Column: Nabokov’s Last Novel Almost Burned and Thoughts on Lost Books

Apologies for the lack of updates. We will start doing so by posting the backlog of Read or Die articles that has been published in Manila Bulletin. This one saw print on June 21, Saturday.

Nabokov’s Last Novel Almost Burned and Thoughts on Lost Books
By Kristel Autencio

It was one of those literary scandals that would seem trivial to many, but was a matter of earthshaking importance to the World of Letters. Dmitri Nabokov, son of Vladmir Nabokov (famous for the controversial novel Lolita), had been tasked with the decision whether or not to burn the manuscript of his father’s last unfinished novel, titled The Original of Laura.

As part of his last will and testament, the older Nabokov wanted his notes burned after his death. According to Dmitri, his father couldn’t take the idea that his most cherished work, “the most concentrated distillation of [his] creativity,” to see the light of day in its unfinished form.

The death sentence on those index cards has been hanging for a long time, kept in a vault of an undisclosed Swiss bank, since the writer’s death in 1977. Now in his seventies, Dmitri had recently hinted to the public that he wanted to honor his father’s request of actually burning the manuscript.

Cue drama here. Newspaper articles and blog posts erupted, eloquent pleas for him to cease and desist, along the lines of, “Oh no, this manuscript is an important piece of literature. Don’t burn it! Who cares about your dead father’s wishes? He’s dead, isn’t he? Think of Virgil (his Aeneid was reportedly meant to be burned as well)!”

There were, of course, people who disagreed and said, “Just burn the blasted thing! A writer is still a human being, famous or not, and his wishes should be respected. Shame on you, literary public. You people are no different from those vultures who scrounge tabloids for celebrity paparazzi shots.”

Writers as notable as Booker Prize-winner John Banville (don’t burn it!) and famous playwright Tom Stoppard ( burn it!) weighed in on the issue. Of course, it would not be a good drama without a satisfying climax and recently, Dmitri mentioned that he wouldn’t be destroying Laura in the near future. Sighs of relief and ill-tempered grumblings circulated in the blogosphere. The question however, still remains: who truly owns a work of art?

When it comes to law, the answer is clear-cut. From the moment the pen is put on paper (or fingers on the keyboard as the case may be, in the digital age), copyright law protects the creators from any form of plagiarism, as well as giving author the right to demand payment if his characters, plot and concept is used by another party. In the Philippines, copyright lasts up to 50 years after the death or author, 70 years in the US and UK.

In the world of literary scholarship, however, the distinction is a little murky. William Shakespeare, for example, has long ceased to be only just the man who lived in Statford-upon-Avon in the 16th Century. With more than 600 years of theatrical interpretations, publications, research and discussion, he has evolved into a concept, a historical artifact– so valuable that even census documents and baptismal certificates of him and his family are considered priceless.

Vladimir Nabokov is arguably one of the most revolutionary writers that emerged in the 20th century. He is certainly one of the most controversial, as to the topics his novels continue to intrigue and enrage his readers. The mere mention of “Lolita” can send conservatives in throes of censorships and book burnings. His literary style is also one of the most unique. Understandable then, how his fans felt horror at the idea of destroying one of his works. Even if he himself wanted them burned.

This dilemma is nothing new. Franz Kafka, before his death, asked his friend to burn all of his notes. The friend’s disobedience allowed the world to see masterpieces like Metamorphosis and The Trial, works which are considered to be definitive of 20th Century European literature. If it wasn’t for Emily Dickinson’s family members who scoured through her belongings, one of America’s most famous female poets would have never garnered so much fame after her death.

The real conflict lies in the line between the author as person and his work. People who have argued for the execution of Vladimir Nabokov’s wishes assert that the writer is still a human being and should not be peddled as a commodity. His wishes should be held sacred, most of all by his family, on whom he has entrusted this task. Whatever the fate of the manuscript, it should be decided by them, and not by the public.

However it is the concept of the “perfect work” that is highly problematic. Nabokov wanted his notes burned because it has not attained its ideal form. But does it matter? This kind of thinking for me is, in all honesty, a little snobbish. If some of the writer’s work is “not perfect,” does it taint the other works? Does it lower a writer’s batting average, like some kind of baseball statistic?

If The Original of Laura ends up to be disappointing, it doesn’t mean that Nabokov’s other works are any less remarkable. I guess the digital age has spoiled me of this idea that publishing makes a work permanent. I no longer have any delusions of literary perfection. The worth of a writer’s body of work lies in the sum of his efforts, not merely in the most obvious products of his genius.

