mga kuwentong sobrang bibigat talaga na kailangan mo munang tumigil para paglimian ang mga ito, Kaya ang tagal ko rin natapos ang aklat na ito, Hindi ito yung aklat na kakayanin mo ng isang upuan lang tapos maaabsorb mo ang mga kuwento, Kung magawa mo yun, bilib na ako, May mga kuwento rin dito na hirap na hirap akong basahin kasi masyadong maligoy at nasobrahan sa detalye, May sobra namang nakakahilong basahin dahil tuloytuloy ang pagsasalaysay, pagkahabahaba bago magkaroon ng tuldok, haha, Well, ganyan talaga, kanyakanyang style sa pagsusulat at pagkukuwento, May isang parte din dito yung "Ano'ng Ginawa mo Nu'ng Gera, 'Tay na pamilyar sa akin, Kung hindi ako magkakamali, parte 'yon ng nobela niyang "Sibol sa Guho, "
Mahaba man ang koleksiyong ito at sadyang mahirap basahin, masasabi kong isa ito sa mahusay na akda, Siksik sa iba't ibang kuwento mula kasuloksulukan ng looban, alinsangan ng lansangan, hanggang sa tarik ng kabundukan,
Saludo, Ka Ave, Ave Perez Jacob was once a part of thelandmark book in Philippine literature, sitelinkMga Agos Sa Disyertostars, For an unknown reason, in the latest fourth edition of the book published in, he was no longer there, He was, in fact, a friend and a schoolmate to theof theauthors, He studied with them in the same university and wrote in the same university folio, That was the reason why I read this book,
The book is similarly themed as that of Agos, This is about the sad flight of the marginalized people in the society, However, unlike Agos, this does not dwell too much neither on the rural people particularly the state of agrarian reform nor the urban working people like those who in the local rundown factories or employed by devious and heartless Chinese merchants.
Rather, his stories have wider scope the breath and depth of which are more encompassing than those of Agos, Examples of these are the stories with milieus such as the prison, rebels' headquarters in the mountain, World War II, etc, many of which were not tackled by Agos,
As usual, I typed my thoughts after reading a story or a group of them, So, they are mostly kneejerk reactions and not indepth analysis of the stories,
Kawing sa Isang Simula, Hook for a New StartSTARS
Based on the first three stories in the book, what I think makes the stories of Ave Perez Jacob different from those written by most of the Agos boys was its being hopeful, i.
e. , the ending is always positive, True that the characters are also dirtpoor, After all, his works still belong to what we call panitikang anakpawis literature of the poor, However, in this story, the child wakes up and that gives a feeling of hope that the family will be okay in the end.
Ina. MotherSTARS
This is funny, I like the outrageous behavior of the mother and her hint that the child is not her husband's hahaha, The ending is also unexpected and the humor is strongly sent despite its brevity,
Higit sa Isang Ama, More Than Being a FatherSTARS
The boy of a poor jobless father dies from hunger, Earlier, her mother has died of sickness, The poor father is left alone and gets employed as a gardener of a rich family, Rich but the rich father is indifferent to the boy as old as the poor man's dead son, The boy has a physical deformity so he just stays at home playing with his dog, This gives the poor father of a dead son something to be thankful for despite his poverty, He resigns and goes back to his home despite the fact that he would live there alone,
Takipsilim ng Kamusmusan, The Dusk of InnocenceSTARS
A young boy and his mother are hiding in a shelter while Manila is being attacked by the Americans to drive away the Japanese forces during World War II.
The boy is bored and he wants to come out to play with Cora, the daughter of their housemaid and houseboy, There is a scene here that reminds me of "The Empire of the Sun" innocence amidst the terror of war,
Sa Kabila ng Estero, Beyond the SlumSTARS
A young boy is being raised by his father alone, He has an affluent life at home with maid in tow, However, he is living in an area where there are squatters so his classmates are mostly poor, His best friend, already a teenager and lives in the squatter's area, begins to visit a prostitution house, That best friend invites him but he declines repeatedly, One night, with the promise that his friend would not tell anyone, he agrees to go with him, He found out a shocking truth,
Mga Pusa, CatsSTARS
A teenage boy is living alone with his mother, His father has abandoned them, The mother washes neighbors' clothes to earn a living and support them both, His job is to fetch pails of water from the nearby handpumped well, Aside from being a labandera, his mother takes care of many cats and they comfort her of her loneliness, One day, feeling that her mother loves the cat more than him, he puts the cats inside a native bag and dumps them in a mountain of garbage.
