Even as “Barack Fever” hit the Philippines in last year’s US elections (knowing the repercussions, it’s as much the Philippines’ elections, too), I remained a skeptic. And I still am, to some degree. I was rooting for Hilary to be the next POTUS, not because she was a woman (although that’s a plus), but because I followed her work as a Senator and her gigantic fight to furthering the healthcare bill. I believed she had more mettle and experience than Obama as a leader.
But Barack became President, and I couldn’t feel bad, knowing he had a similar platform to Hilary and that the US just narrowly missed having a VP in the White House who had an atrocious grasp of US history and geography. Still, I was wary of the shiny young dynamo package (sponsored by Oprah and Target) that the Obamas presented.
I defnitely did not plan on reading Dreams From My Father, Barack’s autobiography and tribute to his father. But then I heard that the man could write, being elected the first black president of The Harvard Law Review. I was intrigued. I read the first lines of his book, and I realized instantly the book wasn’t ghost-written or hastily manufactured for the campaign. I had been a ghost writer for a politician once before and the BS meter definitely did not go off with this one.
Barack’s words in the book read like him: simple, incisive, direct, but soulful and raw. There’s an energy that reflects the man that we saw and heard during the debates. What’s most refreshing is the book’s exposure of Barack to the point of vulnerability, at times. The book talks about bigger issues like his mixed ethnic identity, political beliefs of his father, etc., but it remains personal and human. I think I’m starting to like the guy.
My favorite work of Arnold Arre has always been a draw between Mythology Class and Andong Agimat. But getting into the universe of Martial Law Babies, I have a strange feeling my favorites list is going to expand. It’s a “a nostalgic trip through some of the Philippines’ most colorful and compelling eras - from the rigidness of pre-EDSA Manila to the dizzying, commercially-intoxicated world of the new millenium.”
This is the third time I am rereading Winterson’s novel, The Passion. The first time was sophomore year in college, following my experience with her first book, Written on the Body (still my most beloved of her novels). It was such fuel for an aspiring writer like me. The second time I read it was durng a hiatus, in between jobs, in my twenties, before I went to her book reading and signing of The Lighthousekeeping at the 2004 Edinburgh Book Festival.
Last Christmas, I found this is a dusty corner of our shelf in Iloilo, and here I am reading it again. Each time I read it, it feels like the first time. And the parts I do remember come across as a case of deja vu.
Winterson’s works (especially Art Objects) need to be read and reread at different junctions of one’s life, like an anchor or a sort of small-scale bible.