In the Past, Books

Reading Robert Darnton’s “What’s the History of Books?”

 

 

In “What is the History Books?” Robert Darnton redefines the notion of text when he lays out the model of the communication circuit, a social cycle by which the text is produced or created, consumed or “re-created” by the string of constituents directly involved with the literary work.

 

By engaging himself in the scrupulous pursuit of book history; by undertaking the enormous task of archival research, (shall we call it sensible eavesdropping); and by scrutinizing the past through its proofs—particularly the physical or material, socioeconomic political or even psychological aspects involved in the production of the printed text called book, Darnton provides clarity to the materiality of the otherwise elaborated notions of text, which have always been perceived either metaphysically or intellectually. After all, the text is simply material, a commodity that can be altered, whose authenticity is therefore endlessly open to discussion.

 

Initially Darnton considers the history of books—everywhere recognized as one important discipline—as the social and cultural history of communication in print. For him, anyone pursuing the study of book history must seek to understand how ideas were transmitted through print, and to understand how exposure to the printed word affected the thought and behavior of mankind in the hundreds of years [1989]. Then he belabors the case story of Isaac Pierre Rigaud, a cunning bookseller in a provincial district of Montpellier in eighteenth-century France who sold Voltaire’s Questions sur l’Encylopédie, a supplementary text to Denis Diderot’s initiated compendium on Enlightenment titled Encyclopedia or systematic dictionary of the sciences, arts and crafts.

 

After leafing through the letters in the dossier belonging to the bookseller Isaac Pierre Rigaud, Darnton uncovers that French icon Voltaire was equally a crafty author in that he played tricks with publishers and printers when it comes to his works. Voltaire himself tolerated STN’s pirated editions and made deals with them only to be able to spread his ideas on Enlightenment. Voltaire pursued sinister means perhaps to try to attain nobler ends—propagate notions of this so-called Enlightenment, a philosophical tendency which according to some modern scholarship proved rather only intellectual and hardly levelheaded.

 

Such portrayal affords us the chance to see the dynamics of the people directly involved in the production of text. They are the elements in the communications circuit which altogether make possible the existence, inexistence, or even mal-existence of the literary work.

 

While other historians might study the work’s circuit of transmission at the stage of its composition, its printing or its assimilation in the libraries, Darnton concerns himself with the least familiar link in the diffusion process—that is the role of Isaac-Pierre Rigaud of Montpellier, the bookseller. Darnton recognizes that the new book historians seek to do away with the task of bibliography by focusing on the general pattern of book production and consumption in a long period. In principle, the new book historians ought to discover literary experience of ordinary readers they concentrated on the most ordinary books, they have always sought to obscure familiar events—counter-Reformation and Enlightenment—in an effort to elucidate how much traditional culture outweighed the avant-garde in society’s literary preoccupation. They are said to compile statistics from requests for copyright, analyze content of private libraries and trace ideological currents through neglected genres. All these efforts may have not ended with firm set of conclusions but posed new questions, attempted at utilizing new methods and tapped new sources [Darnton 1989].

 

Their example influenced movements through Europe and US such as the reception studies in Germany and printing history in Britain. The 1960s and 1970s have witnessed the enrichment and the expansion of the field of study. This was the time when new book historians converged in cafes, created new journals, founded new centers and disseminated their research on an international scale [Darnton 1989]. The expansion of the field of study became as gnarled as the fields or disciplines engaged or brought about by all its researches. Unfortunately, there was prevalent crisscrossing of disciplines which must have disoriented the explorer in more ways than one.

 

Ask Darnton on the consequences of this new field of study and we would infer from him that the explorer of this field of study is troubled or overwhelmed by the new ideas. He is confused by competing methodologies which made him do more laborious and meticulous tasks. Thus, the history of books becomes nebulous if not a tiring pursuit because of the multifarious disciplines that it entails or it intertwines and because of the painstaking tasks it requires.

 

Meanwhile, through time and space, the concept of text has been given new perspectives by scholars, theorists and others who involve themselves in the literary pursuit. When a new book historian like Robert Darnton takes on the task of deciphering the general patterns of book production and consumption in a period of time, he renders more proofs for us to consider the materiality of such text in varying degrees. Robert Darnton dissects the anatomy of a book laid bare to say much about the kind of the environment there was in the time of its creation and consumption, through the various elements in the communication circuit. All these elements bear significant or insignificant influences to the text itself.

 

Such job of a book historian gives more advantages to literary scholarship. Darnton claims that some book historians trace back to the period before the invention of the movable type, and printing students source out newspapers, broadsides, and other forms aside from the book [Davidson 1989]. Interestingly, though the field can be expanded in such approaches—this history of the book primarily concerns books since the time of Gutenberg, the German printer and pioneer in the use of movable type. Darnton sounds optimistic enough that this area of research, having developed fast in the last few years, may be sooner at par with—the history of science and the history of art—and may eventually belong to the canon of scholarly discipline.

 

The past of this so-called history of books will attest how a field of knowledge can assume a distinct scholarly identity; it is when several disciplines converge—clash [at one point], or when they share a common set of problems all having to do with the process of communication. Concrete questions in varied disciplines come into view [Darnton 1989]. To follow on answering these questions, scholars cross paths and find themselves in the middle of various, other fields of study. Such setup must have favorably compelled or inspired them to constitute a field of their own. Later the adherents of the discipline enjoined historians, literary scholars, sociologists and librarians and anyone else—for that mater—who desired to understand the book as a force in history.

 

Book history—through the efforts of book historians—acquired its own journals established research centers, organized conferences, and formed lecture circuits. This time, adherents and or followers could easily be identified by a common cause. Theirs was a group anticipating a frame of mind that welcomed expansion and became excited with the bringing forth of fresh ideas.

 

The history of book history traces back to Renaissance—and, or beyond this period. The old, established strains of the discipline are said to have formally begun in 1800s, or in the nineteenth century. For one, the study of books as material objects gave birth to analytical bibliography in England. Instrumental are the following entities and publications: Library, a publication entity and Borsenblatt fur den Deutschen Buchhandel theses in the Ecole Pratique. Meanwhile, the current scholarship, a less traditional strain of study is said to have taken root from the 1960s France for which the following entities and publications were instrumental—Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, an institution and two publications, L’ Apparition de livre by Febvre and Martin and Livre et societe dans La France du XVIIIe siecle by the 6^th section of Pratique des Hautes Etudes [Darnton 1989].

 

More particularly here, the book historian gets to unravel facts about the past, or notions about the society otherwise disclosed or chosen to be hidden by people who wrote history. There is always the thrill in getting face to face with the reality of the past, and an equally thrilling task of even trying to rewrite it taking cue from the facts uncovered. Such predicament in this pursuit lays bare opportunities that perhaps might help establish the text as a highly volatile artifact.

           

Laying bare the anatomy of his communications circuit, Darnton goes through different insights which can be found in the experiences of each constituent in the circuit.

 

 

As regards the work of French author Voltaire, Robert Darnton makes clear an alternative path to consider when we look at texts. The path gives way to a broader world where the constituents have essential, respective functions. The communication circuit is itself a bigger reality—a real world of interaction and dynamics that virtually obscures the lordship of the author to his work.

 

In Darnton’s endeavor as book historian, we are ushered into asking questions about the author’s physical environment or his practical incidences. Answering questions on the author’s milieu, given or hardly perceived will help us fully understand the transmission of text. Here we get to profile the author as he is situated in the bigger circuit (Darnton 40). For one, Voltaire played his part well by playing it slyly and cunningly. Darnton ascertains that French Enlightenment icon Voltaire virtually corrupted, or pirated his own work to propagate the ideas embedded in them.

 

Significantly the pirated editions of Voltaire’s works however, served as means to further the distribution of this author’s work. There is a noted modification and revision of his texts so as to supply added information which might have contributed to gain more influence.

