole lineages. If one has to examine and dig deeper, magical realism—rendering quotidian lives with the sparkle and sprinkle of the fabulistic and speculative—is at the heart of her craft, as most especially sampled in Sky Blue After the Rain (UP Press, 2005). I have already been aware of some of the stories here, for I have read a few years earlier Catch A Falling Star and A Book of Dreams. And I reread them with the same excitement. It did not take me long to finish reading the book, for I had missed some fairy tales in my unmagical life. "How Bartolo Came to Be Called Bartolo" exemplifies Hidalgo's knack for giving complicated narratives a certain oneness supported by the most vivid of depictions. "The Pink Parasol" and "The Art of Understatement" stood out for their relatability in terms of characters and setting, leaving the reader contemplating each story's probable endings. "Kababayan" and "The Tree of the Perfect Plum" attest to the ever-urgent call for writing about our OFWs' homesickness and homeliness, as we question our sense of country and progress. The placement of "The Painting" at the collection's end is such a prudent choice because, for me, this story is a magnum opus, a story-within-a-story perfection, as it captures the effort and grace needed to pull off a plot that crosses over genres and dictions and to make the reader yearn for more. I believe this literary icon, whom I look forward to meeting again, will continue to dazzle more readers and inspire more young writers as they make their audience yearn for more. Regarding that "more," we owe it to our imagination.
*
The Light in One’s Blood: Select Poems, 1973-2020 by Gemino H. Abad
Flash Book Review No. 202: "[O]f flights and embraces—spindrift and daze," most of Abad's poems, particularly those included in this beautiful collection, are about searching for, celebrating, and becoming the light, and eventually raging against its dying. His style, his native clearing, gives young readers of poetry a glimpse of what's primeval and painstaking (but gloriously still) in a poet's pursuit of his sacred medium. I have always regarded my experience of reading the National Artist's verses as a technical exercise, an attempt to enrich my vocabulary and thus make language efficient, for through what other aspect of art can sense and substance be successfully evoked? And another question is raised: Who are we without our thoughts, our words? The poems under the "Self, Love, Family" theme are for me the most beautifully written, and it was Martin Scorsese who said: The most personal is the most creative. Giving tribute to people and events with the tool you hold dear and masterfully use is such a lovely thing! The line that captivates me is from the titular poem: "Proceed by evacuation / of first seeing: in emptiness / gather the pieces / of breaking light." Now that I'm finding it difficult to write a poem (perhaps a self-imposed hiatus), such a line has inspired me to gather the pieces one after another, as emptiness breaks away before me, the new year revealing its own revelry. I shall read on, then I shall write, until I have honed the promising craft, until the time when "Beauty was only the flame tree, Truth the overarching sky."
*
Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture by Doreen Fernandez
Flash Book Review No. 204: More than anything, the great Doreen Fernandez's Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture (Anvil, 2020) is such a big help in enriching my vocabulary in terms of food, flora and fauna, and the Filipino folkways, so that my future works—poems, fictions, and essays—would sound and be read as rooted and grounded in the Filipino consciousness as possible. This wonderful collection of columns, magazine contributions, and conference papers has also reinforced my long-term curiosity about Filipiniana, most of which is not available or accessible (an euphemism for "not affordable") in the province. "The study of food as culture within the context of colonization leads to an understanding of the fate of the local culture under hegemony of the dominant cultures of the colonizers." Fernandez's thorough and, of course, exciting study on Filipino food and culture is the product of not only collaborative research but also of a wealth of personal experiences and astute observations on the selection, preparation, consumption, and preservation of what's native and tinged with the foreign. How steaming and boiling in palayok and carajay constitute the "age-old praxis" of cooking, as well as how kinilaw exemplifies the "philosophy of freshness" subscribed by fisherfolk whose lone goal is surviving the day—all these are brought to light, as if light, even in the language of the kitchen, pertains to the hope that Filipino cuisine has never dwindled but only evolved. She confidently said, and this gave such hope a certain flavor: "Foreign food is adjusted to the local taste, and not vice-versa." What I also loved about this book is the attempt to balance the attention between the alta cocina Filipina and the cuisine we know as we traverse the streets, as we go about our daily grind and fast-paced lives. Reading every essay ends up with imagining a smorgasbord of mouth-watering dishes and delicacies, as if our taste buds have since time immemorial been archipelagic.
