A tale of love and longing

Review on The Woman In Black
by Susan Hill

The story is related in a flashback from Arthur Kipps' memory, then a young lawyer in London. Their law office was the executor of the estates of Mrs. Alice Drablow who lived and died in a suburbs outside London. Kipps had to attend the funeral and then sort out the papers of Mrs. Drablow in her house called Eel Marsh, located in the village called Crythin. The names of these sites and places already evoke dreary and melancholic atmosphere. In the performance of his work, Mr. Kipps experienced the haunting of a woman he had no idea why her alleged presence exudes so much evil, hatred, sadness and other feelings. Ok, i better stop here or else i will spoil it :-) While reading this story, the tone and atmosphere took me back to my reading experience with The Woman in White, because both have gothic flavor and mystery but the one in Black is a ghost story while the other is a gothic mystery. Susan Hill, succeeded in setting the ghostly tone and the main character's rationalization on his experience were what others do when confronted with such phenomenon. I was quite delighted with the role of Spider in the story, this character showed a person's need for human contact and find attachment to the only living entity closer to him.

I was reading this book at night, lights out, and i used my iPad...oh! I didn't drift to sleep right away after i finish the book. Hmmm, I'm eager to watch the movie version of this book, with Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps.

I have titled this blog as "A Tale of love and longing" because these two were the  most dominant emotions that drive this whole story.

The Last Ember

A modern day Indiana Jones..

This is an archaeological adventure of Jonathan Marcus, an American lawyer who was once a Rome Prize scholar but lost his dream of pursuing his interest in archaeology due to an accident. He later was lured back to Rome as a lawyer but got embroiled in the search of the Menorah, the one which was supposedly secreted safely by Josephus Flavious. I had a crash course on antiquity terminologies and got lost in the underbelly of Rome and Temple Mount. I tried my best to refresh my memory of the tunnel under the Dome of the Rock when i visited Jerusalem. The book is an exciting and fast paced read, however, the location of the most coveted artifact almost went anti-climactic due to several layers of riddles piled one after the other, i was afraid it will end up buried underneath rubbles and will remain lost forever. I was glad Levin was able to pull it off and had an exciting ending. It was a good book debut, the research is quite good and it was wonderful to be transported back to the past with Levin's excellent historical background and trivia.

No Time Left

This is a freebie book on my ipad
I've read almost all of David Baldacci's books since his Absolute Power debut book. I am a fan and have my copy of his book True Blue autographed for me. He writes political thrillers that mostly surround the White  House, some US senators and political figures, he never disappoints.

This is my first time reading a short story by him, about a hired killer's life with a time travel twist at the end. Tight and well written, i like how the phrase "life has come full circle" in this short story.

Death by Garrote: Looking Back 3 by Ambeth R. Ocampo

            I picked up the book with crime, death and perhaps mystery, in mind. There was no synopsis or blurb that I could refer to except Ms. Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil’s statement about the author. Alas! My expectation was generally wrong, but it is nice to be pleasantly surprised.

           

            This is a collection of tidbits of Philippine history, culture, food, our pecularity, etc. by a Filipino historian. I've met the author in a heritage topic meeting years ago in Cebu. I appreciated the different articles rolled into one book, learned more details about certain part history or our heroes, than the broadstrokes of the textbooks in highschool and college. I've always like Ocampo's style of writing, I read some of his articles in the newspaper;  very crisp, it provides intimacy in knowledge of a moment in our history. I was reminded of my history professor at St. Theresa's College, made me feel like I was there, with a dash of humour and wit. History told not in a boring tone.

            Everyone loves reading peculiar happenings that escaped the popular Press’ attention, and this book really gave you that, even the detailed menu of Aguinaldo’s breakfast! There was that elaborate and grand banquets that Captain Joaquin Arnedo of Sulipan, Pampanga prepared for his illustrious visitors in the late 19^th century! Did they really throw all those expensive china wares to the river after using it once?!  But one article really got me laughing out loud, the “Marcos’ Karate Chop” The incident was an attempt of perception management, trying to make Marcos looked good by allegedly saving the Pope from the assassination attempt! The author and i were thinking the same thing... the war medals!