 

Meanwhile, the publishers—the editorial press—appears to be the richest of all sources for the history of books. For instance, reading into the archives of publishers will supply us sizeable, significant information on how a certain literary text became a force in a particular country, city or civilization. Answering questions on how publishers drew contracts with the authors, or how they networked with the other constituents in the circuit will take us deeper into the recesses of other various disciplines.

 

Publishers’ archives are chances to unearth past realities. Through these prized artifacts, we can decipher the attitudes of readers toward books and the context of their use through the way books were presented by the publishers’ catalogs (Darnton 40-41).

 

Gabriel Cramer, Voltaire’s official publisher of Questions, complained to Voltaire about his sly schemes when he learned of STN’s attempt to take over his market because of Voltaire’s bargained version with STN. Voltaire retracted his offer to STN, and the latter is left to keeping with the corrupt, substandard work.

 

This becomes one challenging part of the endeavor—these most neglected, often ignored or worst thrown away documents appear to be the most critical material for the book historian. Also, these provide the most rewarding part because in these documents, one may see the interplay between aspects of the circuit.

 

The printing shop is said to be the most popular of all roles in the book production perhaps primarily for the analytical bibliographer whose task is to spell out the transmission of texts by way of explaining the processes of book production (Darnton 42).

 

The Société typographique de Neuchâtel (STN), Voltaire’s underground printer, with which Isaac Pierre Rigaud must have extracted better terms otherwise turned out to have delivered incomplete incompetent, less-quality copies of Voltaire’s Questions. Isaac Pierre Rigaud was outmaneuvered by the devious schemes of Voltaire himself as he related with the printers and the publishers. This story makes us question the credibility and authenticity of the text because of the political, socio-economic and other external factors surrounding its existence. Here the notion of the materiality of text is even more brought to light.

 

According to Darnton, bibliographers engage in substantial study and research in pursuit of correct, authentic information on the literary pursuits of the characters in question—of texts and authors. The work even opens up to new, uncharted fields of study. Substantial analytical bibliography can provide clarifications to the jarring questions on social and literary history. For one, reading printers’ manuals and autobiographies does more than help demystify myriad enigmas. Had Tomas Pinpin, the first Filipino printer (at least according to Zaide) ever written a manual for his profession or perhaps an autobiography? We can always ask Ambeth Ocampo, Manuel Quezon III, Bambi Harper or Isabel Ongpin.

 

Going further along the circuit, Robert Darnton places the role of the shippers or the middlemen in the marketing aspect—though in real life, each component of the circuit readily entails such aspect. In more ways than one, these people represent a collective entity which determined the oscillation of book trade in areas outside cities, in the provinces remote from the centers (Darnton 42). The limitations in the means of transport certainly determined what kind of texts reached readers of a locality. Even in separate studies Robert Darnton tackles how unorthodox literature traveled long way avoiding authorities and becoming more accessible to readers in varying degrees and incidences, making underground economy thrive, flourish and survive.

 

Socioeconomic and political dynamics—war, political turmoil, government, or even nature’s elements as weather—directly affected how the circuit flows, how the material text is transmitted. Here the physical written text faces dangers of alteration or even annihilation. Their existence (and perhaps essence) hinges not on the ones who created them, who wrote them—but on those who will un-write them, who will undo their corporeal existence. The text becomes a social artifact, a consumer’s good like food and textile whose shelf life may initially be halted by the these constituents of the circuit.

 

Studying the aspect of the bookseller—as illustrated by Darnton’s Isaac Pierre Rigaud—helps us piece together the jigsaw of the evolution of book trade (43). When this happens, it affords us more clarity on the commodity-ness of the text. Pursuing this study can give us information not just on movements but also tendencies.

 

Working under the new strains of book historians, or on the least familiar aspects of an otherwise elite-stricken studies on Voltaire, Darnton tackles the publishing history of Voltaire’s Questions in the experiences of an obscure bookseller whose role in the proliferation of the text itself proved rather essential.

 

Zooming in on the case of whose experiences with the other people in the trade perhaps helped spread Voltaire’s Questions through cunning irregular and deviant means, Robert Darnton reinforces the fact that the text as a material, or commodity [shall we say “priced” not anymore “prized”] and hereby steals the text its credibility.

 

Thorough considerations of books as commodities provide perspectives to history of literature. In the case of Isaac Pierre Rigaud, Robert Darnton claims that book trade is a confidence game—reading into more letters, correspondences, contract forms, exchange sheets, invoices, etc. will help us elucidate how the “game was played.”

 

As regards the last but not the final constituent in the circuit, Robert Darnton declares that the aspect this entails is central to textual criticism. Complementing and complimenting the works of Booth, Iser, Fish, Ong and Culler, he considers literature as an activity; it is the making out of meaning within a system of communication. Robert Darnton seems to support the contentions held by the reader-reception theorists like Stanley Fish.

 

He acknowledges that reading has evolved through time; literature is not a canon of texts. It is indeed beneficial to study this aspect of readers because texts virtually influence readers how to read them (Darnton 44). Texts shape the response of readers, and sometimes the appearance of the texts affect the reception.

 

Any alterations in the text constrain readers; looking into reading societies will clarify on the reception of texts (read: how readers read texts). Attitudes towards the printed material have evolved and so has the sensibilities of communities who interpret them. Questions on who reads what, when, where, how, or why—link reading studies with sociology. This renders the field of study too interdisciplinary.

 

William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman consider text as anything isolated for attention, especially a piece of writing. Since about 1960, through the pioneering work of Roland Barthes, text has taken on a special meaning, distinguished from that of work. Whereas work is a closed, finite product of traditional canonical literature, a text is open process with which one can interact creatively. Then Roland Barthes sorts the text into two types—the lisible and the scriptible (1995). French scholar Denis Donoghue elaborates that lisible texts are said to be parsimonious in offering plurality while scriptible texts are lavish in this respect because they are “ourselves writing, engaged in the play of the world” (1995). This statement rings true to the experience of Robert Darnton’s Isaac Pierre Rigaud. It was his sensibility as a crude businessman and his failure as such against the workings of other constituents in the circuit that determined the physical availability of the text in the locality.

 

 

In a recent web article titled “A Historian of Books, Lost and Found in Cyberspace,” Darnton relentlessly professes that in this modern age of computers and high technology, he still finds the primordial book indispensable for anyone who would like to consider the literary pursuit. He prefers the primordial book invented since Guttenberg and upholds its supremacy to the computer:

 

Consider the book. It has extraordinary staying power. Ever since the invention of the codex in the third or fourth century AD, it has proven to be a marvelous machine—great for packaging information, convenient to thumb through, comfortable to curl up with, superb for storage, and remarkably resistant to damage (Darnton 2004).

 

Darnton recognizes the ultimate advantages of the printed text, more specifically, the book—from its convenience to its durability.

 

It does not need to be upgraded or downloaded, accessed or booted, plugged into circuits or extracted from webs. Its design makes it a delight to the eye. Its shape makes it a pleasure to hold in the hand. And its handiness has made it the basic tool of learning for thousands of years, even before the library of Alexandria was founded early in the fourth century BC (Darnton 2004).

 

 

Equally, however, Robert Darnton recognizes the genius of the present mode of information called Internet. He finds in it an interest to enormously promote or perpetrate (the immortality of) the book—by advancing a virtual project, an electronic book about the history of books in the Enlightenment. Furthermore, he anticipates that his project will bring to fruition, being so convinced of the power of Internet which he compares to the omniscience of God. Ultimately Darnton has treated the text as highly material, not at all something perceived in any other vaguer means.

 

In point of fact, Darnton worked with American Historical Association (AHA) in their landmark project, the Guttenberg-E launched in 2000. The effort has projected an electronic monograph which features downloadable songs, maps, café gossip, and other items his literary research on the historical France from which realities in history can be retrieved, or more favorably experienced. Interestingly, here is the impressive ability of the Internet to re-create reality in its virtual sense.

