Zamboanga fictionist and 2000 Southeast Asia Write laureate Antonio Enriquez breathes life into the obscure fringes of Filipino memory with “The Survivors” (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2011).
Set in Zamboanga 1945, “Survivors” pits a band of town and cityfolk against the confusion and barbarity of a world war seemingly gone stale.
Protagonist Señor Paolo Bocanvieja’s point of view holds the whole tale together as he and his devoutly religious wife, the Japanese-installed town mayor, the spineless former soldier, a vivacious native widowed by the war, a bolo-wielding boy, and a girl orphaned by the Japanese, brave eight months of strafing, bombing, poisonous flora, marauding Japanese soldiers, and man-eating natives in search of a way back to civilization at the closing years of World War II.
Enriquez takes good advantage of his terra firma with his deft handling of Spanish and Chabacano passages which seamlessly blend with the language of the novel, thus furthering the authenticity of the reading experience. And although the theme is a definite dead-ringer for the wartime stories Filipinos hear from their grandparents, the level of detail in dramatic moments, the immediacy, and the machine gun-staccato pacing give a very contemporary touch to the work.
Into the wild
Central to the literary appeal of “Survivors” is its bold questions revolving around war: How far will people go to survive? Whose god really answers prayers? What good is really there in victory?
Readers should therefore be wary before judging the almost barebones narrative which for one is easy on the eyes but is nonetheless a clever device for projecting complex issues and scenes without much mental contortionism. Representative of this effect is the near triteness of how the author depicts the clash of Christian morals and cannibalistic necessity which Señora Bocanvieja must face after their group’s time with the cliff-dwellers.
“The Survivors” employs the language of what appears to be a transcribed bout of nighttime reminiscences by a war veteran—a style which recalls only the most pertinent details because that is all that the mind of a beleaguered man will hold in times of emergency—in order to make the rest of the story stand out in greater contrast to the central issues on the subject matter.
There is no question that Enriquez has achieved the almost genuine visage of memory with this novel, but the illusion of reminiscence is at times broken when the book breaks into interpretations of its own pregnant images that are ideally reserved for the midwifery of the reader’s own contemplation, as when Paolo says after saving his wife from the visceral sight of grotesque fishes devouring smaller ones: “Was she thinking what I was thinking? Even here, the biggest and the strongest devour and defeat the smallest! That there’s a continuous war to live, and somehow, though eaten and helpless, the smallest continue to exist here, together . . . and so elsewhere.”
Lighting the way
“Color,” as exhaustive descriptions are sometimes called, most often in reference to places, demands moderation in its use just as any other literary embellishment does.
“The Survivors” however, speaking of a far-off land almost unknown to Imperial Manila, could have done a great service by detailing a tour of Zamboanga’s wilderness—the obscurity of the story’s birthplace to the world makes each bit of description a piece of good news about a realm of adventure.
Sure, some parts of the novel give color to the travel destinations of its dramatis personae during momentous scenes, but most of the depictions smack of textbook monotony where a reader could have been safely awed with poetic imagery.
The novel gives much promise to the telling of a Philippine historical genre often relegated to dull and respectful repetition not only because the novel breaks new ground on its little-known setting but also because of its riveting action sequences, something seldom seen in this jurisdiction.
Whenever Enriquez sets to put action on the page, the reader is effectively catapulted into a noisy bomb crater with leaping clods of earth and the metallic hiss of Japanese sabers climbing out of scabbards, all under a fiery strafing run of .50-caliber slugs raining from American P-38s.
And even when the novel is not making you run for your life, its passages can still toy with your physiology, like in instances of its culinary tips for cannibals, or when Señor Bocanvieja thinks to himself: “I willed it in my mind as hard as I could, with all my power, for the food to stay down, down in Emma’s guts. I willed, Hold it. Or we’ll be on the cliff dwellers’ leaf-plates if you throw up. Keep it down, down.”
“The Survivors” poses its incisive queries on the human condition and its limits while taking its audience on a ride through the paradise-tinted hell of war, and no answers will come at the end save for your own.
“The Survivors” is available at Solidaridad Bookstore (Padre Faura, Ermita, Manila; tel. 2541068; 2541086) and National Book Store. Call UST Publishing House (7313522, 4061511 loc. 252, 278).
