Down and out in the Philippines

Author: By Bruce Allen

Date: SUNDAY, June 7, 1998

Page: C3

Section: Books

And modern Filipino literature, much of which has been written in English, has been slow to reach us. The most famous indigenous author to have appeared thus far is the versatile F. Sionil Jose: fiction writer and poet, journalist and editor (of the magazine ``Solidarity''), political activist and businessman, and founder of the Philippine PEN Center. In this decade, Jose's work has been well received in the States: a collection of colorful novellas, ``Three Filipino Women'' (1992), was followed by a taut novel of political corruption and personal crisis, ``Sins'' (1995). Now the Modern Library inititates its paperback series with the opening panel of Jose's renowned ``Rosales Saga,'' a five-volume work published in the Philippines over a 20-year span that explores the Filipino quest for independence through the story of a single family's generations through the past century.

Jose prefaces it with an introductory essay that helpfully describes the saga's historical background and identifies characters' real-life counterparts (though it only inconsistently explains local reference and place-names, as does a skimpy glossary that follows the text). And Jose plainly spells out the enduring global ripple effects of foreign intervention in his nation's affairs: ``If the Americans did not suffer from historical amnesia, they would never have gone to Vietnam.''

The core narrative of ``Dusk'' is framed by letters written 20 years apart. The first, sent in 1880 by Spanish priest Jose Leon to his father superior, urges that ``native priests'' be admitted to their order, and gently suggests the Spaniards' days of domination may be numbered (``When the time comes, I pray that we will go peacefully.'').

The second letter, which forms an epilogue, is written in 1900 by an American reporter in Manila to his brother back home, who intends to come to the newly ``liberated'' islands as a teacher. It's a deeply ambivalent endorsement of America's ``God-given responsibility to the world'' that acknowledges that the Philippines' liberator has replaced Spain as its ``enemy.''

Enclosed between these communications is a melodramatic and generally absorbing tale of a native family's displacement, victimization, and transformation. Its protagonist, Eustaquio ``Istak'' Salvador, is an acolyte dismissed by the successor of his mentor, Father Leon, when Istak accidentally observes the vainglorious Padre Zarranga committing an act of ``mortal sin.''

Istak returns to his family in the village of Po-on, on the northern coastal plain of the largest Philippine island, Luzon. Then, in several deftly handled parallel scenes, Jose juxtaposes Istak's memories of his thwarted initiation into the worlds of European Catholicism against his uneasy reunion with his parents and siblings. When his family runs afoul of the authorities, Istak escapes both death and judgment to find himself, unaccountably, the leader of his people.

Jose's lengthy account of the fugitives' pilgrimage southward is both episodic and indifferently constructed. Dramatic incidents do abound: Istak and his family are beset by a giant python, a dangerous river crossing, and a cholera epidemic. Jose writes feelingly of Istak's loving relationship with the beautiful young widow he weds, but dwells inordinately and tediously on his protagonist's largely unvaried apostrophes to his conscience, vocation, and deity (``If You are the God of my people, how could You also be the God of those who oppress us?'').

The last third of the novel delineates Istak's indoctrination in the gospel of revolution as preached by Don Jacinto, a wealthy mestizo, and especially by the thinly realized ``Apolinario Mabini, the famous thinker and ideologue of the revolution'' (and, we assume, an important figure in the saga's later volumes). Mabini's expostulations, which slow the narrative to a crawl, persuade Istak to abandon his narrow ethnic loyalties for a broader commitment to Filipino nationalism.

Although ``Dusk'' is dominated by its author's political agenda, it's a strongly atmospheric story distinguished by sensuous physical descriptions and several vivid foreground figures (its women are only perfunctorily characterized, but the conflicted Istak and his variously driven father and brothers are quite memorably drawn). And in its best sequences Jose manages a kind of politically engaged magical realism that lifts this often discursive novel far above the level of partisan rhetoric.

Of course we cannot judge ``The Rosales Saga'' until we have it all. One hopes the succeeding volumes are soon forthcoming, so we can judge for ourselves whether F. Sionil Jose is merely a passionate voice raised in his country and culture's defense, or indeed a literary force.