long story short

Ahead of the release of Netflix's "Trese" adaptation, I decided to pull these out of my bookshelf and re-read these graphic novels on Philippine mythology. Coming to terms with the myths in our culture is imperative. So many of these stories were passed on to us orally by the older generations, but to most, they remain just that: old tales. What some fail to grasp is that they are reflective of our ancestors' beliefs and identities. Our forefathers devised these as a result of their unique and collective experience as a people who traveled, migrated, and traded throughout the Austronesian archipelagos. What seems to be fantastical and unrealistic was, to them, logical and compelling. And while rediscovering our myths does not mean that we must believe in them the very same way our ancestors did, it should give us a better understanding of our history and make us appreciate how our pre-colonial forebears survived — and even thrived — because of these. 

(Say hello to my Kobo Glo HD, a New Year gift to myself)

“You can write it all down, you can put it in your book of facts, but the truth is no one can ever really understand the tangle of experiences and passions that makes you who you are. It's a secret collection, a private language, a pebble in your pocket that you play with when you're anxious, hard as geometry, smooth as soap.”

I don't think I have highlighted and bookmarked a book as much as I did this one, at least in recent memory. So many passages I wish I could press onto my skin, words I truly wanted to physically carry with me every single moment if I could, like a neon sign that says, "Yes, this is how I feel."  Raphael Bob-Waksberg's short story collection is a brilliant, unique, weird, and absolutely enjoyable ride. I read it in two days. 

I loved BoJack Horseman. I loved it so much I don't think I can watch it again any time soon. The way the story unfolded was so painful, realistic, and dark. But it was the perfect encapsulation of human fragility. And human resilience. We all just want to keep trying to be better versions of ourselves. And that includes accepting the worst parts of us too.

This sentiment is carefully crafted into each of the stories. That feeling of hope: hope that the wounds of past loves heal, hope that we can learn from our mistakes, hope that we find meaning again, hope that love sustains. Even when it's heartbreaking, it's uplifting. 

So unlike the show, this is definitely something I want to go back to again and again, to read when I'm sad or happy or when I feel like I need to be reminded of how beautifully devastating and fleeting life is.

"Every other night will have been rehearsal for Friday 18 July - we had to be ready. Everything was pushing us imperceptibly toward this moment - if I hadn't missed that train, if you hadn't moved for the job, just imagine." 

The best stories in the collection were those that leaned toward the more absurd, almost science fiction. Bob-Waksberg has a very careful hand when it comes to ludicrous premises. He's done it successfully in BoJack Horseman, and he's an even better architect of it in fiction. The surreality of these stories is heightened by the fact that they're being told with a straight face: here's an AntiDoor to a different universe which you can step into during your lunch break. Oh, just another day of planning a wedding with twenty-eight sacrificial goats. A band with a slightly modest following is forced to choose between touring Portland or staying in San Francisco, and oh, by the way, they have superpowers. Two people who found each other on a train but never spoke to each other for six decades. It's all so crazy, and yet, it's precisely the right amount of crazy that amplifies just how vulnerable and foolish we are as humans. It won't change. Put someone in an otherworldly dimension, a world so completely different from their own, and you can expect them to be themselves. 

No circumstance is so bizarre that it will force you to become someone you aren't - in fact, you will turn out to be exactly who you are.

"And I think about how loving someone is kind of like being president, in that it doesn't change you, not really. But it brings out more of the you that you already are."

Thirty-one pages in and I was already crying my eyes out. A little spoiler alert: the fourth story, about a missed connection on a train, really hit home. I've never personally experienced that, but I think the many heartbreaks in our family certainly revolve around those feelings. Of missed chances, of having spent a lifetime with a person and still not knowing them. Another story, about jumping into an alternate universe and meeting a different version of your beloved, was quite compelling too. It was an exercise in futility, an abstraction of curiosity and guilt. It's about pushing the limits of what a transgression can be, using regret (or the lack thereof) as the compass. It's fascinating and heartbreaking. You know where it's going, but just like the character, you still have to go through with it.

"But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all."

A lot of the other stories in the anthology contain that same eagerness to just live through it. Pain and misery are just around the corner, but who's to say that's the only thing waiting for you? The first story is actually a great metaphor for this entire premise. A man gives a woman a can of cashews. She knows from her past experiences that it can be a practical joke: open it and a spring-loaded snake will jump at her. And yet, and yet. He promises that it will be different. The canister says it will be cashews. Her heart wants to trust the moment but her memories say otherwise. It's a tug-of-war between going for it and walking away. But one thing that is absolutely clear however - she wants to. 

This book is mostly about the wanting. Some characters follow through with it, most of them don't. In the end, they are defined by the choices they made when the universe - bizarre, and absurd as it was - led them to a fork in the road. And while it can be terrifying to look at life this way (Will I forever be haunted by the weight of every decision??), there is also a kind of liberation that comes with it. That there are so many opportunities to be brave, to take a U-turn, to change course. There's always room to move forward.

