F. Sionil as artist, mentor and friend

The best thing we got from recent Christmas to New Year holidays was the time it gave us to attend to our readings, specifically the novelette Sherds, we were happily surprised to receive with a personal note from distinguished Magsaysay awardee and National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose. Finally, we sat down with Sherds which we finished in one sitting. But we wanted more, convinced there was more underneath the cloak and dagger narrative with visions from the afterlife.

Sionil is always interesting, whether we understand his message or not. He never makes one feel like a nincompoop, never shows off his superior knowledge. This might be the reason why he is the most widely-read Filipino writer in English with works translated in many other languages. At the 2013 Focus On Philippine Art in Paris, the most popular section of the bookstore was that of Sionil’s books.

We start reading once more from chapter one, slower, relishing each new discovery, advancing, backtracking. It tells of Peter Gregory or PG, respected artist, potter and professor of Arts and Philosophy working abroad, until convinced by Betty, his former student, now his lover and dean of Fine Arts in Manila, to return and share his talents in the rehabilitation and rebuilding of the Filipino nation.

In one of PG’s classes, his attention is caught by an attractive and bright freshman Guia Espiritu, who minces no words and gives her own opinion. When PG mentioned that he was also involved in ceramics, Guia reveals that she and her parents did some pottery from very good clay available in the mountains. This became their bond, after which PG is drawn to take her in as his own personal discovery. As PG’s relationship with Guia continues, he takes her on his lectures abroad, to the cultures of Bangkok and Kyoto in Japan during which time Guia has a nightmare, the first intimation that something was very wrong.

On a trip to the mountains where she grew up and where PG’s family had the largest of their many haciendas, Guia remarks quietly almost to herself, “These mountains, the forest — they hide a lot of secrets… the revolutionaries who refused to surrender to the Americans, the Huks.” “They were bandits,” PG opines, and Guia answers, “To us, they were heroes.

The succeeding chapters go quickly. PG holds an exhibit of his pottery and is accused of his art being derivative. PG starts missing things from Betty’s earrings, to money, to the expensive Vacheron Constantin Swiss luxury watch, until Guia completely disappears one day from the house. Then, Ecco, Guia’s brother, arrives with the news that she had been shot and had died in a no-man’s land war zone in the mountains. Ecco gives PG Guia’s letter of apology for the thefts which she had to do for their comrades in need; and a receipt from a pawnshop of his precious Vacheron watch.

Even as Ecco has spoken comes the cruel accusations PG knows in his bones are being practiced by his family, but he has ignored because he has never involved directly. But Ecco accuses him candidly, “Your people, your class, your family. You are up there, only because we are down here.”

By the end of the novel, it is obvious the clay both PG and Guia use has become a symbol for oppression with PG, unknowingly also Guia’s tormentor. The class conflict in Sherds referring to fragments of pottery, deals with the continuing conflict to this day between the rich landowners whose eyes are shut to the travails inflicted on the poor tillers of the land.

The story then takes another form, that of a dream, a reliving of the tale of Pygmalion and Galatea where the artist falls in love with a statue he had created. It becomes a fairy tale, a dream and a moment of magic realism. We ourselves had fallen into a deep sleep and awaken to the ringing of bells heralding the new year that should bring us new hopes and dreams. But for some reason, we couldn’t stop our tears from falling.

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