I've been thinking about Mark Cayanan's observation/claim from last Friday's The Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing in English softlaunch that the antho's main aesthetic stems from Western Modernist tradition. I want to admit that it was something that was under my radar as I was thinking about and reading for and editing and rethinking about the anthology, but as soon as I saw Mark's notes about it a few minutes before the talk, it made perfect sense to me.
I've been thinking about why exactly did it make perfect sense: I said quite a few things about Recherche/z Modernism during the talk (somewhere in the second mp3 linked above, I think), but what I neglected to remember to mention was how Recherche/z Modernism - Postmodernism without the Irony (or what I also called PostIronic Metafiction) - may actually be a Pinoy strain of Postmodernism.
Not nationalist Pinoy but more the Pinoy Writer's irrepressible urge to find and cling to macronarratives even in the face of the macros' fragmentation into micros, ie, despite Jolography's and Dissonant Umbrellas's aggressive splintering/debasing of What Has Gone Before they are still primarily driven by macronarratives (history and language and nationalism for Jolography, history and language and art for Dissonant Umbrellas), by a making-sense-of-the-world spirit. So maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is a result/byproduct/exhibit G of what Pinoy Postmodern Literature is.
It could also be the country's general Romantic Catholic aesthetic rearing its big red head, the Modern Pinoy Writer's undying deference to the Sublime/Padrino/Matrona, to the Modern Pinoy Writer's undying worship of Artifice: so, instead of it being a departure in the way the Postmodern is in the West, maybe it's actually more a mutation of the Romantic Tradition, ie, the Old reregarded with rose- and sapphire-tinted spectacles. So maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is an exhibit of New New Romanticism.
It could also be because us editors Chingbee, Mark, and I are by and large fans of Western Modernist Literature and/or its many divergent schools of thought/thinking - from Stein to Eliot and Joyce to DADA and Bataille to the OuLiPo and the Situationist International and Pyschogeography to etc etc - so maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is an exhibit of what/how we understand new Philippine writing in English is/ought to be.
It could also be that to think of art history and tradition as history and tradition is narrowly bull-headed in the face of globalisation (or more accurately, glocalisation), so maybe, the search for a true taxonomical claim for the antho is also likewise narrowly bull-headed, and so the "new" here may actually merely mean "minted just this 2011" and nothing more.
I bet all of these things will be clearer (or chances are, murkier) in our intro for the antho, forthcoming this end of February 2011. For now, we'll have to settle for these efforts at inarticulation.
I've been thinking about why exactly did it make perfect sense: I said quite a few things about Recherche/z Modernism during the talk (somewhere in the second mp3 linked above, I think), but what I neglected to remember to mention was how Recherche/z Modernism - Postmodernism without the Irony (or what I also called PostIronic Metafiction) - may actually be a Pinoy strain of Postmodernism.
Not nationalist Pinoy but more the Pinoy Writer's irrepressible urge to find and cling to macronarratives even in the face of the macros' fragmentation into micros, ie, despite Jolography's and Dissonant Umbrellas's aggressive splintering/debasing of What Has Gone Before they are still primarily driven by macronarratives (history and language and nationalism for Jolography, history and language and art for Dissonant Umbrellas), by a making-sense-of-the-world spirit. So maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is a result/byproduct/exhibit G of what Pinoy Postmodern Literature is.
It could also be the country's general Romantic Catholic aesthetic rearing its big red head, the Modern Pinoy Writer's undying deference to the Sublime/Padrino/Matrona, to the Modern Pinoy Writer's undying worship of Artifice: so, instead of it being a departure in the way the Postmodern is in the West, maybe it's actually more a mutation of the Romantic Tradition, ie, the Old reregarded with rose- and sapphire-tinted spectacles. So maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is an exhibit of New New Romanticism.
It could also be because us editors Chingbee, Mark, and I are by and large fans of Western Modernist Literature and/or its many divergent schools of thought/thinking - from Stein to Eliot and Joyce to DADA and Bataille to the OuLiPo and the Situationist International and Pyschogeography to etc etc - so maybe, the truer taxonomical claim would be that the antho is an exhibit of what/how we understand new Philippine writing in English is/ought to be.
