Whodunits & other titles for your library

The publishing in-dustry is churning out so many inter-esting titles, it is no longer fashionable for Filipino book lovers to say there is a dearth of good books.

It could just be felicitous coincidence that two of the recent fictions deal with the popular crime whodunit. Georges Simon in France wrote them so fast and so prodigiously in the last four decades of the 20th century, Agatha Christie in England, and a whole caboodle of them in the United States. Readers got hooked to the genre primarily because they wanted to know who put the poison in the cocktail, who strangled whom with a necktie — the chase begins, full of twists and turns and in the end, it is revealed that some simple character did it because of a hidden but plausible motive. Some readers like myself cheat — they go to the last chapter when the curiosity and the tension can no longer be borne. I tell young writers not to ignore the spy novels of John Le Carre, for spellbinders like him know all the tricks to hook the reader. In the process, they provide readers with details truly informative, even educational.

I am pleased to recommend these titles.

Blue Angel, White Shadow

by Charlson Ong

University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 229pp

Laurice Saldiaga, a pretty singer, is found lying in a pool of her own blood in her room above the Blue Angel Café in Binondo where she sings. A Chinese mestizo policeman, Cyrus Ledesma is assigned to investigate the murder. Like the victim, his past is murky. From here on, the marvelous wordsmith that Charlson is, leads the reader into the labyrinths of Chinatown and the Chinese-Filipino psyche. His characters are so fascinating, well fleshed, their libido, their exotic pasts and convoluted relationships are unwoven with such delicate thoroughness — we get to understand them, and ourselves a lot better.

Many of the characters are so well drawn, they remind us of real people, politicians, businessmen, and some plain scoundrels acting out their roles in the fascinating warren that is Manila. Charlson’s descriptions not just of people but of places evoke the real sounds and smells of the living city and the dank, dark secrets that fester in its crevices.

Some of the chapters are brilliant short stories that could be enlarged but the author — surrendering himself to the demands of the narrative, breaks them off. Even after the real killer is exposed, the novel continues to be interesting as motivations are explained, and loose ends are tired.

Here is contemporary writing at its best — one more testimony to Charlson’s reputation as our best novelist in the wings.

At War’s End

by Rony V. Diaz

The Manila Times Press, 190pp

With an eye glued to history, Rony V. Diaz has surfaced from his literary hibernation to produce this slim but thoughtful and engaging whodunit. As the plot unravels, we go back to that dim and recent past which also explains so many of the social dilemmas and contradictions this country is immersed in today. It is all there — the moral miasma that colonialism, and Filipino leadership created long before World War II and on to the Occupation and the Liberation that did not dissolve it.

A rich young man is murdered; who did it and why?

As Rony unravels the plot, he also explains the interactions of the characters representing not only themselves but their social classes. With Chekovian simplicity, he tells us what went wrong and perhaps, just perhaps, what is right may well be in the offing.

Rony’s background enables him to make this thoughtful commentary on the Filipino condition, literature as always the most effective purveyor of enlightenment. Within a year after the release of this notable novel, he has another in the works. Abangan!

Outside the Wall of Intramuros

by Wilfredo Garrido

Gondola Books, 450pp

As a literary genre, the historical novel requires of the novelist scholarly accuracy and craftsmanship larded with imagination. The Makati lawyer Wilfredo Garrido has both skills as shown in this, his third attempt at bringing Philippine history to life. If readers don’t like their history as written by unimaginative historians, here is a panorama of events and characters, adventure, war and romance. His novel covers the last days of Spain in the Philippines and the arrival of the Americans and their impact on the Filipino upper classes. A lot of familiar figures — Rizal, Emilio Aguinaldo, among them, and American biggies like the first General MacArthur, President Mackinley are here although glimpses of them are not that lasting because the main characters are Indio patriots and mestizos. Garrido needs to hone his talent more, and use more writerly flourishes. His exhaustive research, his dramatization of this pivotal portion of our history elevate this effort from the mundane.