 

Darnton’s confidence on the electronic book that he has envisioned with this publishing entity is simply baffling:

 

The world of learning is changing so rapidly that no one can predict what it will look like ten years from now. But I believe it will remain within the Gutenberg galaxy—though the galaxy will expand, thanks to a new source of energy, the electronic book, which will act as a supplement to, not a substitute for, Gutenberg’s great machine (Darnton 2004).

 

Given such sensibility, we are deemed to deduce Darnton’s dire demand to consider the text as a physical object, one which renders all other previous text’s definitions very disparate if not totally inane. He then progresses from all these by saying that modern man has entered the information age, in that some would claim that the modes of communication have replaced the modes of production as the driving force of the modern world.

 

He disputes such view and its value as prophecy, saying it will not work as history, because it conveys a plausible sense of a break with the past. When Darnton declares that every age was an age of information, each in its own way, and that communication systems have always shaped events, he attacks the problem of how societies made sense of events and transmitted information about them, something that might be called the history of communication.

 

Through the years in the history of literary criticism, text has been defined in multifarious ways or variedly by theorists. For Barthes, for instance, text is an “autonomous entity with a logic of its own above and beyond the intentions of the author or the social context in which it is written. It is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.” This refers to the intertextuality of literary texts.

 

For Darnton, the text achieves a different sense, or meaning. The text or written work undergoes a communications circuit, whose elements are active participants in the production dissemination, creation, appreciation, re-creation or de-creation of meanings and ideas.

 

In all, these contentions collectively point up to the idea that the world itself is nothing but a culturally endorsed system of signs of shared codes, conventions, and ideologies, a textual system whose free play is limitless.

Other Notions on The Text

 

Roman Jakobson

 

In 1960, Roman Jakobson proposed a model of interpersonal verbal communication which moved beyond the basic transmission model of communication and highlighted the importance of the codes and social contexts. In Jakobson’s circuit, there are only six constitutive factors of the circuit—the addresser and the addressee—and what mediate them are the context, message, contact and code:

 

The addresser sends a message to the addressee. To be operative the message requires a context referred to (‘referent’ in another, somewhat ambivalent, nomenclature), seizable by the addressee, and either verbal or capable of being verbalized, a code fully, or at least partially, common to the addresser and addressee (or in other words, to the encoder and decoder of the message); and finally, a contact, a physical channel and psychological connection between the addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to stay in communication (Jakobson 66).

 

Roman Jakobson argues that we human beings are not only text-producing animals, but also critical ones. Criticism is a way of life, about making of choices, or at best, the formulation of values (Jakobson 1987). All the more, these declarations are echoed by Darnton’s work when we come to consider that Voltaire’s seminal text served as a tool for people to assume their functions in the circuit. Their criticalness has taken rise from their actual roles in the society.

 

 

Levi-Strauss

 

For French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, writing entails domination, in that it becomes a higher and more evolved order of language and civilization (Levi-Strauss 1955). For one, Levi-Strauss says that not having writing equates to not having history, if at all. By and large, Levi-Strauss hinted at the fact that writing is a form of social organization. In this sense, Darnton does not only support this contention; his endeavor in fact affirms that writing [the literary text] becomes a social tool, not just to make constituents of a community interact but primarily to give them functions in the society.

 

In his Nambikwara account, Levi-Strauss seems to have said that writing intercedes into power and dominion (1955). I would like to interpret this statement into the text of Robert Darnton. This is very true in Darnton’s illustration of the roles of the constituents in the circuit. The text becomes the mouthpiece of each constituent in the event or moment that it reaches his part and therefore demands of his participation. In the story of Isaac Pierre Rigaud, we realize that Voltaire had had his own means of dominating what he created through freely and consciously allowing the pirated versions for a purpose which must have appeared all too noble to him. Isaac Pierre Rigaud also did his part in the domination by submitting to Voltaire’s final arrangements.

 

 

Robert Scholes

 

Robert Scholes believes that a text is a communicative object. Of all types of texts, the literary text is the most valuable text for it requires and encourages the most study and interpretation for its own sake (Scholes 1982). For Darnton’s study, Voltaire’s text has done more than being a communicative object. It has become a tool for interaction between and among persons going through their social functions and affairs. The pursuit of the book historian himself calls attention to itself—the meticulous tasks entailed in this study practically pay attention to the text not just as an object but as a bodily matter for endless scrutiny.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited and Sources Consulted

 

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author” in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Vincent B. Leitch, et.al., eds. New York: Norton, 2001.

 

Chandler, Daniel. “Semiotics for Beginners.” www.aber.ac.uk. 01April 2004. The Media and Communications Site. 02 April 2004. <http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/ documents/S4B/sem08c.htm>.

 

Darnton, Robert. “Robert Darnton: A Historian of Books, Lost and Found in Cyberspace.” www.historians.org. 2004. American Historical Association. 30 March 2004 <http://www.historians.org/ prizes/gutenberg/rdarnton.cfm>.

 

Darnton, Robert. “What is the History of Books?” in Reading in America: Literature and Social History. Cathy Davidson, ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

 

Fish, Stanley. “Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics” in Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980.

 

Harmon, William and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature 7^th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1995.

 

Henderson, Greig E. and Christopher Brown. Glossary of Literary Theory. University of Toronto English Library. 31 March 1997. <http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/glossary/>.

 

Jakobson, Roman. “Linguistics and Poetics” in Language in Literature. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

 

Levi-Strauss, Claude. “A Writing Lesson” in Tristes Tropiques. 1955.

 

Lodge, David, ed. Modern Criticism and Theory. London: Longman, 1988.

 

Makaryk, Irenea, ed. Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, and Terms (Theory/Culture). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

 

Scholes, Robert. Semiotics and Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

 

Alpha Male

For Jokoy and Cris

          

A man’s mental health is as vital as his physical health. To attain optimal health, he ought to balance these two aspects of his totality.

 

In this modern age, while he is born to handle and lead well in the most critical aspects of human affairs, he also has to take care of himself in order to do such enormous tasks well.

 

For one, a man’s diet is essential to keep him both sane and sober the whole day of work. His proper diet is simply indispensable--a good load of carbohydrates, proteins, and vitamins will surely make him endure a long day’s work. It enables him to make happen hundreds of possibilities.

 

For one, I consider myself the usual, practical male specie—self-driven, hardworking, energetic, goal-oriented, and open-minded.

 

While I prefer swimming and basketball as the tolerable sports, I also make it a point to keep my mind active each day. I read a lot to expand my knowledge. Besides my activities in the workplace, I also get in touch with friends through e-mail and exchange knowledge and ideas with them.

 

The most desirable male specie is one who recognizes these two aspects and does things to keep them in balance. That ancient law of moderation can surely help him achieve his optimum health. He must do everything in moderation. This involves his work habits, his diet, his exercise, and his sex life.

 

Such holistic balance is ideal to some but it is, however, attainable. The male organism only has to significantly know and learn about his own body, mind, and all his other energies in order to appreciate his total person. So he could make much sense with it.

 

 

Nonoy! Nonoy!'s Photosets on Flickr

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Hali sa Isarog, Tolong Tingog, Nadadangog

Pag-omaw sa Mga Obra sagkod Kagsurat
na Bikolano sa 2005 NCCA Ubod Series

Orgolyo kan Bicolandia an tolong bagong awtor na iniluwas sa Ubod Series kan National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). Kabilang sa 40ng titles na ilinuwas kan NCCA kan 2005 an Little Freedoms ni Maryanne Moll, an At Nabulag ang Tagapagsalaysay ni Alvin Yapan, sagkod an Mga Nirukitdukit: Mga Rawit-dawit sa Bikol ni Estelito Jacob. Sa tolong awtor na ini, buhay na buhay an literatura kan Bikol.

Pinapatunayan kan tolong awtor na ini an versatility kan Bikolanong kagsurat. Atid-atida baya, tolong genre sa tolong lenguwahe—English creative nonfiction, Filipino short story, sagkod Bikol poetry.

Maryanne, Daragang Magayon!

Bago nagluwas an “Tepid Water” ni Maryanne Moll sa Philippines Free Press kan 2001, nababasa ta na an mga English essays niya sa Bikol Daily bago pa man ini nagsara.

