A WORLD OF PRETENDERS
By Kevin Stoda, Puerta Princesa, Philippines
I was staying in Ermita township this past month when I came across the Solidaridad Bookstore. As I have wanted to familiarize myself with Filipino culture and literature, I went in and browsed the shelves. I noticed a vast number works on the shelves by one F. Sionil Jose, born in 1924 in a small Pangasinan town. (I had traveled to Pangasinan on my honeymoon just this past year.) After perusing several of the Jose novels and non-fiction writings, I asked the attendant which of the many works would be the most exemplary, especially in understanding Filipino culture and history in our present day. I was persuaded to purchase the 4th book in the 5-part Rosales Saga.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/manoa/v018/18.1jose.html
This fourth book was entitled, THE PRETENDERS and was originally published the year of my birth, 1962.
http://www.engr.uvic.ca/~art/afsj.html
An editor's synapses of the novel proclaimed the work to be the story of one Antonio Samson, who is one of "many Filipinos who find themselves lost and betrayed with nowhere to run. But Antonio . . . is not just an Ilocano [northern region of Pangasinan on the Isle of Luzon] looking for his roots; he is also the modern Filipino who fails to act in a society bereft of decency and justice. This novel, "[now 5 decades old], continues to be read because of its contemproaneity and the insights it focuses on the dilemmas of social change. It is also the author's most translated novel."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Sionil_Jos%C3%A9
One of the more remarkable things about reading The Pretenders this summer was how it related to my own journey in life. The Pretenders both (1) mirrored and (2) reverse-mirrored characters and events in my life as well as the life of the main characters in this novel by Jose. More interestingly, because of my family dealings at the US Embassy in Ermita town and in the St. Luke Medical Annex (also in Ermita, a very infamous neighborhood in ManilaCity), I was forced to travel the streets some of the same streets as the main characters traveled as I read Jose's novel, The Pretenders. The brothels, bars, casinos, and love hotels are still there.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_summary_of_ermita_a_novel_by_Sionil_Jose
ABOUT THE AUTHOR--FRANCISCO SIONIL JOSE
Before reviewing the novel, The Pretenders (i.e. in light of my own experience in Ermita town and other parts of the Philippines and planet Earth), allow me to share a little about the author, F. Sionil Jose, and his background. First of all, in 2004, F. Sionil Jose won the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award for Literature. He has also won several other Asian and Filipino writing and journalism awards. Jose, who has written primarily in English, rather than his native language of Ilucano--or any of a dozen languages of the Philippines--, has made a tremendous impact on Asian literature, while often having too little recognition in most corners of his own homeland. (I would be surprised if more than one in ten Filipinos--in or outside the country--could tell you who he is. This may because he is so critical of the local plutocrats in Negros, Mindanao and Luzon.)
Le Monde author, Philippe Pons, writes of Jose, "Seldom has a writer reflected so well the qualities and the failings of his people. Francisco Sionil Jose . . . crossed this [past 20th] century embracing the hopes and the disillusions of his land: his essays and his articles as well as his novels are inseparable from the modern history of the Philippines."
Likewise, Ian Buruma, famed for his work on comparative historical memories of WWII in Europe and Asia, has noted that Jose is the "foremost Filipino novelist in English . . . his novels deserve a much wider readership than the Philippines can offer. His major work, the Rosales Saga, can be read as an allegory for the Filipino in search of an identity."
Finally, Ron Rennard of Discovery Magazine observed, "Together with the novels of Graham Greene, Andre Malraux, Joseph Conrad, Han Suyin, Yukio Mishima, F. Sionil Jose's Ermita is one of the top ten novels written on Southeast Asia."
It should be noted that aside from being a prolific novelist, Jose has worked as a journalist, a political organizer, an editor, and an entrepreneur. Similar to the character, Antonio Samson, in this novel, The Pretenders, Jose also lived many years in the USA and Europe. In summary, picking up a work from Jose to help one understand more about Philippines and Asia, therefore, sounded like a no-brainer to me.