"But if there’s a silver lining here (and you’re not sure there is one), it’s the assurance that what you had, whatever it was, had weight. It made an impact. You can put to rest the fear that you were a blip in this other person’s life, a footnote. What you did was important. You hurt somebody, and somebody hurt you."

But it's not so bad to look back, fondly embrace the past, and burrow in the weird, dull, aching satisfaction of remembering. 

"And I thought about how, actually, if you wanted to, you could say the same thing about life. That life is terrifying and overwhelming and it can happen at any moment. And when you’re confronted with life you can either be cowardly or you can be brave, but either way you’re going to live.

So you might as well be brave."

(P.S. This is actually already my fifth book for the year! Yay, resolutions, progress, yadda yadda.) 

First Women by Kate Andersen Brower; Tough Enough by Deborah Nelson;  Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

These are the last few books I've just finished, and it only took me about a week and a half to go through all three. Maybe it was because of my eagerness to reward myself after two consecutive hearings, or maybe it was my bias towards books that concern strong women. The running theme seemed to be women orbiting close to power, but also, to painful realities. Riveting.

1 | "First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies" by Kate Andersen Brower

The first lady has no place in the Constitution; she has no official duties other than to be the President's wife. But it's certainly interesting how they carved their own paths separate from, although entwined with, their husband's and how differently they used the platform the presidency gave them. This book is one of the three nonfiction books by Brower detailing some of the most interesting aspects of the US Presidency aside from the Presidents themselves: the first wives, the vice presidents, and the White House. This book focused on the presidential wives starting from Mamie Eisenhower until Michelle.

Instead of providing a separate chapter for each woman, Brower interlaces their stories under specific themes. What surprised me the most was how much the modern first ladies figured in their husbands' politics. Some of the first ladies actively participated in Cabinet meetings, foreign policy discussions, and even stood as diplomatic envoys on behalf of the US. I will admit that before reading this, I was only familiar with Hillary (with whom I share the same birthday) and Jackie Kennedy (whose grief and compelling private life had been closely scrutinized over the years). But this book made me the most intrigued about Lady Bird Johnson, Rosalynn Carter (who founded the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity), and Betty Ford (who championed mental health and support for alcoholics and cancer survivors by establishing the Betty Ford Center.) Their contributions to society are considered seminal now, but what role would they have played if they were not given the platform of their husband's office?

Another interesting aspect of the book was how older first ladies belonging to a different generation viewed the relatively younger, more ambitious ones. In particular, Hillary Clinton, who, unlike her predecessors, had goals of her own — aspirations outside and beyond her husband's presidency. Some of the older First Ladies — and I suppose, America in general — found this off-putting at the time. But, as the author surmised, it was probably because they recognized the privilege afforded to the women of the succeeding generation. The feminist movement of the 60s and 70s certainly allowed and provided more options for women in their chosen careers. The older first ladies such as Barbara Bush didn't have the same opportunities as, say, Ivy League-educated Hillary, as a circumstance of being born during her time. Perhaps it's not so much disdain, as it is a repressed kind of resentment that they were limited to just being the President's wives as a consequence of living in a different era. 

2 | "Rodham" by Curtis Sittenfeld

Which gives us a perfect segue to Rodham. To borrow from Jane Eyre, in this book, reader, she did not marry him. This novel envisions what Hillary's life would have been had she followed her head instead of her heart and turned down Bill's proposal. 

Full disclosure that I do not claim to know the entirety of Hillary's politics, nor that of Bill's. I just know that we were both born on October 26, so that's worth mentioning. (Another person born on that date? SC Justice Antonio Carpio. I am in great, powerful company.)

This is actually the first book I've read about Hillary. I initially wanted to dive into "Living History" first, her 2003 memoir, after reading Michelle Obama's "Becoming." But I just didn't feel like reading about all the issues that plagued the Clinton presidency, so I skipped it. According to the reviews I found on this book, it was pretty accurate of her life as a young Yale law student and fresh graduate anyway, so I was really interested in reading about how she was before Bill Clinton — and the rewritten history had she let him go.

I've always wanted to believe in multiple universes, in the possibility that out there are a multitude of lives running simultaneously along with this one, with varying degrees of discongruity. And given the huge losses that Hillary had to take in this lifetime, I couldn't help wishing that the fictional tale in the novel was the real one instead.

The novel felt like a realistic portrayal of who she was: strong-willed, stubborn, ambitious, driven. The book recounts the beginning of their romance but the story certainly takes off after their break-up. Walking away from an engagement with Bill Clinton saved her from a lot of bigger heartaches and moral pitfalls. But it was still rather sad to find out that even in that universe, some things would not have turned out that much differently. Her political life may have taken wilder, bigger turns, but people will still see her as cunning, evil, and aggressive — just because that's how society views women chasing dreams that do not solely prioritize motherhood or marriage. I liked how the novel creatively intersected events that actually happened in real life (in one part of the novel, the "Shut her up!" crowd still shows up, albeit from a different side, but pretty much for the same reasons), which kept the story grounded. It also helped that apparently a lot of scenes in the book mirrored things that Hillary herself wrote about in her previous memoirs or that official biographies narrated. It didn't really tackle her policies and politics though, which prevented the novel from being truly compelling.

