Learning to dissect meaning from love stories & folklore

We have always unstintingly declared F. Sionil Jose to be a favorite writer, not because he would constantly send us his books but because he has a writing style that is simple and understandable, with none of the high-falutin’, fancy words the less educated would use to impress without understanding their real meaning.

Not that Sionil has not shared his writing skills with his readers, which would come naturally in the many novels, short stories, plays and non-fiction he has published. More than anyone in the creative field, he is exceedingly accessible to students, co-writers and journalists like ourselves.

On a recent evening, we thought the conditions perfect with its alternately hot and cold setting for taking out our collection of Sionils. In all his books, it is his stories of unfulfilled love that have always attracted us. Sionil’s book for children The Molave and the Orchid, plays Muse and Balikbayan and short stories Puppy Love appeared to share a certain element that drew us to them. Upon closer investigation, we found that they all analyzed the strange folklore practices of our forebears among the mountain folk, which they shared with those of Peru and the Incas.

The language of Sionil’s The Molave, a book for children (2004), is simple and entertaining. As is his wont, Sionil always locates his tales in real places, his favorite being his hometown of Rosales, Pangasinan. In the story of Dalipawen, pretty girl Dalin for Magdalena lives in a hut with her mother. One rainy evening, a fair-skinned boy Fernando Santos, 19, chances upon the girl’s hut, asks permission to cook his food and stays for the night. Mother is away and 16-year-old Magdalena is too attractive to resist. Despite her initial objections, they make love till dawn and when mother arrives, she catches them in bed and sends Fernando packing, leaving behind his pair of shoes. Dalin waits many years for his return, turning sickly and old still waiting for Fernando.

Dalin dies inside the hut from which emanates a terrible odor. The villagers set the house and Dalin on fire. After a few years, a tree grows with a large trunk and at night a thousand fireflies can be seen. The trunk when slashed yields sap said to be the tears of Dalin, and once a year, the tree blooms with deep funeral scents. At times when the night is stormy, one hears the sound of moaning from Dalin.

Another story from yet another Sionil book Puppy Love circa 1998, told of Alfred Ruiz in the short story Walking on Fire and his unbelievable experience of finding himself in the midst of a sugar cane field with chanting men walking over a glowing bed of stones. They invite him to join them which he does, feeling no pain. Alfred returns later to the very same spot, finds a farmer’s home and tells him the story, asking him if this really happened. The farmer says it did, a long, long time ago in another millennium.

Still another story comes from two plays  Balikbayan and Muse, published by Sionil in 2008. The one-act play Muse is set in the Makati atelier of Tony, architect and couturier, where his cousin Kim lies naked and asleep on a coach.

The phone rings and Bobby is calling from Cebu asking about his wife Kim. Tony tells Bobby his wife is asleep, and Bobby confesses she has left him and refuses to accept the millions he has transferred to her bank account. Kim, now awake, tells Tony “Bobby suffocates me” and proceeds to confess another secret, that he hasn’t touched her since their wedding, and even more amazingly that she is a virgin at age 24. This is when we feel being taken for a ride, especially when Tony, standing naked over her, offers to give her an orgasm, but instead goes to his drafting table and begins drawing a new wardrobe for Kim. It is actually a comedy of bored Manila folk playing games to entertain themselves. 

Today, we promise ourselves we will soon start with a new F. Sionil Jose novel and put to rest our favorite Sherds love story-cum-tale of paranormal behavior, written in 2007. We likewise promise ourselves to go beyond the love stories and the folklore which attract readership, and learn to dissect the material for deeper meaning. We have found the perfect novel The Feet of Juan Bacnang.

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