Writers have private lives, yes, but what they should realize is that in the books that they write, they inevitably reveal themselves, even if it’s but a glimpse. It may be a bit prying and vulture-like for people like me to want to take a peek, but it is one of the impossible quests of a reader to find out a little bit more, peer a little deeper. It satisfies a yearning that any human being who wants knowledge feels.

E.M. Forster, one of the most celebrated British writers of the 20th Century knew a thing or two about keeping his deepest thoughts private. Famous for works like A Passage to India and Howard’s End, he had also written, unknown to most of his contemporaries, Maurice a story about an Oxford student battling societal pressures because of his homosexuality. The moral dilemma of publishing the novel in his lifetime plagued him. It would have caused a massive scandal and would have undoubtedly “tainted” his other works. On the manuscript discovered after Forster’s death, his descendants found a handwritten note by him, “Publishable, but worth it?”

There are countless other factors in the world that can destroy or suppress a literary work. History has already done a pretty good job of destroying books, thanks to war, censorship and simple neglect, so why try to help out by deliberately incinerating one more?

Written by giyenah | June 30, 2008 | Filed Under Reviews | Leave a Comment

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.

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

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.

Written by Mia | May 6, 2008 | Filed Under Read or Die, Books, Reading | 4 Comments

LIRA poetry workshop now accepting applicants

The Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA) is now accepting applicants for its annual poetry workshop, to be held from June to August 2008. From the LIRA website:

Bukas na pong muli ang LIRA sa mga nais magpatalâ upang lumahok sa taunang klinikang pampanulaan. Ang klinika po ay gaganapin mula 9:00 n.u hanggang 5:00 n.h. tuwing Sabado at Linggo, at magtatagal nang tatlong buwan, mula Hunyo hanggang Agosto.

Tulad po ng mga nakaraang taon, magpadala po ng isang pahinang bio-data na may 1×1 ID picture, kasama ang limang tula sa Filipino, sa liraworkshop@gmail.com, o ilagay ito sa pigeon hole ni Prof. Vim Nadera sa UP Institute of Creative Writing, 2/F Faculty Center, College of Arts and Letters, UP Diliman. Ang huling araw po ng pagpapatalâ ay ang ika-30 ng Abril, 2008.

Written by Mia | April 8, 2008 | Filed Under Events | Leave a Comment

Two Poems: Kenneth Koch and Louise Gluck

April is National Poetry Month and okay, it’s not a Philippine activity but let’s appropriate their holidays for better poetry appreciation, yeah? I’ll be posting two poems every weekend of the month, with a personal commentary about my views towards the poems and as a way to showcase how reading good poetry doesn’t have to be academic in order to be worthwhile.

That being said, I will put a disclaimer here. Many of the things I will write are extremely subjective. Poetry is something I’m passionate about, but it’s an n00b’s brand of love–I do not use the correct terminologies and I may be severely uninformed. For those who would want to correct me though, feel welcome to do so. There’s nothing more stimulating than a good discussion.

First, let’s start off with a love poem:

To You
by Kenneth Koch

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from
The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Always, to be near you, even in my heart
When I’m awake, which swims, and also that I believe that you
Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
The place where I think of you, a new
Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
Of a ship which sails from Hartford to Miami, and I love you
Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

This will be a central theme for most of the poetry I will post, eheh. The other is also about love, but a mournful one, and something that is told in quiet, distilled verses. But for simple love declarations, I find that I’m partial to rambly, extremely naive poems like this one and Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara. There is, of course, a danger in it, because it can so easily sound uh, retarded. And admittedly “To You” has less of the musicality I search for in poetry, but I’ve forgiven lesser poems than this in the face of one kick-ass metaphor. This poem has more than five. My favorites are the first line (of course), “I am crazier than shirttails / In the wind, when you’re near,”"I think I am / bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields / Always, to be near you.” I have read that Hartford is actually landlocked and so his analogy is absurd in this way, LOL. But it’s exactly the way we are at love, I feel, because trivial things like geography can easily be overlooked.

Kenneth Koch was associated with the New York School. Here is an interview talking about John Ashberry and Frank O’Hara. Also, I’m sad to discover that he’s dead.

The New York School and the Beat Generation of San Francisco are indispensable if you want vibrant, witty poems that never run out of odd images and similes. Other favorites that write on the same vein are Lawrence Ferlighetti (still alive! :o), Kenneth Rexroth and Gregory Corso. I find Allen Ginsberg (especially the latter poems) and Jack Kerouac highly overrated, sry. :/

The Triumph Of Achilles
by Louise Glück

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparent, though the legends
cannot be trusted–
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.