Landmark text an nasabi nang short story ni Maryanne bako lang ta feminista an personality kan character, kundi ta natural sagkod amot an local color sa obra ni Maryanne. Nahiling kan mga national editors an bagong imahen kan sarong babayeng makusog, titulado na bilang kasangga kan lalaki sa patriarchal na komunidad, mayo man nanggad pinagkaiba sa ba’gong Daragang Magayon ni Merlinda Bobis.

Nagpapatunay an mga essays sa Little Freedoms ni Maryanne Moll na sa saiyang pagsurat sa English, magagamiaw kan parabasa an dakulaon niyang kinaban, an mga kahaputan niya sa lambang bagay na dai dapat pirming i-explikar, asin an man-iba-iba pang obserbasyon kan sarong hoben na babaye, sarong ilusyon, o magin sarong esposa.

Sa mga nagkapirang essays sa English, hinahapot ni Moll an arbitrariness kan panahon, dinedepensa niya an buhay-paratokdo, binubweltahan niya an nakaagi, dangan pinapaisip kita na maray man nanggad mabuhay palan, dawa ngani na sana arog kaini, arog kaiyan, et cetera.

Sabi na ngani sa introduction ni Sylvia Mendez Ventura, an awtor sarong “person of thought”—an personalidad kan awtor an minasirang na garong dagitab—sa saiyang sinurat. An saiyang disposisyon, an kapritso sagkod emosyon, an timpla kan isip, iyo an masabi sato na “my essay is myself.” “Style is the [wo]man” man nanggad.

IPADAGOS MO, ALVIN!

Sarong katipunan nin mga osipon sa Filipino an At Nabulag ang Tagapagsalaysay ni Alvin Yapan, na tubong Pili, Camarines Sur.

Enot kong nabasa an mga osipon na “Nang Gabing Mamatay ang Nang Soling” sagkod “Mga Alamat sa Bayan ng Sagrada” sa mga pahina kan Heights bago nag-abot an 2000. Sarong aktibong miyembro si Alvin sa nasambit nang literary group sa Ateneo de Manila University.

Sa mga osipon na ini, mahihiling ta na impluwensyado si Alvin ni Gabriel Garcia Marquez o ni Nick Joaquin sa estilong magic realism—sinusurat ni Alvin an mga istoryang nadangog niya kan aki pa siya.

Dai man manenegaran sa mga obra ni Alvin an mayaman na kultura kan Kabikolan, an pagtubod sa engkanto o tawong lipod—na basi nadangog kan siisay man satuya kaidto sa mga apoon ta sa libod, mga parte-daryo tang an pagkasabot sa buhay kun bakong relihiyon, superstisyon.

Orgolyo pang sambiton na an nagsurat kan introduction sa koleksiyon ni Alvin mayong iba kundi an pamosong si Jun Cruz Reyes na nagsurat kan “Utos ng Hari,” sarong classic text sa Philippine Literature ki Rudy Alano kaidto sa Ateneo.

Miyembro si Alvin kan Ateneo de Naga Batch 1993—dangan nagkainteres na marhay sa Filipino short story, dahil na sa impluwensya kan mga dedikado niyang Filipino teachers kaidto sa Ateneo.

Premyado sa maikling kuwento sa Palanca, itinao man ki Alvin an 2005 NCCA Writers Prize para sa sarong book project sa nasambit nang kategorya. Dai mahaloy, maluwas siya kan sunod niyang libro base sa saiyang doctoral dissertation.

Magpadagos ka, Alvin, kan maray-rahay mong pinu’nan. Hasta sa masunod, Noy.

Oragon ka, Esting!

Pagkatapos mapublikar kan 1999 an Mga Puling sa Mata asin Iba Pang mga Tula, an enot niyang koleksyon, tiniripon ni Estelito Jacob an saiyang mga bagong rawitdawit para gibohon na Mga Nirukitdukit: Mga Rawit-dawit sa Bikol.

Preskong hali sa UP National Writers Workshop, pusikit na pinangenotan ni Esting an Bangraw kaiba si Isa Casillan sagkod si Jun Pesimo. Sa Bangraw, denidikar ni Esting an saiyang obra sa pagkamoot para sa Bikol. Palibhasa agit-agitan man sa pagtukdo asin pagpapamilya, madaling naimumwestra ni Esting an realidad sa saiyang canvas asin mga rawitdawit. An linaw kan kina’ban, dangan an karibongan man kaini minahalnas sa saiyang mga kamot pasiring sa saiyang mga obra—brutsa man or rawitdawit.

Sa koleksyon na ini, mayo nang iba pang magiging maykagsadiri kan saiyang Marupit kundi siya lang—saiya man lang nanggad. Mayo nin ibang makakaistorya kan nadangog o nahiling niyang barokikik kundi siya sana.

Siring sa mga obra ni Maryanne sagkod ki Alvin, dakul na Bikol na imahen an mga obra ni Esting. Kabilang na igdi an mga personal na isyu kan saiyang mga kabaryo, an saiyang mga katurikan—pano’ ni local color sagkod gawi-gawing relihiyoso, mga dukot na ugali kan sarong Bikolano.

Atid-atida baya giraray—tolong genre sa tolong lenguwahe—an creative nonfiction sa English, an short story sa Filipino, sagkod poetry sa Bikol. Gabos, mag-andam na! Sa satong palibot, an misteryong si Daragang Magayon, an orag ni Asog, asin an pagbarikwas ni Isarog, sinda gabos—nagtandayag na!

What's Your Shelf Life?

Ours is now a world of things.

Everything around us now is commodified, meaning—produced or made, sold, bought, and consumed.

Every single day, we consume—we eat [food], we use things, we burn up [the life of just about] anything, everything. In fact, we consume too much—for there is no satisfying our desire to acquire, to fill ourselves with everything until we tell ourselves we want more.

In particular, the mall culture rules us these days. Who can resist the itch of malling and shopping when midnight sales and bargains come almost every week? Backed up by television and newspaper, these business strategies do not only deplete our ATM funds; they all the more intensify our desire to constantly acquire.

Consumerism—our chronic tendency to have and have more—will be Shelf Life’s concern. Shelf life, per se, is any commodity’s life in a shelf, or how long it lasts—its potency or durability as a product. Compared to a person’s life, one product’s shelf life is an individual life span, or lifetime. It is that length of time that food, drink, medicine and other perishable items are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale or consumption. In some regions, a best before, use by or freshness date is required on packaged perishable foods.

Or life’s purpose, if we may.

In every shelf is a life—from a life, about a life, for a life. From every shelf—say, a CD rack in AstroWorld, a bookshelf inside a mall’s bookstore, or a ledge of Taiwan-pirated stuff exposed in J. M. Basa Street, we will take something and talk about it because it primarily concerns us.

We [need to] talk about them because we know it is our life. It says much about who we are, what we want, how we want them, why we want such things, and perhaps what we live for.

True. Nowadays, what we live for may, in fact, depend on what we have. And therefore what we also don’t.

To the extent of spreading ourselves thin, we have required so much of ourselves that our gauges for success or worse, happiness and contentment are mountains of things which we have to acquire and possess and burn up and use up, until it is time for us to have another one and another one and another one and more and more and more and more.

It’s ridiculous that even one newspaper ad reads—“It’s your watch that tells most about who you are.” Taking it quite literally, though, this is not true—you are not your watch. It’s a pity that you depend on a mere wristwatch to say much of yourself. It’s a pity that it is a thing that might just sum you up. Truth is—you use the watch for a purpose, not to tell you essentially who you are. Even then, you are worth more than your watch. Among other things, you’re a human person with a soul; your watch is not.

It’s hilarious how consumerist propaganda can persuade us to think this way about our lives; funny how this sensible persuasion has so pervaded our modern life. We now perceive that everything that is of value is on the shelf and so we should buy them; otherwise, we cease to live—as if not being able to buy them lessens our value.