It could also be that to think of art history and tradition as history and tradition is narrowly bull-headed in the face of globalisation (or more accurately, glocalisation), so maybe, the search for a true taxonomical claim for the antho is also likewise narrowly bull-headed, and so the "new" here may actually merely mean "minted just this 2011" and nothing more.
I bet all of these things will be clearer (or chances are, murkier) in our intro for the antho, forthcoming this end of February 2011. For now, we'll have to settle for these efforts at inarticulation.
Basically, this is my response to Ser Neil Garcia's proposal to see Angelo Reyes's suicide as approaching the levels of an ethical statement, one that wishfully will be eventually understood as such.
I've been thinking about suicide for maybe five years now. I have a few thoughts about it. I will admit that what will follow is more an excuse for me to begin to articulate some of these thoughts. I have hopes that this will lead somewhere farther than mere thought exercise.
I don't think I'll be able to make the jump just yet from seeing Reyes's suicide as an act of cowardice into something approaching an ethical statement, seeing as with suicides, intent is everything - the one question asked about it again and again is "why did he do it?" - and I bet he didn't do it to make an ethical point about guilt and conscience: he just wanted out of his day of reckoning really really bad.
To analyse and elevate this particular act of suicide as being something worthy of praise - to describe it as an ethical statement - is to separate it from (or more likely, to be selective about) its particular circumstance, which renders this particular act of suicide meaningless, or just as meaningful as jargon can make it seem meaningful.
In short, Reyes is not Mishima. In short, he did not kill himself for something he believed in. In short, the ethics boat sank when Reyes did not blow the whistle on all the money people were getting under the table way way back when it was first offered to him; it sank some more when he denied the allegations of the Magdalo soldiers; it sank some more when he said he couldn't remember ever pocketing P50 million. I think we need to thresh these things out first before we can talk about the CIA's behind-the-scenes manipulations, before we elevate the suicide into an ethical statement spurred by a son's failure to live up to his mother's memory.
I am suggesting, if context really is all, why not also talk about it along the lines of the suicide's likely concrete and immediate impetus instead of focussing only on its romantic nostalgic Catholic symbolism? I am thinking that both lines of inquiry will yield distinct yet complementary notions, especially if we're really aiming for a holistic context-is-all responsible ethical reading.
I've been thinking about suicide for maybe five years now. I have a few thoughts about it. I will admit that what will follow is more an excuse for me to begin to articulate some of these thoughts. I have hopes that this will lead somewhere farther than mere thought exercise.
I don't think I'll be able to make the jump just yet from seeing Reyes's suicide as an act of cowardice into something approaching an ethical statement, seeing as with suicides, intent is everything - the one question asked about it again and again is "why did he do it?" - and I bet he didn't do it to make an ethical point about guilt and conscience: he just wanted out of his day of reckoning really really bad.
To analyse and elevate this particular act of suicide as being something worthy of praise - to describe it as an ethical statement - is to separate it from (or more likely, to be selective about) its particular circumstance, which renders this particular act of suicide meaningless, or just as meaningful as jargon can make it seem meaningful.
In short, Reyes is not Mishima. In short, he did not kill himself for something he believed in. In short, the ethics boat sank when Reyes did not blow the whistle on all the money people were getting under the table way way back when it was first offered to him; it sank some more when he denied the allegations of the Magdalo soldiers; it sank some more when he said he couldn't remember ever pocketing P50 million. I think we need to thresh these things out first before we can talk about the CIA's behind-the-scenes manipulations, before we elevate the suicide into an ethical statement spurred by a son's failure to live up to his mother's memory.
I am suggesting, if context really is all, why not also talk about it along the lines of the suicide's likely concrete and immediate impetus instead of focussing only on its romantic nostalgic Catholic symbolism? I am thinking that both lines of inquiry will yield distinct yet complementary notions, especially if we're really aiming for a holistic context-is-all responsible ethical reading.
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