I’m sorry for not having a lot of things to say for this poem, because I’ve read it more than a dozen times and it still leaves me speechless. I’ll say though that my favorite part is this: “though the legends / cannot be trusted — their source is the survivor,/ the one who has been abandoned.” I may be horribly misreading this line, but it feels to me like the very act of ‘tribute’ or ‘remembrance’ will always say something more about the grieving one than the actual dead person. The way that Patroclus comes down in history as “friend of Achilles” and not the other way around also layers their relationship in terms of the equality(?) between them. It’s also interesting to note how the title contains the word “triumph” yet the body of poem describes Achilles grieving.

Glück has a knack for fleshing out mythological figures into flawed but still super-human characters. Her latest poetry collection, Averno, uses the Hades and Persephone myth to talk about the shadows of love, marriage, and possession.

Written by giyenah | April 6, 2008 | Filed Under Reviews | 1 Comment

Updates

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

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

Written by tin | April 6, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

Panibagong Paraan 2008 Showcases Innovative Ideas

Taking a break from your regular literary postings (that have not been so regular lately–which will change this April! we promise!):

Panibagong Paraan 2008 Showcases Innovative Ideas

Chief Justice (Ret.) Artemio Panganiban will open the Panibagong Paraan 2008 Philippine Development Innovation Marketplace on Wednesday, April 9 at 11 A.M., at the Megatrade Halls of SM Megamall.

He will deliver the keynote speech for the event where project proposals from 99 finalists in a nationwide search for innovative ideas will be judged and presented to the public. The theme of the competition is: “Building Partnerships for Effective Local Governance”.

The project proposals cover a wide range of activities from environmental protection to women’s rights, youth empowerment, livelihood generation, governance and administration. At least 30 winners of the project grant competition will receive up to P1 million each to implement their projects within one year.

The awarding ceremonies will be keynoted by Dr. Milwida Guevara, the 2008 Gawad Haydee Yorac awardee for outstanding public service, CEO of Synergeia Foundation, and a proponent of local good governance through the Galing Pook Foundation. Emceeing the award ceremony is TV host, Edu Manzano.

Four simultaneous round table discussions on the issue of building partnerships for effective local governance will be held on April 9, from 2 to 4 p.m., hosted by the Caucus for Development NGOs (CODE-NGO), Transparency and Accountability Network (TAN), the Local Government Academy (LGA) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The topics lined up are: “Are Political Dynasties a Threat to Democratic Governance?”; “Does Community Participation Ensure Transparency and Social Accountability in Local Governance?”, Youth Participation in Governance: A Harbinger of Change in Leadership Style or an Opportunity to Corrupt or Exploit Young Leaders?” and “The Business Case for Cutting Red Tape at the Local Level”.

An on-the-spot poster making contest will also be held on Thursday afternoon (from 2 to 4:30) for children 7 to 12 years of age, facilitated by the Ilustrador ng Kabataan (INK), an organization of artists who illustrate children’s books.

Speaking at a workshop on skills sharing on April 10 at 10 a.m., is fundraiser John Silva who gives grant-writing seminars to NGOs, non-profits, universities, religious organizations, foundations and individuals. Silva will make presentations about project development, advocacy and lobbying techniques and effective strategies for resource mobilization.

A Winners’ Forum on April 10 (from 1 to 5 p.m.) will feature presentations by selected past winners of Panibagong Paraan and Galing Pook

Musical and cultural numbers will be performed throughout the two days by LGU groups such as the Marikina Rondalla, Teatro Marikeno, Bungkos Palay Performing Arts Foundation of the Science City of Munoz, and others. Admission is free.

Panibagong Paraan is a joint undertaking of the World Bank, the Department of Interior and Local Government – Local Government Academy, AusAID-PACAP, Peace and Equity Foundation, Canadian International Development Agency, the Philippine Center for Population and Development, the British Embassy, Team Energy Foundation, The Asia Foundation, USAID, ADB, CODE-NGO, the League of Corporate Foundations, and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement.

For more information, please go to www.panibagongparaan.com

Written by tin | April 6, 2008 | Filed Under Events | 2 Comments

Announcements

Vibal Foundation opens internship program for online writing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NBDB Book Club Meeting: Sudden Fiction Anthologies

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

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

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

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

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

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

Written by tin | March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Latest, Events | 5 Comments

Coming soon (or sooner)

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

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

Written by tin | March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Latest | 1 Comment

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.

Written by tin | March 8, 2008 | Filed Under Read or Die, Books, Reading | 11 Comments

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