“Shelf Life” takes on the task of making us think otherwise.

We will go out there in the mall, in the flea markets, every stall we can fincd. We will look for the things we usually look for. To satisfy ourselves.

We will browse and read books. We will read ads. We will fit clothes. We will also watch movies and read product labels. We might study just about anything we find on the shelf. And those are what we will read and choose to consider.

In any merchandise we will take out from all types of shelves—books, CDs, DVDs, shoes, store products, anything, or everything—we will benefit from them much more than by just consuming or using them. For one, we might see these things are simply our means to get to where we want to go, or we ought to be. We [just have to] use things, so we as human beings survive, and prosper, and as one friend puts it, “elevate.”

“Shelf Life” will make us see we can use things beyond their normal end. It will make us see we can desire to acquire other things, those things beyond the usual purpose of the tangible things we normally acquire.

Perfect Stranger

Rating:	★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Mystery & Suspense

Film rolls Story Formula No. 1—“When investigative reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) learns that her friend’s murder might be connected to powerful ad executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), she goes undercover with the help of her associate, Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi). Posing as Katherine Pogue, a temporary secretary at Hill’s ad agency, and Veronica, a girl Hill flirts with online, Rowena surrounds her prey from all sides, only to discover that she isn’t the only one changing identities. The closer Rowena gets to finding the truth, the more we see how far people will go to protect it.” End of story. Ugh!

The trouble with whodunits such as this is that the search for the killer becomes ironically predictable. Because all the lead characters are suspect—and for sure, one of them has to be the culprit, we decipher who he or she is by way of elimination. The “who has done it” question in this case ceases to be, the question now becomes, “which of them has done it?” So we say.

Halle Berry plays Rowena Price/Katherine Pogue/Veronica, a journalist who has the habit of nailing prominent people down through her investigative reportage and exposés.

At the eclipse of his career, Bruce Willis is Harrison Hill, who is plainly a come-on to rake profits for the film, which, reportedly, hardly made any. Quite frankly, the makers of the film took advantage of his damned married life to perfectly portray a philandering corporate executive who uses brawn and lots of testosterone to get everyone going in his ad agency.

Giovanni Ribisi’s role as Berry’s colleague easily places him on our list of potential killers, only to be uselessly used because he is not the killer because he is not the lead actor—though he delivers the better performance than Berry and Willis. Willis’ career hardly dies hard—quite literally, though it better be put to rest. Ribisi should even get the higher topbilling. But it is Bruce Willis, come on! He can hardly have mediocre films—although he is.

The movie plays with its title when at the end of the film we see and realize that Halle Berry’s character herself, the friend of the victim, is the killer. Who can ever expect Berry to be the killer—for throughout the film we are not given much hints that she is—except during flashbacks, which is a trite style in telling a story.

A flashback only becomes a deus ex machina, a literary flaw that is characteristic of weak storylines, very typical of the soap operas. When a storyteller does not know how to solve a rising action and escalating conflict, he resorts to “God in the machine”—to solve the conflict.

In between Berry’s waking and sleeping hours we are shown ambiguous images of her sexually abused childhood. Such insinuations do not suffice for us to consider her dysfunctional or deranged.

In the end we the film audience are the perfect stranger—yes, literally, out of the film and a nobody to whoever produced and made this one –pathetic work—because the film has not established much that it is the deranged woman character of Berry’s that has done all the stalking and the killing. Yes, it is Halle Berry’s character that has been backstabbing us all the while.

With one James Foley at the helm, it is no wonder this film is all about folly. With forgettable works like the unheard “The Corruptor” (1999) and the film version of John Grisham’s The Chamber (1997), we are made fools again by this one hell of a director.

“Perfect Stranger” plays on its title to justify that the killer is the one who looks for herself. Perhaps quite obsessed with the title to deliver its punch, it hardly convinces because all we are presented is the flashback of what she really did—as if there’s a back ground voice in the film whispering to us—“Surprise, surprise, the killer is her, you see!” How come we didn’t guess it right, we’re idiots!

In movies like these, we the audience who paid—expecting to be thrilled for a while—end up the idiot, yes, the stranger, because we hardly knew we were. All along. We are shortchanged, clearly. Perfectly.

Perfectly, the film alienates us from the world of reality or at least logic because it tells us there is no logic anymore. Well, anyway, it is true. Indeed, lack of logic is logical nowadays. We are really estranged.

Kingdom of Heaven

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

In Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven,” a “spiritual” film released last year but hardly caught our attention perhaps because we were too busy handling our own spiritual crises, Orlando Bloom portrays Balian, a young French knight who assumed his father’s highly reputed knighthood in the time of the Crusades in the 1100s.

The film hews a story of how Christians in the twelfth century defended Jerusalem from the invading Moors. At the time when rulers of the holy land thought of achieving for themselves personal glory instead of preserving human life, Balian stood out to be the redeemer of them all, when he acceded to surrender Jerusalem to the rule of Saladin in order to save more human lives.

When the king and all his other army fell into the trap of moor leader Saladin, Balian was abandoned by his comrade Tiberius and his army (who fled to Cyprus). Now the sole knight in the kingdom, Balian instead knighted hundreds of men in order to defend the people. His idea was to preserve human life, not to protect the city’s walls, which was being bombarded by Saladin’s army. Balian and his “knights” also hid the women and children underground, away from the exploding battlefield, while they went on to defend themselves from thousands of armies of the invaders. Inspired by his being knighted by his “father” Sir Godfrey, who died of a disease before being able to go back to Jerusalem, Balian carried on to sustain and counter Saladin’s attacks, overwhelming a number of Saladin’s men but sacrificing some of his.

When he saw the bodies of his fellowmen in Jerusalem which they burned to get rid of disease which might create a plague, he finally decided to surrender Jerusalem to Saladin, a decision much applauded by his people.

Telling everyone there that the kingdom of God is in the hearts of men and not in the fortresses of the city, Balian inspired everyone to move on. Eventually when Saladin captured the city, Balian along with many Christians were ushered out to the sea to be exiled.

Later, in history, Jerusalem, like other Christian holy places in Palestine, would be recovered by European powers until the 13th century, but all in vain.

For the centuries-old rift in the Holy Land, a crisis which dominates the world headlines, year in and year out—the never-ending bombings in Lebanon and the ensuing social unrest in the Arab countries —Balian’s story gives an example to rendering peace to the people—and even to us, who are constant witnesses but mum spectators of this unending conflict.

If only people could see the inner peace in themselves, they do not have to kill each other to achieve peace among their own race. World leaders like Sharon, Arafat and throngs of political leaders have tried to assume their respective stances, to no avail. Peacemakers and political figures come and go, live and die, without achieving anything peaceable.

Perhaps this troubled land, ironically called the Holy Land, is indeed the land of redemption because here one must come to his senses that the deeper trouble lies within himself, not anywhere else.

And it is never trite to say that change starts within the individual person—the virtue begins with one’s effort to be humble and forego his wants and whims. For it is only through the grace of God that one is steered clear of himself, his own pride and sense of judgment—which is usually narrow-minded and self-oriented—that the inner peace can reign in us. After all, the kingdom of heaven is the human person himself, who is the seat of Godliness, if and only if we recognize it.

Notes on English and Writing

In college I was approached by our neighbors to write letters to their foster parents under the PLAN International. Free of charge, I would write the letter for an American or German benefactor. After I had written the letter, the neighbor’s mother would send to our household food or anything that could pay for what I did. I hardly knew then that good writing skill could already mean business.

I myself was a recipient of a scholarship which required me to write regularly a Japanese benefactor on how I fared in school, how my grades were, and what activities I involved myself in. So I would write letters in English as I should, prolifically.

I also remember the best thing to look forward to in a week was to get a reply from my pen friends. And I would gladly write them back. I even wrote to more than three of them at one time. I enjoyed exchanging ideas and sharing stories with them. They simply made my day. All these nurtured in me the habit of writing letters, and more letters. Initially I was interested in it; but eventually I was hooked in it that it became part of my system.