*
All the Conspirators by Carlos Bulosan
Flash Book Review No. 205: All the Conspirators (Anvil, 2001) is one of the few books I've read in one day for six hours straight, not because of its novella length but because of the thriller quality it promises. Every chapter concludes with a mysterious line that the eager reader hopes to discover as soon as possible. The new chapter is welcomed by a new character who will only complicate the plot further, leaving me to wonder who the conspirators are in that time of looting, hoarding, and connivance. Caroline Hau and Benedict Anderson's thorough introduction added to the excitement. The protagonist's intentions were questioned by strangers and even by himself, in the light of a country ravaged by the war, a country hunting for collaborators in every nook and cranny, across social circles. Carlos Bulosan's work piqued my interest after I read E. San Juan's Bulosan: An Introduction with Selections (one of the first books in my Flash Book Review series). In this book in particular, the great revolutionary writer depicted landscapes that still haunt our contemporary collective consciousness, places wrought by poverty, corruption, and the individual desire for power and long-term comfort. As told by a Filipino-American soldier returning home to solve a mystery that threatens his life, the narrative is familiar and has the potential for an action film adaptation, which can capture the hearts of low-income patrons while infuriating our modern-day balimbings and apologists.
*
MOTHERLESS TONGUES: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation by Vicente L. Rafael
Flash Book Review No. 206: It takes a sharp, attentive mind to grasp what is at once strategically and euphoniously articulated, and it takes an effective author for me to immediately love all the themes at hand. I wish I could write like Dr. Vicente Rafael . I wish I had such a gift for elucidation. He mentioned this in his interview, which I believe encapsulates all of his undeniably important essays and papers on translation studies: "All I am doing is simply reminding people of a feature of translation that tends to get lost or submerged. It is that translation turns not just on the transfer of meaning but also on the struggle to control the processes of transferring meaning." Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language Amid Wars of Translation (ADMU Press, 2016) reinforced the undeniable importance of his lifework. What distinguishes this book for me is its contemporaneity, not to mention the multiplicity of events and characters on display, without losing sight of translation as a companion of empire and an inviting arc for recognition of otherness. The three chapters on Anderson, Ileto, and Rosaldo, written in a lighter tone, contribute to the book's heartiness, if such a word exists. The second chapter was the most informative, as it elaborated on the vicissitudes of imposing American English on the minds of Filipinos across class divides against the backdrop of the scarcity of people fluent in Castilian (despite three centuries of Spanish colonization). Because of its lucidity and clear impact on potential readers, I actually utilized this chapter as the main reference for the students' final output in my Linguistics class.
*
Contracting Colonialism by Vicente L. Rafael
Flash Book Review No. 208: We use translation in order to communicate across linguistic boundaries and to be understood—this is what I teach as the basic function of the translating act. After I read the magnificent Contracting Colonialism (first published in 1988 by the ADMU Press) by the ever-eloquent Vicente Rafael , that piece of instruction is given a new light, rendered with so much richness that the transformative motive of my educational task has been reignited and therefore challenged. The extent of such a challenge was facilitated by the intrigues and alternating perspectives presented in the book, in which colonialism is seen as a byproduct, and eventually a companion, of a desire for comprehension. From the clear and careful examination of Tagalog texts such as prayers for the dying person and the sermon scene in Rizal's novel to the interesting reintroduction of the lives and motives of Tomas Pinpin, Gaspar Aquino de Belen, and the historians and missionaries between them, the book is surely a monumental step towards the growing appreciation of history and cultural criticism as tools for understanding the present effects of imperialism and nation-building in the face of globalization. Having read his other two books, The Promise of the Foreign and Motherless Tongues, I'm already a fan of Rafael's writings. If you are looking for a book as a leisure item, this may not be the one for you. This is an intense and complex work, and the experience of reading it is overwhelmingly enlightening. Once you've read it, you're no longer lingering in the dark. You'll yearn for spaces that are brighter.
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