Accepting meanings

Last Saturday, What Things Mean by Sophia Lee, the 2014 Scholastic Asian Book Award grand prize winner, and Sula’s Voyage by Catherine Torres, also shortlisted and eventually ranked as the first runner-up in the same award, were both launched at the Pandayan Bookshop at Cedar Peak, corner General Luna and Mabini Streets, Kabayanihan, Baguio City.  

Both authors do us proud, as they topped a prestigious bi-annual literary competition that led to international publication.

Its website states that “The Scholastic Asian Book Award (SABA) is a joint initiative between the National Book Development Council of Singapore (NBDCS) and Scholastic Asia.” Its stated objectives are “To recognise excellence in fiction in Asian stories for children, showcase the diversity of literary talent within Asia, and encourage and inspire more Asian-themed books and stories.”

Happily, copies of both books were sent me several weeks ago. I just recently found the opportunity to read What Things Mean, which is a slimmer book, but I should also find some time soon to go through Sula’s Voyage.

For now, I’m also elated to find out that its author, Catherine Torres, whom I believe I had the opportunity to meet in Singapore when she was still with the diplomatic community there, has recently come up with another title, Mariposa Gang & Other Stories. A glowing review in South China Morning Post was written by no less than the Hong Kong-based literary doyen Peter Gordon, our friend who has been involved with the e-bookseller Paddyfield, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Man Asian Literary Prize, and Asian Review of Books.

We’ve also happily noted that Lee and Torres appear to have become fast friends since their one-two-punch of a triumph in Singapore two years ago, seeing as how they’ve launched their books together in Baguio.

Both ladies also happen to bolster my long-held contention that it’s been our female authors who have been distinguishing themselves when it comes to fiction.

Apart from our long-time expats in the US — Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Gina Apostol, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, and Marianne Villanueva among them — we should add Merlinda Bobis who’s long done her writing in Australia, Paris-based Reine Arcache Melvin, and Singapore-based F.H. “Ichi” Batacan, whose expanded novel Smaller & Smaller Circles is being turned into a movie. 

Andrea Pasion-Flores, who’s based in Manila but who travels often due to her involvement with the international literary agency Jacaranda, had her own short fiction collection, For Love and Kisses, drawing positive reviews and a shout-out from no less than Junot Diaz.

Of late, there’s Kristine Ong Muslim in Mindanao, a self-taught writer whose speculative fiction has been generating international recognition. Then too, we have Nikki Alfar, recent winner of a National Book Award for her short story collection, Now, Then, and Elsewhen, while Alma Anonas-Carpio and Anne Carly Abad both publish online.

At 32, Sophia N. Lee is still working on her Master’s in Creative Writing degree at the University of the Philippines.

I recall having a private mentoring session with Sophia as a writing fellow of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop in May of 2013. She showed parts of what was still her manuscript-in-progress of “What Things Mean.”

My memory toggles between whether that session had been at the Bais City Hall, on a midweek outing after we had chased dolphins on a boat while heading to the Manjuyod sandbar, or at a table in Kri restaurant on Silliman Avenue. But Sophia was certainly one of the very promising ones of that batch, which was uniformly strong.

I remember commending the effective way she introduced the father character in her coming-of-age story, and assuring her in all honesty that she had what it takes to be a good story-teller.

Her language was already so polished, in a deceptively simple, fluid way, and I think I told her that there really wasn’t much we could teach her anymore. Her resolve and fluency as a young writer were already very much in evidence.

Barely a year later, word reached us that her story “What Things Mean” had been chosen as one of the five finalists in the Scholastic Asian Book Awards competition, together with Catherine Torres’ “Sula’s Voyage.” And it wasn’t long before the good news became great news with their one-two finish over a Singaporean and a couple of Indian writers, all of them also women. 

Since its publication, What Things Mean has been justifiably gaining positive word. Indeed, Lee has written a remarkable narrative that will certainly appeal to young readers as well as everyone who appreciates a good read. 

