Our brief but wondrous lives

This week's winner

Irish Christianne Dizon is waiting for the results of the 2008 Foreign Service Examinations. She is a “near-constant fixture at the DFA library and the National Library.”

Jessica Zafra has no idea how much influence she has over her readers. She saved me from living a life characterized by consuming a light and frothy, but nutritionally empty media diet of predictable chick lit, supernatural loves stories, and borderline vapid magazines. One day, while I was browsing through her website, I read her entry about the book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

Her chosen passage was so compelling that I made a detour to the bookstore to satiate my thirst for more nerdiness. I knew there was a delicious marrow to this one because it won a Pulitzer Prize, and the critics were falling off their chairs giving it praises. I had to see if it was all hype, or if it was really doggedly good. After all, positive reviews simply provide the initial push; the final verdict still rests on the critical, thinking individual.

By the time I got to the opening footnote on the second page, I knew I would be reading this one all the way to the john.

The appeal of this book lies in its universal quality. Every third-world ghetto nerd will find himself relating to the story of the De Leon family. All the familiar elements are present: the grandmother who projects quiet authority; the formidable and workaholic single mother; the once-docile older sister who eventually finds out she has an incurable wanderlust; the fat, brainy little brother who’s hopeless with women; and the virile, coke-addicted uncle who provides unintended comic relief at his “highest.”

Heck, the author could’ve been writing about my dysfunctional and crazy but loving clan. Diaz’s writing style is peppered with lewd humor and unflinching honesty. His use of colorful cusswords to elucidate his points drew several laugh-out-loud moments! The pervading references to curses (Fuku) and curse “antidotes” (Zafa) are very Filipino. Another Pinoy angle this book touched on was the desire of women of color to have aquiline noses, milky white skin and long, straight hair. Apparently, the quest to become a Maria Clara prototype isn’t limited to this side of the planet. Furthermore, their suppression under the dictatorship of El Jefe is something we would understand with acuity because we went through a US-backed, martial law regime ourselves. The Dominican Republic and the Philippines have a lot in common — from the Spanish Occupation to the diaspora, to the cityscape, to the incomparably beautiful women. This book shows that between former colonies, shared experiences abound.

Some realizations I had after reading the book are partly mean and hilarious! For instance, in the chapter aptly called “The Golden Age,” readers are reminded of the reality that some of the cutest and brightest children end up becoming, well, ugly and plagued by chronic unhappiness, so parents shouldn’t gloat prematurely about their “little machos” or their “future beauty queens.” Others ring with profound truths such as the poignant fact that when good girls go bad, they’re gone forever. From thence, they can only become great. There are also very relatable love truths that everybody has been through at some point: that the “Let’s be friends vortex” is a very sad place to be at; that we fall the hardest for people who are all wrong for us; that when crazy in love, our senses become sophisticated filtering machines and we become blind to the true nature of things. Thankfully, it also brings to light the fact that women can do a “Saturn Return,” meaning, we are capable of turning our backs on philandering partners without looking back.

This is a story rife with history, events that actually happened, which makes it all the more unsettling to read. The unspeakable injustices that occurred throughout the 20th-century Dominican Republic are so extreme that one ends up hoping that maybe the author was just exaggerating certain events to up the ante. Sadly, he was not. Many times in the course of reading, it was reiterated that history repeats itself, and that the secret to surviving life is to know your history and to learn the lessons it presents. Too often, life gives us many well-placed clues that we choose to ignore.

Another constant in the story is life’s sick sense of irony. When we least expect it, when our defenses are all down, that’s when shit not only happens, but pours forth. Thankfully, we can always count on faith to pull us through. Prayers, when intense and heartfelt, make miracles happen. Even if life gives us severe beatings — beatings that have the capacity to break us utterly — we have what it takes to overcome the insurmountable. Draw from your inner reservoir — if it’s anger, hatred, or disgust — just take it and so be it.

We are blessed with incredible tenacity and the ability for self-preservation. To survive the most harrowing ordeals, erase disturbing thoughts through will-invoked amnesia: five-parts denial, five-parts negative hallucination.

Finally, themes surrounding the country, the macrocosm, so to speak, are tackled. The author is able to eloquently show that the political and social milieu plays a pivotal role in the private lives of citizens. Diaspora is not a uniquely Filipino condition. People leave their countries behind because their leaders have failed to establish the environment that creates jobs and a productive economy for the long run. (That or they’re running away from something or someone.) In the horrifying description of El Jefe and his reign, I also realized that we tend to take our freedom for granted. Writers and dictators are natural enemies, and I feel grateful to have been born at a time where people are free to express their views, no matter how anti-government, without fear of being fed to ravenous sharks, piece by piece.

I was beyond satisfied with the book. There are no gaps in the story, and the author also shows respect for people’s intellects by not spoon-feeding details. Readers are left to their own devices to decide for themselves which are the more plausible explanations on why certain things are the way they are. Some questions are unanswered because, the truth is, some stories cannot be told in full. Like it or not, life is full of blank pages.

Ten, 20, 100 years down the line, this book will continue to be relevant. Oscar Wao’s life was brief, but he led one full of courage, shameless intelligence, and above all, unconditional love. We can’t all have monuments erected to our names, but we can all choose to live life with the quality of our biographies in mind.

Thanks to Oscar, I’m already starting on mine.