I am told to skip my final exam in BASIC. Now I have a couple of weeks to spare for reading fiction books before the Fall Term begins. Between my new books about VISUAL BASIC and C Programming, I am re-reading, recalling the many Filipino authored books I haven't made a comment on yet. I have read lots  really, but I've misplaced them between my oh so frequent moves. I  promise myself  to build  wall shelves for them in my bedroom when I find the time, if I find the time.

As of today, I'd be  lucky to even find a space to pile them up.

But who's worried?

When I started writing on typewriter, I've looked for the best excuse not to get published. (The real reason is, of course, no one wants to publish me). Unable to face the truth, I keep assuring myself that Franz Kafka didn't see any of his books published while alive. Walt Whitman had to praise his own poetry using a pen name after he self-published his Leaves of Grass. I keep inspiring myself with the memory of these authors. Though at the back of my head I hear them whispering ...."Loooooser...."

Sige na nga!

There are authors meant to be published and there are those meant to write graffiti. Putang'na, I belong to the latter. I am John the Baptist preparing the ways for the Masters; I am Sancho Panza of Don Quixote. I am the mice in Mice and Men. I am Harper Lee who never wrote a single sentence after "To Kill a Mockingbird". I am the grapes in The Grapes of Wrath (which I always re-title The Wrath of Grapes). I am the cuckoo in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

So I am now confined to my little  web writing. But darn, one day last week, I had 88 hits! Not bad eh?

(got this one from NPR:

I am never invited to the opening night of Saving Private Ryan.

But I top the guest list to the opening of Shaving Ryan's Privates - got these lines from John Waters whose latest movie is called Cecil B. Demented.)

Whatever.

I want to leave all my stories and my rapping hanging in the air. Because if I finish all of them now, what will I write when I'm retired? If I wake up in the morning and  find myself stranded in a solitary island in a big wide sea, how will I live if I don't have a story plot  to  work on? It's bad when you finish things in a hurry, when you get everything you want in heartbeat. What will you do after you win the Nobel at 15?

This is the way I think: When I eat halo-halo,  I eat all the ice scrapes first until what's left is the sweet sediment underneath - sweet mongo beans and coconuts and nata - and eat them last and heavenly.

That's the reason why I love computer programming. It makes me work on a son-of-bitch program for nights and days. I won't stop until it acts according to my will - or the professor's will if you will. And then I'm happy to score and have sex.

Enough about me already- I am getting bored with my own thinking/writing anyway. There was a time I got stuck with the Mindanao crisis that I poured my heart on nothing else but it. Honey, there is more about the  Philippines than Abu Sayyaf. There is no point in talking about a bandit group who seems to enjoy its notoriety. I am sure of this  -  any act contrary to human goodness will die a death that only God can mete out. I've seen it before so I leave Mindanao to the hands of Allah.

The wrong thing to do is to get so obsessed with the Mindanao crisis that we lose sight of the other issues in our country. How about the other stories in our country? Like - I've always wanted to review the books State of War and Twice Blessed.

Their author  is Ninotchka Rosca.

I remember her picture at the back cover of her book State of War in the eighties. I think I saw the book in the UP - Mla library. The picture had a somewhat poor quality but I remember her possessing long hair, I'm not sure if she was wearing a head bandanna which was a trend in the eighties.

I did not understand her book.

To me, State of War was pretty academic and my English vocabulary was too limited that I needed the dictionary to read it. It sounds pretty much like our Mindanao conflict - we know it's there but we simply cannot comprehend why it's occurring. I still haven't finished reading it. I look at State of War the way I look at Ulysses.

I think the greatest English novel in the world is Ulysses, but I don't understand it and I haven't completed reading it.

There are books like that - I never read War and Peace though I believe it's the greatest Russian novel ever written. Proust's series are considered the most profound memoir one author had written but I haven't read them. Some books are just too good they could intimidate.

But came Twice Blessed.

Now we're talking.

I  saw Twice Blessed in a North Carolina library by accident. I was romping through the isles and then...there it was, the new book (then) by Ninotchka Rosca. It was a book I read ever slowly because I wanted to savor every word, every laughter, every insinuation it possessed. When you're Filipino and you're dropped in a remote place called Fayetteville  in North Carolina, (this was nearly eight years ago when computers were like diamonds to me) you'd be so sabik for anything Filipino that when you get the chance to read a Filipino authored book, you'd read it from cover to cover, look at its picture for hours, re-read every sentence that suggests home - yeah, Ninotchka Rosca was my only Filipino company in my homesickness. I thank her for that.

I returned the book to the library after a month, went on discovering other Filipino authors afterwards. And looking back, I vaguely recall the entire story of Twice Blessed but I know it is so Marquez-que, so magic realism - story.

The main characters, twins at birth were blessed to jointly rule a country. The woman, bearing a very close semblance to somebody we all know, is the funniest, wackiest, imeldific character I've read. I can recall myself laughing out loud every time she enters the scene. Reading Twice Blessed is like watching a movie entitled  the Life and Times of the Conjugal Dictatorship, starring Dolphy and Tessie Tomas supported by Matutina, Dely Atay-atayan, Chichay, Chuchi...

But then, I may be wrong, I am always wrong on a lot of things. Twice Blessed might have been written in most seriousness for all I know... I'm sure the sequel, Thrice Blessed, or The Return of the Emergency Power will be thrice as funny. You can just see Darna, Supergee, Agila, Nardong Putik  flying in the horizon.

Lets face it, the 'twins' may have stolen from us and given us the worst country, but gosh, the comedy, the jokes, the inconceivable theories they spawned (remember the black hole on top of the Philippines? remember the Tasadays? and the Japanese ambassador who has difficulty pronouncing the letter l?

You Firipinos are very rucky
You have a President who roves you very much
And a First Rady who roves you more. (got this one from a Ninoy Aquino's speech)

Since Twice Blessed, I've waited and waited for a third book by Ninotchka Rosca. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on whose point of view), the original Diva of Filipino novel in English had found greater interest in the feminist movement and activism.
 

I know we Pinoys tend to have very short memories, but Ninotchka Rosca, in the eighties was considered the goddess of Filipino writing in English. She was first and foremost, very brave in writing anti-Marcos literature when almost everyone was scared to do so. She instantly gained international stature as a writer after the publication of State of War. I recall her answer to one question she was asked as a young writer: (I am paraphrasing) "I don't want to be under the grave before I get published. I don't have that romantic notion about my writing. If I write something I want to get it published now. I wanna enjoy the fruits of my work while I'm alive." And her picture is so fresh in my memory - a young Filipina face, long hair, facing the camera straight with brave and intense eyes. Without losing her cool.

I loved Twice Blessed, I wanted it to be followed. I heard Rosca is coming up with a third book, this time, of short stories. I am looking forward to reading it. Meantime, I  need to finish reading The State of War.

Alex Maskara is Pinoy

Volume 1