Contemporary Jazz in the Philippines

by Richie Quirino

Anvil Publishing,

Inc., 195pp

The third volume of Richie Quirino’s work on the Filipino jazz tradition is a good Baedeker and brings to light unknown historical details of our Western musical tradition. It also includes interviews with masters who enriched this tradition. Reading it evokes small town memories of boyhood and what jazz means to most of us who often take it for granted as we now listen to it on radio and TV.

I grew up in a small town — in one of its barrios where there was always a five piece brass band accompanying the funeral hearse to the cemetery, playing dance tunes in the village fiestas. In the town fiesta auditorium, two dance bands competed during those two nights of festive dancing.

Without schools where musicians are trained, there were individual musicians who gave solfegio lessons as well as instructions in how to play the instruments in exchange for several sacks of grains, or whatever the pupil could afford.

Our dance bands, to the best of my knowledge, played all over Asia all the way to Turkey long before World War II. Shortly after the war, in Tokyo, I’d go to the nightclubs — I close my eyes upon entering, listen to the music and within a few moments, I would know   whether the band was Filipino or Japanese. The Japanese played precisely, with not a single note astray. The Filipino band played differently with warmth, with feeling — the Filipino sound — so familiar to all of us. Richie traces these wonderful phenomena from the near past to the present with the affectionate and fastidious devotion of a scholar and a jazz artist himself. Those interested in the evolution of Filipino culture should have this book.

Filipino Directors Up Close: The Golden Age of the Philippine Cinema — 1950 to 2010

by Bibsy M. Carballo

Anvil Publishing, Inc., 204pp

Among her other forays into journalism and creative writing, Bibsy M. Carballo has written on the movies for quite a time. She can easily be considered one of just a handful of authorities on the movies — those who contributed to its being esteemed as an art form, and otherwise, those who demeaned it. In this, her first book (considering her experience, why this first book only now!) she records with scholarly facility the achievers in last half century. Her enumeration starts with Manuel Conde, Lamberto Avellana and Gerardo de Leon in the late forties and early fifties — all three of whom I knew personally as well as their work. For all their hard work and dedication, these three pioneers were often hobbled by lack of better equipment, more production leeway. These inadequacies can be spotted — as I spotted them way back — if perceptive viewers see them again — Badjao, Genghis Khan, Sawa sa Lumang Simboryo. Bibsy goes on to analyze the work of Celso Ad Castillo, Mike de Leon, Mario O’hara, Peque Gallaga, Marilou Diaz Abaya, Laurice Guillen and Tikoy Aguilus.

I have seen the films of these very good directors, including that very expensive film on Rizal by Marilou Diaz Abaya. Sure, they were all brilliant attempts, but most were flawed by scripts that were not well thought out, by screen characters not fully developed. Rizal as cinematographed by Marilou Diaz Abaya was a deadly bore — the story which is known to almost all Filipinos was devoid of the tension that a good script writer would have been able to craft.

Bibsy ends her book with an interview with Brillante Mendoza, the brightest of the new breed of independent movie directors. His work is worth watching for he is still in the process of developing.

This is nit-picking. Bibsy should ignore it and continue attending, reporting and commenting on the movies but with a more critical eye. In the absence of a strong critical tradition, we will continue exalting and popularizing bad movies, denying the masa the precious talent of our movie greats.

Chino and His Time

A biography by Vergel O Santos

Anvil Publishing, Inc., 231pp

The author of this biography of Joaquin P. Roces, publisher of the defunct Manila Times is a veteran journalist and is now chairman of that premier business daily, Business World; he has published five books, one of them a university text, and is often on TV giving sage comment on media and their impact on the national consciousness. Such a background argues for the impeccable quality of this biography. Vergel talked with me on occasion about Chino whom I knew personally, having been my boss for ten years when I was with his newspaper. I will not comment on what Vergel has written about the man but will add to what Vergel had said. My readers should have it in their hearts to forgive me if I now pay homage not just to Chino but to the family which published the Times. Whatever my regrets, I will always treasure that decade from 1949 to 1960 when I worked with the Times.