Normally for a young student like me who preferred writing letters to dunking shots in a basketball court, I was being groomed to becoming a student writer. Having good English skills, in fact, is a prized possession in school, in college and in the world.

In high school, I began writing for the school paper. I wrote letters to friends constantly or whenever I had the time. Sometimes I really had to find time. I also kept a journal on which I recorded a lot of my ideas, observations, and privations and many experimental works.

I was studying for free so I thought I better maximize the opportunity. I borrowed books from the library, and read a lot. English was one subject that I could not trade for any computer game—a leisurely activity which I could hardly afford.

There was also no stopping me from reading books, or from making things out of what I read—poems, puzzles, imitations of sayings, and stories.
But I was not really a recluse. More often than not, I was also playing ball with my cousins. I was also active in school clubs—these included writing cliques, collectors’ groups and similar stuff.

In 1996, I found myself working for a newspaper in Bicol. Then, I also wrote articles for Teodoro Locsin’s Today, a Makati-based national broadsheet which has now merged with the Manila Standard.

Both working and writing, I did not stop writing and learning in English—also Filipino and Bikol. I wrote and sent articles and poems to national periodicals. My submissions were rejected and others were published. I even got paid for the ones published in magazines; but the newspapers hardly paid. The newspaper work did not promise compensation, but I held on to writing news and feature articles because I knew I was making sense.

I just kept writing, and with it, I easily found work in publication desks where I managed the newsletter and more importantly, “got to know some real people” [apologies to Sunday Inquirer Magazine].

For the past years I have been writing, I have been enjoying each moment of it.
While some people say that the knack in writing and perhaps everything related to it are given to rare people, I say it’s not absolutely true. I would like to think that all my choices in the past had collectively done their part to make me like writing, and prefer it to any other occupation or preoccupation.

While it may not be a very lucrative occupation, I also consider that with the power to articulate oneself [in English or any language], I have more chances of being privileged—if at all, not actually being gifted.

Times have changed. Nowadays, people who know how to better communicate cannot just remain disadvantaged or say, underpaid, unlike [what] other people [say].
As editor and journalism teacher, I have been editing my own and other people’s writing. When it comes to expressing ourselves in writing, I find some things which hinder the very purpose for which we write. Let me cite them here.

Verbosity or wordiness
Wordiness results from many things. Regardless of where we are, many of us pad our writing with all sorts of empty phrases perhaps to reach the length required in the school or office. 

Wordiness tends to occur when we are struggling to clarify our ideas or when we’re tired and therefore cannot think clearly. Regardless of our reason for padded writing, we can achieve concise writing if we are aware of the individual patterns of wordiness which is typical of the way we usually write.

Problem comes in when we do not become aware that we are using more words than is necessary. Because we are the authors—we are not inclined to correct ourselves more openly by perhaps slashing the words we have written. We think they are so perfect because they capture what we wish to express so we could get our message across to whoever reads it.

Yet, it’s good when you come to constantly critique your own work—to the extent that pruning words and phrases in your original draft, revising and rewriting your entire work will come naturally. One day, wordiness will be crime to you. Your familiarity with words will tell you whether you have to improve your drafts and can still make it better, even the ones you have written with a colleague.

For one, knowing that language works best by being brief will help you become a more effective communicator.

English is Filipinos’ second language

This issue is nothing new. We Filipinos normally—or more aptly, by heart—speak Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol, etc., dialect or vernacular, but we are also asked to write and speak English.

Needless to say, we Filipinos are bombarded by so many languages around us—that we find it confusing which to use and how and why. Consider other languages we learned around us, the street language and the television language, aside from our very own vernaculars—modernized Bikol or Hiligaynon, or combined with Taglish, etc.

When we are asked to write in English but we essentially think in the local language—Bikol, Hiligaynon or Filipino—our mother tongue, which we know by heart. Problem sets in because most of the time we are tempted to transliterate: we write in English what we think, know or feel in our mother tongue. Sadly, because a large number of words in our own language have no exact English equivalents, we end up linguistically challenged—we do not realize that, say, not all things in our realities have counterparts in the English language.

All these years of education in the country, our schools must have not succeeded on an effective English language policy. But in the past, our grandfathers and grandmothers must have been well versed in English because they underwent rigid training on the English language, even studying Latin which is the root of [source of the words in] the language.

Today’s schools tell a different story. Despite DepEd’s staunch campaign to use only English or Filipino in the classrooms and schools, everything boils down to what the learners are really comfortable doing—code-switching [speaking combined English with Filipino combined with Bikol or Hiligaynon, etc.]. Moreover, students are overwhelmed by all forms of media; so asking them to speak and write in perfect, flawless English becomes a dream.

It is not cynical to say that young people can learn. In fact, I had students who were inclined to really write well not only because they were inclined—genetically, personally, whatever—but because they chose to do so.

To write and speak good English then is a choice. One simply prefers to do it, for it is something he strives to do—just like someone who endlessly strums the chords, until he masters them, and who later becomes the best guitarist onstage, because he’s strumming most people’s pains away.

Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do—that excellence therefore is not an act, but a habit. To do something in the best way constantly is to be the very best in it—excel in it.

English is really our second language
Another problem crops up from our unfamiliarity with English. Being Filipinos, let’s face it, we were not born saying, “Oh My God!” or “Ouch!” We rather say things automatically, naturally, using our dialect, depending on our ethnic group.

Despite that some parents today would train their young children to speak English—confident that starting them young might make a difference—it’s the yaya’s English that is rather internalized by their wards. We are naturally born Filipinos, and we live in a country where most people speak countless languages.

This exaggeration is true, given the many kinds of language that we human beings invent to suit their own purposes and eccentricities. [When we were younger, my brothers and cousins themselves communicated in a way only they understood—they reversed words, phrases and sentences until they learned to speak them spontaneously and with finesse. To them it was cool. I was too young to learn it. I did not find it cool either. So I gave up decoding their conversations. But through the years, that has become their bond. Until now, in family gatherings, they would throw jokes and banters that only they understand.]

Because English is our second language, each of us must be familiar with it.
Back in the campus, I used to tell my students to read English and read anything in English. I asked them further to always find the chance to learn anything in English—word, phrase, title of a movie, catchphrase, etc.—and it will become a habit.

Like many other disciplines, English is habit-forming. Despite what others are saying that it is too late for people to do that, if we do this constantly and earnestly, it will do us good.

The problem with legalese

Browsing over documents—whether in schools or offices—makes me think that we are also hindered by the use of jargon, or technical language, like the ones that lawyers use in public and legal documents.

The use of legalese in government communications has been pervasive. Some people who draft them may be lawyers, law teachers, or administrators who have management credits. In other words, such documents are written by people who have been exposed to organizing their work, starting from what they will do to how they will go about in doing and accomplishing them.

Because legalese reads and sounds so foreign we simply dismiss it as difficult. Indeed, it is difficult because ordinary people have not studied law. Everything legalese sounds alien because it reads so formal—and it sounds detached and impersonal.

Thus our attitude towards this kind of language should be open-minded. For instance, if we encounter a document that reads so difficult—we hardly understand anything it says except the names of those who signed them, let us have this resolve that in our own way, or work, we can simplify our expressions so those who will read anything we have written can understand us.

For one, writing is about seeking understanding.

Brokeback Mountain

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

WITH “BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN,” film director Ang Lee presents himself as a symbolist, a minimalist, and a lot more.

Based on Annie Proulx’s Pulitzer-winning novel, “Brokeback Mountain” is an apt label for Lee’s masterpiece on how the lives of two cowboys—the tightlipped Ennis del Mar and the rodeo-loving Jack Twist—are made meaningful and even tragic by their summer experience in the wild. In Brokeback Mountain, the two cowboys have their own Walden experience, or epiphanies—something that they will hold on to for the rest of their lives—but that later turns out to be against social conventions, a dilemma to resolve that it makes tragic heroes out of them.