            But where is Death by Garrote, the title? One article discussed how is death by garrote being executed. Contrary to my perception death by garrotte provided instantaneous death not a slow painful one. The executioner’s payment was also mentioned, they were paid per execution aside from their regular monthly salary. It is a profession or shall I say career?  There is another book I’m very interested to read “The Hangman’s Daughter” by Oliver Pozsch, about hangman as a profession. The second article abut garrote really touched me, because it tells about how the Gomburza faced garrotte, so different from what I thought. They were, after all human.

            I already bought Looking Back 1 and 2,  my husband, a history buff was reading it out loud and laughing as loudly, I had to stop him, else he will spoil my enjoyment of those two books!

Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin

This is a collection of 9 short stories about religious beliefs, magical realism, love, mystery, festivities, love of country and coming of age.  I have read already one of the stories in the book but it was so long ago, I have forgotten the detail and but never forgot the feelings May Day Eve has evoked in me. Hence, I took the name MayDayEve for my Shelfari.com account. Reading his book was really like a first time for me, I had a difficult start of getting into the language and the ambience of the book. I think my mind is accustomed to the foreign writer’s tone or Nick Joaquin was entirely creating a whole different tone.

The first book was Candido’s Apocalypse, a coming of age story, mixed with magical realism and illustrating the teen-angst.  This is about Bobby, a teen ager, who suddenly saw the world become one big burlesque house and everybody going for lost. In way, I could say Bobby’s split-personality has just surface and he adopted the name Candido, the name he saw in the almanac for him. From Bobby/Candido’s eyes everyone is naked. Just imagine looking at your parents naked! The  absence of clothes in a person also made him think  of its role in the society, aside from satisfying the basic need, it gives a false sense of security in the outside while inside it does not change how one feel as a person. The word Apocalypse, from the greek word ‘apokalypsis” meaning lifting of the veil or revelation, in an era full of falsehood and misconception. Before the freak incident of Bobby’s seeing people naked, he used to feel superior and judgemental about people, about them being over-reacting, after that incident he now longed to be around people. It was revealed to him that people wear masks through their clothes and that he has to live with it.

Dona Jeronima is about  love and false love and about a man who was looking for himself, not just his identity. This is about an ambitious religious man, a bishop who got stranded in an island on his way to Spain. His isolation in the island made him reconcile with his religious purposes and conviction, when he was discovered and returned to civilization, he was a changed man no longer the ambitious and fiery religious personality. But even then, his past came back to him in the form of Dona Jeronima who was the love of his youth. Dona Jeronima wanted to claim him as hers based on his solemn oath, an oath he made before he became a priest. But Dona Jeronima’s realization about her feelings was really bared down to the basic emotion, what she felt was not love but truly a love of herself,  she “loved” the bishop because he mirrored what she sees in herself. Nick Joaquin’s astute dissection of love and false love was really captured in the words of Jeronima, “For what were you to me but comb and brush and mirror, the tools of my vanity? Being young, I love the laughter you stirred in me. Being fair, I loved the admiration you mirrored for me. Being proud, I loved the power you revealed in me. And being woman, I love the pleasure you gave me.”

The Legend of the Dying Wanton is about soul redemption and the layers of  pretences or masks we put up for the world to see and even for our gods to see, it is also about how our thoughts, actions and religious practices do not see ‘eye to eye” with each other. They simply do not match. The wanton being referred to in this story is Currito Lopez, a drunkard, often seen howling drunk in the neighbourhood and who lived a wasted life, but he often go to mass, pray to God and to the Virgin Mary. In the eyes of his neighbours, he was a wanton, yet he was often seen by Dona Ana (a devotee) secretly kneeling on the altar praying. In the eyes of Dona Ana, this was the real Currito. On their way to a mission, they were shipwrecked and the natives tried to kill all the Spanish in the boat, Currito lay dying for 13 days in a shore, and he recalled his past life and how shallow was his belief and his actions, “he dramatized himself as a weary wanton, a mystic tenorio, torn between vice and piety, and weeping for heaven even while laughing among whores.” I remember an article I read about the confusion of one foreign naval officer who docked in another country, he hired a prostitute that Saturday night, in the morning he was jolted from bed when the prostitute hurriedly collect her clothes and asked for the payment. He asked, “What’s the hurry?” while the bell from a church was ringing. The prostitute was in a rush, because she has to attend mass, it is Sunday morning, of course. Ahh, our simple way of understanding that by following all the religious practices will save us from eternal damnation, indeed “weeping for heaven while laughing among the whores” like Currito.