What comes next is like Fydor Doestoevsky's conscience haunting the boy turning his nights into a series of nightmares,
Ang Mayo ay Buwan ng mga Bulaklak, May is the Month of FlowersSTARS
The prose of Ave Perez Jacob is very strong in this one, He took the time to describe his milieu and the result was incredible, You can feel being in the slum the smell of humanity, garbage and the stagnant dark water, the sound of the heavy rain and the rampaging flood, the shanties of the poor
people being carried away by the flood, etc.
His characters are all memorable particularly the young boy who almost fell on the murky waters below the bridge, Very effective. One of the best short Filipino stories I've read,
PagIbig: Ngalan ng Kalyehon, Love: The Name of a SideStreetSTARS
A bit out of focus especially the ending, Not sure what Perez Jacob wanted to say why he brought the story to the character's place in Manila, However, the first twothirds of the story is nice, It brought memories of my childhood in the province, The hunchback character reminded me of Quentin in Rogelio S, Sikat's story included in Agos,
Mga Tining sa Lusak, Sediments in MudSTARS
Might as well be your Valentine's read this year, That is if you can get a copy of this story in English, "I love you for what you are" Maging Sino Ka Man can be this story's tagline, Let's not be cynical about love as stated in the poem, Desiderata,
Kislap ng Kadakilaan, Glitters of GreatnessSTARS
Iskong Tigas is a con man, He frequents a bar and he falls in love with one of the waitresses, He sends her to school, At the night of her graduation from college he gives her a nice bottle of perfume and a thick wad of cash, However, he does not want to court her and the reason is what you have to find out, Read this incredible and heartfelt story, You will have a second thought thinking that all con men are despicable,
Budhi. ConscienceSTARS
A college professor used to be a guerilla during the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, During that time, he killed a man suspected of being a Japanese spy, One night, while he is reading a book, the son of that man he killed shows up at his home,
Mga Alon sa Pulong Bato, Waves at Stone IslandSTARS
Feels ordinary to me, A young man goes out from prison after three years, He is ashamed to go back to his town so he accepts the invitation of a cellmate to stay at his home first.
One night, he is awakened by a commotion but he cannot understand because the men are talking in kapangpangan, The following morning, he learns that he and his excellmatee are being invited to a bank heist, He refuses and decides to go back to his town where his girlfriend is still single and waiting for him,
Sa San Pascual, Isang Umaga, In San Pascual, One MorningSTARS
Quite predictable but the good thing about this story is that it covers a lot of events that it can be elaborated and extended into a fulllength novel.
It tells a story of two friends who at the start, are fresh graduates of law degree, They are both living in the same town and are so poor one has to sell his house so he can take the bar exams and construct a simple law office.
Very good moral lesson in the end, Something that many lawyers should be reminded of,
Inuman sa Kanto, Drinking Session at the Corner of the StreetSTARS
Not sure what Ave Perez Jacob wanted to show in this one.
I thought that plot is uneventful except to show how some men behave when they are drunk, I was listening to a telecon while reading this and I am not sure whether there is another message that Perez Jacob wanted to convey.
Maybe I missed the point, I don't know.
Kamatayan sa Tundo, Death in TondoSTARS
Welltold, Very painful to read because there is man murdered and while the man is lying in the coffin, Perez Jacob describes his death and the wounds that killed him.
His elder brother is by his side in the wake and there is a message pinned to the coffin: Ipaghihiganti ka namin.
We will avenge your death, This is in Tondo in the's where there were many gang wars and shenanigans who were not afraid of the law, In fact, they used to take the law in their hands,
KakaningItik. Food for the GooseSTARS
I thought that this was something about poultryraising only to find out early this morning that "kakaningitik" means weakling or coward.
This is a story of a smalltime thief who is caught by a chinese trader stealing six siopao because he is hungry, He gets in prison while waiting for his trial, Inside, he gets caught between two gangs, One of the two leaders prods him to kill the other so that he will no longer be called as "kakaningitik, "
Bartonila. Maximum Security CellSTARS
Not sure about the translation, But I am sure that this one is a pleasantly different way of storytelling, Here, Perez Jacob tells the story of a man whose beautiful wife is raped and killed while alone in the mountain because her husband is in the field tending to their crops.