AS A SYMBOLIST, Ang Lee shows so much by concealing many things. Ennis del Mar’s restrained affectation for his friend Jack Twist with whom he shares a steamy summer in 1963 predominantly figures in the end as tragedy.

A plethora of symbols prevails in the masterpiece. First, the sheep being tended by the two cowboys are the juxtaposition for Ennis del Mar, one whose restraint and silence seems the most deafening to all the other characters. The meekness of the sheep being tended by the two main characters delineates Ennis’ inability to articulate his own preference, living in an otherwise homophobic society. Like the sheep feasted on by the obscure [the unseen social ridicule] wolves, Ennis del Mar confines himself to avoid the stigma from his outward relationship with another man. Second, the bloodied clothes—Ennis’s long-sleeved shirts and Jack’s denim jacket—spells the boys’ distinctive bonding. When Ennis finds the clothes in Jack’s room after his death—with Jack’s denim covering Ennis’s shirt—the viewer is told that Jack has indeed nurtured their friendship and union. Towards the end of the movie, after Ennis gets to know of Jack’s fate through his wife Lorraine, Ennis’s shirt is already covering Jack’s clothes. The living already treasures the memory of the dead. Such cinematic contrivance affords us these symbols of male love and concern.

Also, the movie’s title itself spells the polar tendencies and realities of the two main characters. While “Brokeback” spells their aggressive, masculine tendencies, “mountain” articulates their softer and more feminine sides, as they [get to] love each other.

“Brokeback” perhaps sounds contrived as it accounts for the harsh cowboy life that the Ennis and Jack encounter in the Wyoming ranch. The jobs they took on themselves literally “break” their backs. Yet, something else in the ranch does other things to them.

On the other hand, “mountain” speaks the providence of nature—in the way the camera portrays nature scenes as real-life postcards of lush vegetation, open fields and pristine panoramas of sky and water. While their ranch work entails “breaking their backs” literally, the entire backdrop where they were makes them gentle to themselves.

AS A MINIMALIST, the Asian sensibility of Ang Lee surfaces in the film’s sparse dialogues and its use of panoramic postcards-like shots. Lee’s camera pans out to the poetic and the restrained.

The film zooms in on the ‘corked’ anger and restraint in Ennis del Mar. Ennis del Mar's interesting character later turns out to be the more repressed, the wayward character who needs more redemption just because he cannot fully articulate himself—he thus becomes the disadvantaged protagonist, he is the tragic hero.

Lee’s angles delineate well the characters. Ennis del Mar’s displays the vacillation of a typical human being. While seeking to desire something else, he chooses to do otherwise. He then suffers greatly from not being able to articulate his feelings and aspirations which can get him something good.

Ennis del Mar sustains his inarticulateness through his murky relations with other characters. While he sustains himself as a father to Alma Jr., ironically he has already contradicted himself when he divorces his wife Alma. While he maintains clandestine relations with his “fishing” friend Jack Twist, he suffers greatly from the inability to sustain any sensible one with a serious one. And while Ennis seeks to be conscious of social ridicule all the while—disregarding Jack’s suggestion on cohabitation, he eventually suffers from the pain of it all when Jack finally gives it a go, and leaves him all alone.

When Jack Twist dies towards the end of the story, the dilemma of the protagonists is never resolved. The film then becomes an elegy for the death of love between two males—which—to society—means the death of the self simply because it cannot be, or can it?

Lee presents the audience the widest open spaces for introspection. When he captures the sprawling blue skyline and open waters and streams and fields, he tells them this is how wide the possibilities in the world are—where he lives, where everyone can etch their own notions on morality [or the lack of it].

With this, Lee presents to the audience the option to etch his own notion of right and wrong, his own sense of morality. Lee presents wide, open spaces as he presents options for the human being to take a stand and articulate his convictions. While Jack Twist freely etches his own spectrum of colors in the open pages of Ennis’ life, he is also easy and free to wheeze all these away. But everything he must have done was hinged on self-conviction, despite its not being grounded by the proper sense of right and wrong.

Meanwhile, the driftwood personality of Jack is clear to go against Ennis’s sense of self, which later translates to a dilemma that shall challenge him from one moment onwards. The film is brimming with binary opposites. And these are made clear when Jack Twist’s life rifts from that of Ennis del Mar whose sensibility is all restraint and uncertainty. Now acclaimed by a number of award-giving bodies, Ang Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain” will certainly break the back of the moralists, despite the [degree of] sexual liberation prevalent in this country.

The film featuring boys loving boys is certainly a big “no-no”—something scowled upon by traditional social conventions in this only predominantly Catholic country in Asia.

But as lovelorn boys coming of age, characters Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar might hardly gain the ire of any viewer since they present two sincere characters whose dilemma of pursuing their preferences intersects harshly with social conventions.

Together they achieve sense of fulfillment—they fly like angels without wings. They become messengers of their own truths, speaking much of the reality that pervades among us.

Goal! The Dream Begins

Rating:	★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Sports

Just when you feel so harassed or exhausted after a week’s work, here comes one supposedly “feel-good” movie that will rather make you feel bad about many things in the end.

As a “good” movie is supposed to inspire the audience [because it must present something new and fresh, regardless of any trite topic], “Goal: The Dream Begins” falls short in many respects.

In this latest onscreen sports saga—perhaps belonging to a list of Hollywood staples—Kuno Becker’s Santiago Munez dreams big to play in the English premiership and then makes it, period. No more, no less.

Munez appears fresh in his boyish and savvy countenance as a newcomer in England’s Newcastle United, but his clear, pretty-boy looks alone do not account for what he has to do much in the film.

Yet, the entirely boyish smiles and grins and a contrived acting do not convince much, not to mention the film’s simply ordinary storyline.

The actor’s pretty face does not work well for a serious character who can elicit sympathy for his efforts and achievements as a struggling migrant who makes it big in the city and in the world. He fails simply because hid face does not look challenged and as convincing, and does not deliver much.

Coming from a poor Mexican family who once escaped to California, Santiago Munez may have convinced us with his diligence and hard work common in America migrants—but the movie appears to assume so much from the audience.

In other words, one needs to have read American or Mexican Revolution first—so we would understand the temperaments and the racial undertones working in the film. Sadly, not all people would know or want to know about it—thus the film settles with the simple biographical account of this poor boy’s life who becomes professional through a series of ups and downs.

In doing so, it simply reels off as a pastiche of some football history memorabilia—showing football drills under the rain, pristine soccer fields in the British countryside, and jump-packed dome in English cities, one that a social-climbing middle-class father can show to his overeager, disoriented son to dream it big likewise to get to the Western world—where future can be totally uncertain for migrants like Latin Americans, or Asians.

The film instead rolls out time to featuring the addiction of the English people to their own sport. Using the film as payback, or act of gratitude, like Mel Gibson’s own sense of religion in the “Passion of the Christ,” the film’s director must have created the project to enunciate his passion for the sport, or sense of country.

While Stephen Dillane as the talent scout and Alessandro Nivola as Newcastle’s oversexed pro-football main man turn in good, few-lined performances who help the struggling athlete make it to the green field of his dreams, Mike Jefferies and Adrian Butchart flimsy story does not help it deliver to the net of the audience’s satisfaction, as all seems to be left hanging after the movie ends in the Munez’s first and last [so far the biggest] game in London.

This film may not at all solicit any hurrahs or raving reviews from those people who—in their lifetime—have had overdose of similar storylines as in Sean Astin’s "Rudy," or other football or baseball league stories. The movie’s sad fate spells a similar reality in the field of literature, wherein not all writers can experiment or play around with grammar—American poet eccentric e.e. cummings—or reinvent his material—Irish icon James Joyce—and succeed in it.

Not all can succeed in any experiment or hackneyed storyline, unless he does something so clear and unique with it. As an art form, the film propels—or rather “drags”—the viewer through a cliché plot—a marginalized Mexican migrant son who dreams for the stripes on green—is first failed and later challenged by his unrelenting angst-ridden father who would want him to just work in
his own business—but his religious grandmother makes ways and means to make his grandson fly to England—where he is supposed to meet an agent who would later take him to fame. And he simply would.