In the end, despite it being a fictionalized version of Hillary's life, it gave a decent glimpse of who she is: detached but still sincere, honest about being ambitious but still someone worth empathizing with. In opening the door to an alternate universe, it allows us to envision a reality that does not judge her for her husband's actions. It simply allows us to view her as she could have been, on her own. She may have still made mistakes. But it still could have been different; and in this other reality, different was certainly, infinitely better. If only?

3 | "Tough Enough: Arbus, Arendt, Didion, McCarthy, Sontag, Weil" by Dorothy L. Nelson

This is the most insightful and my personal favorite among the three books. It is not a biography, rather a literary critique of the six women's works. 

These thinkers and artists had significant influence on their respective fields: philosophy, literature, photography. One major criticism when it comes to the scholarship on these fields is that there just aren't enough female voices, i.e. they lack emotion and depth. But interestingly enough, the impact of these women did not arise because of this. In fact, they were largely criticized for the absence of sentiment in their approach to their art. The six women discussed in Tough Enough have been, in varying severity, accused of the opposite: being too cold, too unfeeling. Too detached. In going through the trajectory of their careers and most seminal works, the book explores the ways in which a disavowal of sentimentality by female artists, who are most likely to be accused of it, translates to a powerful stance. Informally dubbed as the "school of the unsentimental," the book examines how human nature is better understood when pain and suffering are processed at an arm's length.

For a sentimental person like me, the impersonality espoused by the book is a kind of wish-fulfillment. I have long admired Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, and I understood the effortlessness of their works was what made them cool. I aspired to be like that. Because their voice seemed so uncaring and dismissive in their writing, they were able to crystallize the minutiae of life in more impressive detail. But I don't think I was fully able to grasp that until this book confirmed it for me.

I was most absorbed by Weil's philosophy of "attention" — attention that is stripped of sympathy and empathy. It is an absolute emptying of our selves, our egos, our feelings, our motivations. When one is "attentive," one renounces this active longing in order to receive what the world has to offer, without the interference of one's limited and biased perspective. For Weil, the problem of actively seeking is precisely that one is too eager to fill the void in our soul. As a result, one settles too hastily on something: a counterfeit, a falsity. It is thus crucial that attention be characterized by detachment. Also central to Weil’s ethics of attention is a certain level of disinterestedness, which is thus the only way we could act justly towards other people's suffering. When we are moved by sentiment, we keep putting ourselves in the narrative. This is not the way to act just; rather we must focus solely on the suffering — the affliction — of others objectively. Otherwise, we cannot truly know. And we cannot truly receive.

Nelson focuses on these women's works pertaining to tragedy and suffering: Arendt's use of irony and discussion of "the banality of evil" in Eichmann in Jerusalem, Susan Sontag's response to the September 11 attacks which did not call for unity but rather castigated the politics that led to the event, Mary McCarthy's rejection of empathy and solidarity in favor of confronting the pain of reality in The Company She Keeps, Diane Arbus's photographs of "the freaks" and the outcasts, Joan Didion's deep dive into grief after the deaths of her husband and daughter — these non-expressive, unemotional responses to reality all gave way to an aesthetic grounded in fact. To them, reality was the antiseptic to pain, and this antiseptic leads to true and actual catharsis. 

Tough Enough is an important book because it proposes that these six women's contributions to intellectual history challenges the modern insistence on empathy as a panacea to all our political and societal illnesses. Whether or not you agree with the case for "unsentimentality," these women's works were monumental in providing different considerations on how to face suffering. In dealing with suffering without trying to inhabit such a large emotional space, we are challenged to accept that empathy is not the only salve to our collective consciousness while still finding something meaningful in our objective collision with reality.

*

Peculiar, though: none of these books made me cry.¹ And yet how fitting, especially considering the last book's appeal to pragmatism. While I wasn't consciously seeking for a theme when I picked up these books, one certainly emerged. To seek out the facts, to make an objective attempt at reality, and to desire the truth, is to create the potential for transformation and action. To be confined to the label of "woman" is certainly a societal flaw that all these women sought to correct. They are embodiments of the female desire to reassess how society views them. They can be many things — caring, detached, emotional, cold, ambitious, facile — all at the same time. It doesn't have to be either/or, and they do not have to be punished for it. 

__

¹ That recognition belongs to "Promise Me, Dad" by Joe Biden, which I read during the height of typhoon Ulysses. By the time our power went back on, I was crying my eyes out on Beau Biden's passing.

(Photo credit: Michelle Obama by Jillian Tamaki; Notorious RBG by Adam Johnson)

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” she said. But then she added her own words: “if there is a steadfast commitment to see the task through to completion.” 

“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be? For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in."

(Photo credit: RBG by Anthony Savage; Michelle by Monica Ahanonu)

Life was teaching us that progress and change happen slowly. Not in two years, four years, or even a lifetime. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.