The man seeks the help of the police and asks for justice, Nothing happens. So, he abandons his farm, his home and goes everywhere he thinks the killer and rapist of his wife is, He finds him inside the prison cell, What makes the storytelling different Perez Jacob talks to the man throughout the story as if he is like the man's conscience, I must have encountered this style before but this just left a mark in my mind now,
Bagong Taon sa Brigada, New Year in Brigade No,STAR
Corny. A typical story of wayward son, The third son is the only one left in the house of two Christian and model citizen couple, They earlier asked their eldest because to leave their home because he is not able to finished his schooling and then marries a prostitute.
Their second, the only daughter, gets pregnant out of wedlock so they also make "takwil" her, The third is a drunkard and so comes with being an alcoholic is being associated with bad "barkada, " So, one night the poor young man is drunk he almost killed a pedestrian, He does not like it inside the jail of course so he is very sorry, Then the following morning, the whole family is there and they all kiss and make up,
Ibon. BirdSTARS
Quite predictable, The metaphor is obvious. I only appreciated the honest innocence of the character of the boy, The story is about him who does not study hard because he takes pride of catching and petting birds kept at the basement of their house.
One day, his exconvict uncle comes home,
Ano'ng Ginawa Mo Nu'ng G'yera, 'Tang What Did You Do During the War, FatherSTARS
Quite long but definitely meaningful.
It's about what his father did during the war, Once the secret comes to open, one wonders where the love and respect come in or leave or dissipate or gone forever,
Guwardiya GuardSTARS
My GR friend is right, This definitely is one of the best stories in this collection, It is a story of a security guard in the eyes of one of the company's employees, Nicely told. My jaw dropped in on the last page of the story,
Mga Isipang Kumulo sa Ulo ng Isang Baliw, Thoughts That Boiled in the Head of a LunaticSTARS
Different style in writing, Similar to those novels with the narrative mimicking what's going on inside the mind of a lunatic, There is a long paragraph here with no punctuations and the thoughts expressed go everywhere and in the end, nowhere, I particularly liked the character of Pina with the image that is left in my mind: she with half of the uneaten set of bananas.
Powerful imagery.
Isang Mahaba at Makulay na Araw sa Buhay ni Sol Viejo, One Long and Colorful Day in the Life of Sol ViejoSTARS
There is a jarring transition between the first half of the story about a bed spacer in a cramp apartment and the drinking spree scene.
I thought that the story could have been more effective if there is a "bridge" that provides the transition, The flashback about the sad fate of the boy's family is very sad but it is the only saving part of this story.
Mabigat ang Bandera, The Flag is HeavySTARS
Painful and poignant story of ay/o boy who loses his militant father due to the ideology that he fought for.
The intent of the story is obvious: to make the readers sorry for his father's fate, I think that made the story less interesting especially towards the end, It could have been an amazing story if Perez Jacob left something for the reader to decide or figure out by himself,
Lagablab sa Utak ni Damian Rosa, The Conflagration in the Mind of Damian RosaSTARS
The radical thoughts in the mind of a worker in the city due to injustices in the society.
Here, Perez Jacob tours us in the city by showing the flight of the lowly, the oppressed and the poor, He interspersed these scenes with his moral thoughts and lamentations, Very effective despite the fact that what he describes here aredecades ago's or's and I know that similar scenes still exist now.
Or maybe worse.
Nangyari sa Ating Panahon, These Happened in Our TimeSTARS
This and the last story below seem to be related, This has references to Elias Plaridel, the leader of the underground revolutionary movement, This tells the story of a young man, a member of that revolution, who has to stop attending college to join the rebels in the mountain.
Well, he also has to stop because his father died and his mother could barely support him and his siblings, This puts a question whether he really believed in the ideology of the rebels or he has no other way to live, I like the way that question hangs in the air even with brutal, sad and somewhat conclusive ending,
Ang Pagdating ni Elias Plaridel, The Homecoming of Elias Plaridel,STARS
Not because this is the title of the collection but if you only have time to read a short story by him or you just want to sample his prose, read this one.
I searched the internet and Perez Jacob also published two other books withandas the title stories, This is light not as strongly themed or worded likeorand not as "commercial" as his Palancawinning "Ang Guwardiya", This is light yet it sends a strong message and Elias Plaridel, although behaves like Elias in Rizal's Noli, would remind you of Simoun in the other novel of Rizal, El Fili.
Very interesting character in a wellwritten narrative and in a quite familiar milieu,
I love this book, Better than most of the individual books by the Agos boys, The firststories are light and as you proceed, the stories become darker and darker in theme and in mood until it becomes somewhat in the middle in the last story.
Well thought off collection, Well done, sir. .