This is how I got my name,“May Day Eve”.  This 14 paged story was pieced together through 3 generations. It happened to Agueda and Badoy Montiya in the 1847, and Agueda related it to her daughter, then the daughter related it to her son, the last part was Don Badoy Montiya telling the story of one May day eve in 1847 to her grandson.  

“May day eve was a night of divination, a night of lovers, and those who cared might peer in a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry.” When the clock strikes midnight one must carry a candle and face a mirror in a big darkened room and say,

            Mirror, mirror

            Show to me

            Him whose woman

            I will be

When Agueda did it, Badoy Montiya suddenly appeared in the mirror, he was drunk returning from merry making with his friends. Agueda told her daughter that on that may day eve,  she saw the devil in the mirror! While many years have passed Don Badoy Montiya was already widowed, he caught his grandson facing the mirror on  May day eve and told him not to do it for he will see the witch, like what happened to him. The grandson said that her mother once told her that his Grandma once saw the devil in that mirror, too. The story is beautifully arranged in such a way that revelations unfold as surprises and we get the whole story of what happened in that May day eve after three generations.   Though this story talks about divination, it is a story of a love that had gone bad, a failed relationship because the hearts forget, the heart was distracted. Sad. But you know, in 1987, on the same day, i tried what Agueda did, alas! No one appeared.. i thought i was doomed to spinsterhood! 

Summer Solstice features the feast of St. John and the cult of Tadtarin. On the first night a young girl heads the procession, on the 2^nd night a mature woman and on the 3^rd a very old woman who dies and comes to life again. Everyone dances in the procession, all women. This tells about a woman’s desire not just to be loved but to be adored. I wonder if Tadtarin is still practiced in our country? This is quite interesting.

Guardia De Honor deals with time travel that happened during the Guardia de Honor of the Virgin wherein ladies will march with others wearing their cherished jewelry. That day Natalia Godoy witnessed the present and the future co-existing. She and her descendant met and both were given a glimpse of the future and the consequences of their acts. However, with that revelation, she was also able to change the course of her life. Joaquin showed that although the present and future co-existed, it was unfolding and there was still a chance to change it. Time travel or concepts of time flow really interests me, this opens up to a lot of “what ifs” in life. 

The Mass of St. Sylvester is about quest for immortality.  St. Sylvester’s Feast was on the last day of the year. It was believed that whoever witnessed the mass will live to see more than a thousand new years! One did, Mateo the Maestro, and he was turned to stone, he did live to see more than a thousand new years for it is only during new years that he become alive. So, beware of what you were wishing for, it might be given to you!

A navel is a scar indicating one’s connection to life’s beginning, a scar symbolizes a past. Connie De Vidal claimed she had 2 navels, although this unusual mark has never been explored in the story. The story centered on the two characters, Dr. Monson who was exiled from the Philippines, leaving his beloved city Manila to live in Hongkong to escape imprisonment by the Americans, and Paco a half-Filipino musician in Hongkong.  To me, the navel is a symbolism, Manila is to Dr. Monson what is Connie de Vidal to Paco both were drawn to it with a mixture of pain and happiness. A connection that they can never escape.

The first time I heard about The Order of Melchizedek was way back in 1997 when our former Chairman Melchizedek Maquiso visited Kiribati and later we were told he met a group from the Order of Melchizedek there. This story is like the coming-of-age of one’s religious beliefs, Guia the youngest among 3 Estiva siblings went through a lot of experiences looking for her identity and found the Salem group which was indeed the Order of Melchizedek. To Guia, it is a way of life, believing in the coming of a new Christ one which is not obsolete to the modern world. The story started as an interesting mystery and later divert to Guia’s life and Sid’s quest to discover the Order. The ending was something not forthcoming. But it is neither an exciting one. 

Nick Joaquin’s writing style reminds me of Jose Saramago. Leaving the convention of period and ordinary sentences, without one noticing it, Joaquin writes in one sentence paragraphs in some of the stories, but he gets away with it, as a reader I do not feel out of breath finishing the whole paragraph. Wonderful! Also, I admire how he is able to explore many major ideas in the story without blowing the whole into incoherence. I do not assume to understand all the underlying meanings in his stories. I’m sure I missed a lot of it. But I love the smooth language, the beautiful prose and the exposure it gave me to a lot practices and beliefs that are lost in this generation.