The principal character’s first-person point of view dominates the narrative with such subtle charm. Olive Guerrero is 14, and different. Different, that is, from the rest of the seven women who live together in one house in a gated village. These include her Lola Celi, her single mother, two aunts and their respective daughters, who are slightly older than Olive.

Each brief chapter sports a particular word for a title, with its various definitions helping to usher in the section — in which the word usually figures, centrally, peripherally, and ironically for the most part. 

The first two chapters are titled “Jars” and “Pickles.” These turn out to be the front end of what will become bookends of a well-structured story. The rest of the title words also track Olive’s quiet, self-effacing search for meanings, especially to the mysteries in her life.

She has never known her father, of whom her mother refuses to say a word. Somehow, this void doesn’t turn so stark since her cousins who do have fathers also miss them for much of their lives. One uncle is a seaman who regularly sends home boxes of exotic fruits and postcards to his daughter, but only rejoins his family seasonally, while the other uncle is also an itinerant just for the heck of it.

The men’s absence from the household frames the daily ambience of harmony among the women of three generations — each to her own cache of cosmetics, a practice that Olive joins in rather late. This parallels her curiously light passage through all the niggling questions about herself and her relationship with the world. It is never a wrenching experience for her, even the cognizance that she stands out like a sore thumb within this familial realm of a generally pleasant quotidian.

She is darker than the other women in the extended family, her curly hair is different, her larger size belies a lack of athleticism that distinguishes her cousins, and she has no budding relationship with boys. Instead, she reads a lot, collects items, makes albums, and often goes off on her own to enrich her solitary, meditative hours.

Olive suffers no angst, however. She views everything with a gentle, knowing disposition, steadfastly pressing on with her inquiry into what things mean. Insights that she arrives at, even with seeming naivete, fortify her easy acceptance of her place in a universe of self-identification.

And the writing is formidably translucent.

“… Our street is mostly quiet except for a girl teaching her little brother how to ride a bike. I sit on the curb and watch them.

“The boy has a terrified look on his face. His big sister holds the bike seat.

“‘See, I’m here, holding on,’ she says, in a bored voice. ‘We’ve been over this a billion times. You just have to find your balance.’

“‘Don’t let go, OK?’ he says.

“‘Mmm-hmm,’ she replies, although she’s already done so. The girl half-watches as the little boy cycles a few feet on his own, not realising that he’s doing it on his own. When he does realise that his sister is no longer holding him up, he wriggles this way and that on his bike, and then crashes against the curb and falls  over onto a patch of grass.

“‘You told me you wouldn’t let go,’ he cries.

“‘I was close by,’ the girl says, half-looking up from her phone. I watch the pair as they move up the street and turn the corner, out of sight.

“Maybe, that’s how it’s meant to be. Maybe we all have to let go of things, and people, in order to keep our balance. Maybe that’s the only way to keep moving forward.”

Olive’s eventual discovery of steps to take to find her father is craftily devoid of drama. Only in one scene does she make a stand, when she finally confronts her mother.

“‘Who is DB Tempo, Mama?’ I ask her.

“She buries her face in her hands.

“‘I can always find out myself, if you won’t tell me,’ I say.

“She pulls her fingers away from her face and uses her hands to push herself up. ‘I forbid you to continue with this madness, Olive. There’s no going back with us if you disobey me this time.’

“I have never seen her more serious. There is no going around it. My hands ball into fists. I slam the open can of beans off of the counter. Its contents spill onto the white tiles. The mush forms a map of mess on the shiny floor. There’s splatter on the shirt I’m wearing. There’s splatter all over Mama’s beige pantsuit. The beans fill the kitchen with a pungent, musty smell. I leave Mama to clean up the mess.” 

The mess isn’t quite resolved when Olive gets her way and meets up with the man who had abandoned them. But there is hope that more meanings will unravel from kitchen to street, from home to the larger world out there. And this time it will be with her mother’s meaningful assent.

What Things Mean will also be launched at the Glorietta 1 branch of National Book Store at 2 p.m. on Aug. 6.