For some people it’s retail therapy; for others it’s cutting to the chase and actually seeing a therapist; and still for many others it’s binge drinking. But I have always put my faith in the power of literature to move — or remove — me. More than half my life’s decisions have been inspired, fortunately or otherwise, by something I have read, and when such decisions have led to unfortunate events, I always look to some suitable piece of fiction to soften the edge of a wrong turn.
Meanwhile, in an effort to restore my faith in government institutions, I agreed to moderate a monthly book club organized by the National Book Development Board (NBDB), a government agency attached to the Department of Education. Before then, I had thought that the NBDB signage on a building in a grassy and lonely part of UP was a prop, as so many government signs are, and was shocked but happy to hear that the agency, now located within the National Printing Office along EDSA, is a living and breathing organization, now also organizing book clubs. The NBDB, headed by Executive Director Andrea Pasion-Flores, is a relatively small office with a big — no, gargantuan is the word — mandate. They are tasked with cultivating a healthy book-reading and -publishing culture, and promoting local titles in a country whose escape of choice is the movie theater or the pages of a foreign bestseller and whose primary information source is fast becoming Wikipedia.com. In other words, they have the lovely task of making reading local books attractive, exciting and engaging, sexy enough for the public to pick up and curl up with.
Moderating the book club, I was told, would require of me a number of things: a) picking a book by a local author for discussion; b) reading the book from cover to cover, underscoring significant passages along the way much like a student doing a book review might; and c) facilitating what is hoped would be a lively and engaging discussion of the work. The first two sounded easy enough (although I can’t think of a book that stands a chance against this sleep-inducing late September afternoon rain showers), but the third promised to be pretty much like a date with the dentist. I have languished miserably on the dentist’s chair before where group discussions are concerned. It can prove to be an excruciating two hours if a good half of the reading group shows up without having read the work, two hours characterized by much exasperated sighing (mine), shamed and tight-lipped silences (those who had not read the assigned piece at all), and off-tangent ramblings (those who had read the back blurb and were desperately trying to wing it). At the end of those two hours, I had stopped toying with the idea of one day becoming a teacher.
And yet, there I was on the first NBDB Book Club, clutching the day’s pre-assigned book, Katrina Tuvera’s Testament, a collection of quiet and powerful short stories, nervous and needing a little alcohol at 3 p.m. to loosen tightly knotted nerves. The book club is open to everyone, so on that first meeting, there was no way of telling if my college literature professors were going to suddenly show up and tsk-tsk the way I handled the flow of the discussion, then demand to know, “What are you on?” Or, if half the group were walk-ins with no idea what was going on and even less to contribute.
But my little pre-book club anxiety attack was simply a lapse of faith. The first meeting, held at Xocolat along Katipunan (complete with shop-sponsored mugs of piping hot chocolate, coffee and pastries), was well attended by people who had read the book and loved it (plus two younger sisters whom I implored to join and jump in with many questions and comments just in case the discussion petered out to that traumatic uncomfortable silence). We mined Tuvera’s stories that afternoon for all that we could take — haunting characters, familiar conflicts, emotional landscapes.
One Chinese proverb says, “To move mountains, you must start by moving stones,” and so far, the NBDB team has moved an encouraging wheelbarrow of stones. There have been six book club meetings since; previously discussed books include F.H. Batacan’s detective novel Smaller and Smaller Circles (charismatic Jesuits on a grisly murder trail), Charlson Ong’s epic Banyaga (if Henry Sy, John Gokongwei and George Ty had been childhood chums, this could be their story), Romina Gonzalez’s Welostit (a collection of short stories largely set against the familiar urban backdrop), and most recently, two best-selling and hilarious novellas, Abi Aquino’s Drama Queen (slightly neurotic theater actress looking for love and a leading role) and Tweet Sering’s Wander Girl (twenty-something girl bent on quenching her wanderlust, on many levels).
All book club meetings have so far turned out to be as was hoped: lively and engaging, demonstrating how a good book can make heads turn — with thoughts, ideas, empathy, a greater appreciation of the human experience, a different perspective, renewed faith, or at the very least, for nerds like me, a sexy new world. To learn more about the book club, or to check out titles for upcoming meetings, visit www.libro.ph/nbdb.