I have read the various negative, almost violent, reactions of many sectors to the book of Dan Brown, which is allegedly entitled Gates of Hell but I have not read the book itself, assuming it really does exit. Please take note that I do not call this brown (small letter b, please) person mister, or sir or honorable, like I am trained to when writing about other people in this column. Indeed, normally, I would have bought his book, read it and perhaps offer my two cents worth of opinion. But buying a copy makes him already achieve the advertisement purpose of his writing and I do not want to give him that pleasurable feeling.
Let me explain. According to the reactions already raised by decent men, brown spoke of the proliferation of prostitutes in Manila. I do not know how he described it really because remember I do not intend to buy his book. Anyway, lawyers refer to their witnesses as credible if their testimony is based upon their own personal knowledge. Information relayed to court from other person's perceptions is hearsay. For brown to speak of the flesh traders in our nation's capital, he must have personal experience.
Did brown engage the services of a prostitute? Assuming he did (for otherwise, he could not have allegedly written about them in his book), was it a Filipina whose sexual prowess he wanted to try? Or did he bring a woman from wherever he came and satisfied his trysts in our shores? If he sought a brown-skinned lady for a hot bed partner, was she different from any other woman? Or more accurately, was the performance of the prostitute different from his own woman? Finally on this point, granting that his experience did not meet his expectations, did he pay her for whatever services she did?
This brown fella allegedly spoke of the dirt in Manila. Was there dirt in the hotel where he stayed? In the hotel restaurant where he presumably must have taken his breakfast in his stay in the Philippines, did he eat with cockroaches nibbling at his plate? If that was his experience, then he chose not to billet in a hotel. It was not in a hotel where he slept. He tried to save some expenses by paying the cost of a poor man's bed space, which could perhaps, characterize his own house. That being his choice, he had to right to lambast at the situation.
A traveler is normally minded to look for the best of the places he intends to visit. That is what tourism is about. This brown guy, as a traveler, was probably abnormal. Obviously, the sights on the top his wicked itinerary were not the best our country could offer. By seeking to touch the grime, in a manner of speaking, he demonstrated how sick his mind was.
Well, gates of hell. This brown journeyman must have passed thru the gates of the hell of his life. We may not know it really, but, who knows that his family experience could have been hellish. For want of information on this hell-of-a-writer, I could only ask him if he would agree with a psychology book I read years ago as it informed me that a bitter family relationship is worse than hell. Did he go thru it?
When brown was rebuked, point-by-point, by some scholars of the Catholic Church for his perverted imagination in writing about the Da Vinci, he could have gone thru a hell-of-a fire he never expected nor imagined was forthcoming. Miresisaato pang pinulongan!
Having that kind of very disturbing experience could be the only way brown could have written about the gates of hell. By telling how hell looks like, the writer must have experienced the fires of hell himself. I am really sorry for him.