Yearend reads & gifts

You’re all probably in a dither by now over your lengthening list for Christmas gift-giving, and the unchristian repercussions that addressing that list will have on your future. No, make that present. As in: the more presents you give, the more challenged becomes the present state of your coffers.

You wish you weren’t so Pinoy, or that Pinoys don’t enjoy a 1.5 degree of separation – far more remarkable than the usual six, the global mean. But birthright can be mean, too, so grin and bear it.

Go visit tiangges, fairs and bazaars. Pick up freshly, often ingeniously, preserved and packaged native delicacies, which indeed make up a sunrise industry. But for those special, enlightened people in your list, nourishment can be of the more permanently stimulating sort. What best to give but a Filipiniana title?

Here then are several books to gift yourselves and others with for Christmas of 2006. They are listed in the order they were produced, launched, and received by this omnibus reviewer.

The Jupiter Effect by Katrina Tuvera, published by Anvil. This is a finely written first novel that admirably addresses the dearth of local literature sourcing back to the martial law years.

As I often tell my fiction and poetry students, once a Filipino creative writer gets going, he/she would never want to exchange his nationality for any other, owing to our materials at hand.

Realism and magic realism, speculative fiction and memoir, even the poetry of lifeblood may all tap that rich vein of history and circumstance that spell an archipelago of utter fascination and confabulation. Superstition and fable, lore and legend, as well as contemporary conundrums – all make for a gushing fountainhead for literature.

Why, the Marcos era alone still has to be mined sufficiently for literary material. Other than Lualhati Bautista’s classic Dekada 70 (a novel in Filipino); Butch Dalisay’s first novel Killing Time in a Warm Place; Pete Lacaba’s inspired journalistic account of the First Quarter Storm, Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage; and the recently published (and reportedly riveting) U.G. – An Underground Tale: The Journey of Edgar Jopson & the First Quarter Storm Generation by Benjamin Pimentel Jr., there haven’t been too many other manifestations in prose harking back to those turbulent decades.

We ought to be thankful then that a young, gifted fiction writer promises to complete a trilogy on "martial-law babies," of which this is the first. And she’s just the one to do it, too.

The daughter of the illustrious writing couple Juan Tuvera and Kerima Polotan, both Palanca Prize winners in the 1950s/60s, Katrina or "Kimi" may be said to be not entirely homegrown. She did start her mentorship at UP, besides home, of course. But she has also had the privilege of honing her craft at various international fellowships: the Hedgebook Retreat for Women Writers, MacDowell Colony; Blue Mountain Center; Hawthornden Castle in Scotland; Ledig House; Vermont Studio Center and Ragdale Foundation...

I agree with Sir Butch Dalisay’s assessment that Kimi Tuvera is "one of the brightest young stars of Philippine fiction in English today." Her first collection, Testament and Other Stories (Anvil, 2002) won the National Book Award. She has also won Palanca and Philippine Graphic awards. She currently teaches at De La Salle University. Of her writing, she writes, in her book’s afterword: "My stories require that I imagine people, the lives they lead – that’s how I create fiction, where everything and nothing is true."

Ten: Coming Home and Nine More Short Stories by Albina Peczon Fernandez, with foreword by National Artist Virgilio S. Almario and sketches by National Artist Vicente S. Manansala, published by the Juan D. Nepomuceno Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, in Angeles City.

These stories were written, and most of them published, between 1956 and 2005. Their common theme is home – "its non-possession, possession, dispossession, repossession, and re/possession," as the author says in her preface. Another theme is "how the political becomes personal." Biography intersects with history and is enhanced by the creative imagination and a craftswoman’s grace.

Invaluable by itself is the back-of-the-book "Glossary of Words, Proper Names, Terms and Expressions in Kapampangan Annotated," where the first entry alone, on the Abacan River, already provides us a wealth of lore on the Kapampangan, including their enviable delicacies and quaint idioms.

Fernandez’s very first story, "The House on Misericordia Street," written in 1956 as a requirement for NVM Gonzalez’ writing class, won the UP Short Story Writing Contest that same year. That piece of trivia gladdens me, for I was born on that street, else totally unfamiliar. Another story adds to the pre-martial law depredations by the military conducted at the UP Diliman campus.

All the stories hark back to Pampanga, to a home of memory and imagination that constitute a treasure trove.

The Story of Loren Legarda: Her Legacy and Vision, by Maria Rosa Nieva Carrion-Buck and Maria Lourdes Javier Brillantes (Seagull Philippines Inc.), the fifth in the Seagull Legacy Series, was launched at a full-house Manila Polo Club over a month ago.

It is a compelling biography – thus far – of a lady who fascinates with loveliness of character at par with both her person and physical attributes. From legacy to vision, or vice versa – inclusive of her environmentalist’s crusade, her career in media and public service, her charisma born of a fiery intelligence and passion – this coffee-table book replete with photographs traces a sterling life that is yet to peak, and we as readers and witnesses are all the more intrigued.

Beyond learning that Ms. Loren’s first dream was to become an astronaut (which in a way is being fulfilled, the way her approval ratings always blasts off and lands her on top of the heap), we hear from various accounts, including Quijano de Manila’s, how she has never been an "ice queen." Rather, it is passion that "fills this woman to her very core."

"I am a dreamer," she says, "especially of visions difficult to accomplish."

We understand (albeit not from this book), that the reason La Loren enjoys rocketship ratings is that people do not only perceive her to have been "maneuvered" out of a spare-tire position, but that she’s still fighting to prove it. Why, this dovetails with a section in this book that bears the heading, "A Seeker of Justice and Order."

Her political future obviously calls for a sequel.

The Mountain That Loved A Bird, by Alice McLerran, illustrated by Beaulah Pedregosa Taguiwalo (Mother Tongue Publishing, Inc.), with editions as translations into Filipino (as Ang Bundok na Nagmahal sa Ibon by Rene O. Villanueva), Iloko (Herminio S. Beltran Jr.), Hiligaynon (Genevieve L. Asenjo), Kinaray-a (also by Asenjo), and Binisaya or Cebuano (Grace Monte de Ramos).

McLerran’s first picture book, already enjoying multinational editions, gains a wider audience with this commendable effort by our friend Beaulah, who serves as illustrator/designer and publisher. Long at the forefront of children’s book production, she has initiated a Mother Tongue series that promises to produce, in the Philippine language of your choice, an edition of this debut publication at a special prize for a minimum order of 500 copies. Conceivably, this will also be true of Ms. Taguiwalo’s future publications.

For the current offering, it’s at P280 per copy, or P800 for a set of three and P1,600 for the full set of six. For orders or inquiries, Beaulah may be reached at 0917-7874956 or mothertonguepublishinginc@gmail.com.

(To be continued next week.)