Not one character is well-explored—even Munez himself—the film is going on as if the main job is to showcase images and histories and encyclopedia input on England’s football and the people’s chalice treatment of it.

While the movie seems to pry open possible sensitive issues such as racial discrimination, it does not pursue them. There are sensible issues or themes better explored—but it stubbornly does not.

Also, cameo appearances such as that by David Beckham do not at all help the film propel to something serious—as the underdeveloped character of the protagonist’s father who would first insist that Santiago remain in Los Angeles, and just “plant kamote” so to speak, but would later become so moved by his son’s prominence when he’d see him playing soccer on international television.

The transformation of his character does not appear convincing because there is not much said or shown about it.

True to its cliché poster blurb—“Every dream has a beginning,” “Goal: The Dream Begins” simply presents the inception of a dream, and nothing much beyond that.

After it rolls out how Munez finally made it to his first game in London, the film rolls up, insensitive to other possibilities—perhaps because it seeks to present something else in the sequel.

It does not present any sensible tension, or serious, realistic conflicts, which—you can argue—can rather provoke introspection from any earnest audience. In fact, some National Geographic or Discovery documentaries featuring the life, times and dramatic stories of athletes the world over might even prove more insightful.

Nothing can be said further.

Jet Li's 'Fearless'

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

“Fearless”
Producer by Bill Kong
Director Ronny Yu
Action Director Yuen Woo Ping
2005


The best of men is like water.
Water benefits all things,
and does not contend with them.
—Lao Tzu

Ronny Yu’s “Fearless” takes us back to the era of Chinese martial arts movies, but this time he does so with a well-thought story that reminds you of your Asian Philo class or Asian literature texts you pored over in college.

This is a filmbio which defies the trite and hackneyed styles emphasizing action sequences and fight scenes as if they’re their entire story. While the film entertains you with its award-winning stunts and martial arts choreography—flawless action sequences that will make you fly with the actors themselves, sharp angles and featuring intense emotions and miens of actors, sprawling panoramas of trees and wind and weathers, clear close-up shots of faces and actions—its English and Chinese subtitles do more than moralize—in every phrase and translations, the logic of the story is explained.

For almost two hours, you’ll have the ringside seat to a martial arts match in the Fight Arena in 1910 Shanghai—where you must face your fears—but later also redeem your soul after it is corrupted by wrong notions about how to do well in this life.

Total entertainment, however, is all you get once you come to know that the fight is only the icing to the cake—when the meat of the matter is that the ultimate fight is within yourself—it is the willingness to stand corrected and eventually change for the better.

The movie is worth watching for a number of grounds. According to one smart review, “Fearless” has ‘awesome fight scenes, expertly choreographed by genre master Yuen Woo Ping.’ “Though at times slightly marred by gimmicky set ups, these moments lend the film a brutal air of realism which has often been lacking in the genre.”

1910 Shanghai was the world’s melting pot of cultures and commerce. Europeans, Frenchmen, British, Arabs, and other nationalities swarmed the Chinese district for business and entertainment. Colonization was at its peak in that part of China. The Fight Arena is one Asian coliseum where one man’s strength and power were shown for the world to see. And this is where one man’s story unfolds and rolls up in all its glory.

Featuring the story of Chinese Martial Arts Master Huo Yuanjiya [1869–1910] from Tianjin, “Fearless” highlights how an individual can attain three virtues that can make sense out of his life.

First, strength entails one’s determination to use his physical ability to face life and all its struggles. Huo Yuanjiya, even as a child exhibited his passion to fight. After a fistfight with one young hooligans after his father’s losing match, he’d vow to never be defeated again. Not yet then would he realize why his father lost the match. Years later he would prove to the rest of the world he is one to reckon with when he becomes the champion of Tianjin. For a long while, he has been overwhelmed by his own strength that he established his name in his own village.

Then, honor is one of life’s blessings you gain through sheer respect and prudence with other people—in your daily affairs, profession, and even preoccupation with the world. Master Huo gains his respectability when he is pursued by a large following—his disciples whom he convinced with his entire philosophy.

Last, courage is poignantly the last—if not the most vital virtue of all—when Huo Yuanjiya realizes that this is all you need to finish and [even win] the ultimate fight within yourself, who is indeed your most mortal enemy.

With such a uniquely tragic story, we would later know of the real biographical account of the spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation, a martial arts circuit that has a sizable following.

Yet, it is noteworthy that the film clearly lays out one thing—the Asian philosophy of self-denial or the Western counterpart of self-sacrifice—always seems fresher than the Western theory of self-assertion.

While the West purports affirmation of the self, Eastern beliefs proclaim self-denial, the Asian train of thought glorifies asceticism self-denial—this is how East “meats” the west.

In “Fearless,” the Confucian doctrine waxes consistent in the character of the protagonist Yuanjiya. Just like how the Master Hou gets to topple down the “Sick Man of Asia” with his effortless tricks before throngs of spectators in the Fight Arena, the Asian way of life, er, sensibility makes a lot of sense since it proves that, indeed, “it takes too little to move much.”

The Lake House

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock
Directed by Alejandro Agresti
Warner Brothers
2006

Featuring anachronistic elements all throughout an otherwise stale love story, "The Lake House" tackles the subjectivity of time: that time at all is just a perception.

Sandra Bullock's Kate Foster is an emotionally preoccupied Chicago doctor who begins writing letters with Keanu Reeves' Alex Wyler, an architect who is living in the same lake house she rented two years earlier.

Consider that the movie is a series of disjointed facts, events and circumstances relating the present to the past through a magical mailbox. Kate and Alex write letters to each other and later exchange dialogues onscreen as if they're both there present.

Certainly in a film like this, nothing much can make more sense. The film is a big boo for the realists who would always argue art as something that takes off from common sense, logic, and all it entails. The film is devoid of these elements because it rather seeks to do something else.

The use of the time lapse is not in itself a lapse, but a reinforcing element to back up the contention that love defies time. That is all. And when we begin discussing love, thus, we stop asking sensible questions.

And so we proceed to something else. The gist of this melodrama lies in the two-year gap between the two characters' respective time frames. Kate is currently living in 2006; Wyler in 2004. The factor of time lapse is both interesting and tragically conceited. While it thrills us with how two people take liberties at pursuing their romance across time and space, it clouds the whole idea of logic; thus it must be perceived neither as rational nor realistic (which is a usual characteristic of something we watch with our money).

It can rather be appreciated with the way we see the depth of the feelings and emotionality of two people who are estranged from their own worlds but are enamored by a person beyond time and space (it sounds like an extra-terrestrial love story but it's not).

Foster and Wyler are what we may call "may sariling mundo," literally and figuratively because they do not live in the present. They make their own worlds somewhere else; their togetherness is hinged at each other's absence or lack of presence. And in the end they succeed. All in the absence of logic, or common sense.

While the original "Speed" stars make a wonderful chemistry onscreen, the audience is left mesmerized by how he can weave together disjointed facts, lacking sense and even sensibility.

Perhaps falling under the genre now called metafiction, "The Lake House," originally "Il Mare" by an Asian author, tries to demystify the subjectivity [read: relativity] of time, which to some people nowadays is not a reality but a mere perception.

Deconstructing realities is now an apparent trend in the literary field, which permeates books, films, and other available media. Realities are said to be only perceptions, something only perceived by the senses. So if everything is only perceived as everything is only felt made out by all the senses, what is real, therefore?

Of course, we'll leave this question unanswered, as this film leaves us hanging the rest of our movie time. What matters most is the depth of thought or feeling of the human being.

For one, it is so unrealistic for Kate to communicate with Alex, who is living "now" two years earlier. But what really binds them is the affinity to the same lake house, which has perhaps enchanted their persons for life.

"Lake House" shyly tells us that what matters more is the endearment of the heart, not any other preoccupation as time, nature, environment, or circumstances. What must rattle us is what we really feel.