First and foremost, those of us who wrote for the paper were free. Not once was I ever told by the publisher what to write and what not to write. At one time, I wrote a critical article about the American bases, how large they were and how much land should have been given back to the people for agriculture, how scavengers were needlessly killed. Two American officers from Clark went to Chino’s office to complain and Chino made me face them. I told them we will print their reply. Not one word of advice or caution from my publisher. At another time, Miss Isabel Roces, the treasurer, called me to her office and said some of her friends — they were landlords — had complained about my articles on agrarian reform. I told her I was very careful, that what I wrote was documented, and I was not worried about the Times or myself being sued for libel. She brightened up immediately and asked if I had difficulties writing and I said, yes, doing all that research was time consuming. Immediately, she said I should get a research assistant — which I did.

Instead of taking a vacation every year, I visited the far-flung regions of the country staying away sometimes weeks on end. I saw much of Mindanao, the distant islands of Tawi-Tawi, even Sandakan in Borneo, Sabtang in the Batanes; I followed settlers in Mindanao, our ethnics in the forests and mountains. Every travel voucher I presented was approved. Chino gave me the most expensive cameras.

In those 10 years, I got to know not just our country and people, but also so much of Southeast Asia and our neighbors who were then so far behind us.

I worked late at night in the office and Chino would often see me. He must have remembered those sessions for during the martial law years, he often dropped by my bookshop, and once, he even angrily accosted me for “joining Marcos.” I told him he was all wrong, that I did not work in Malacañang, although I gave advice to Conrado Estrella who was Secretary of Agrarian Reform and my town mate as well. He understood.

When he was on his deathbed though his wife, Pacita, no longer permitted visitors, she let me see him. He was thoroughly disappointed with Cory’s performance as President and I shared his disillusion.

To the best of my knowledge, the Roceses never used their paper to advance their interests; they never interfered with us writers. They seldom appeared in the paper itself. The Roceses were never ostentatious and so many of us called Chino just that — Chino, but at times, when I knew I had to, I called him “Sir.”

Chino built a sense of camaraderie in the Times because he himself was a good comrade. That could be a fault, of course, for there were those who took advantage of his good nature. But in the totality of it all, it was the Times itself that symbolized the personality of Chino and the Roceses themselves — a paper where freedom bloomed, and died when Marcos, the dictator, closed it.

Beginning Hope and Change: Impressions on President Noy Aquino and his First One Hundred Days

by Homobono A. Adaza

Published by Alliance for Democratic Action, 198pp

This is a very slim but significant and insightful observation on President Pnoys’ initiation into Malacañang. If he reads it at all, it will guide him in the fruitful use of his office to fulfill the aborted promise of his father. Homobono Adaza is not just a distinguished though maverick lawyer courageously expounding on our basic problems. His historical backgrounder on why the Philippines today is hobbled by corruption and the impoverished spirit of our leaders is authoritative, a thorough analysis on the effects of colonialism and the suffocating culture it had created.

With irony and humor, he illustrates the fundamental weaknesses of our institutions. His suggestions appear as somewhat brash but they are commonsensical and doable — that is, if the leadership is courageous. Adaza’s depth of knowledge can be misconstrued because his presentation is condensed simplicity. It should be easily understood by the powerful bureaucrats who are lazy, averse to thinking, and inclined to pass on responsibilities. The range of recommendations to buttress his analysis is wide and clear cut — this slim volume is actually a guide book for a leader who wants to lift this country from the dungheap quickly without resorting to a coup or even thinking of a revolution.

I am particularly grateful to Adaza for his concern for culture, the artists and writers. It is a tragedy in this country that our best writers cannot make a living on their writing while a third rate movie director who produces all that crap earns in the millions and even expects to be anointed with the National Artist award.

President P-Noy, please read this book.