Abstract: Review of Ninotchka Rosca, State of War (New York: Norton, 1988).Against pessimism which results from harsh realities of his experience, Milan Kundera contrasts a parallel world in which he has never lost faith, that which he calls the depreciated legacy of Cervantes:(1) world of novel. Kundera believes that novel protects humanity from forgetting of by keeping `the world of life' under a permanent light.(2) This gives novel potential to add an enriching and nurturing dimension to existence, most particularly when it is devalued by oppressive historical and political forces. Such potential is amply fulfilled by a novel written in exile about a country whose history has been one of brutality and torment: Philippines. The novel is State of War by Ninotchka Rosca.When Rosca was asked why she, a journalist by profession, should turn to fiction in order to tell story of her country and its people, she replied: When people learned I was doing what they called `the big book', I was constantly being asked if I was writing about Marcos. This was in 1977. No, I'd say, Marcos is a boring subject. You already know what's going to happen to him. He's either going to die or he's going to be overthrown -- he's just another dictator. The problem was how to tell a story that was not anybody's story yet was everybody's story.(3)The story turned out, naturally, to be somebody's story, as well as everyone's -- an encapsulation of Filipino past and future. Rosca found herself turning away from documenting manipulations of political `heavyweights', based on actual figures in government who were, at any rate, busily shaping their own version of history. Instead, she focused on three young people: Adrian Banyaga, Anna Villaverde and Eliza Hansen. As novel begins, these three are on board a ship, on their way to an island in south for celebration of a festival.These characters allow Rosca to explore the world of life in its multitude of forms. They live through vagaries of experience within bounds of a state which denies them most basic of freedoms and subjects them to various forms of surveillance. Adrian, heir to a great fortune, discovers limitations of privilege and confusions in his own nature when he is captured and toyed with by military strongman, Colonel Urbano Amor. Unsure of Amor's motives and unaware of his powerful grandfather's secret strategies against regime, Adrian remains a true innocent, a man who would have fared far better in a less treacherous time. On other hand, Anna, who is Adrian's lover, has seen and experienced most horrific aspects of tyranny. As wife of a political activist, Anna found herself caught in a whirlwind of civilian rebellion and state repression. Her husband abandons her in order to save his own skin, and Anna is imprisoned and tortured in retaliation. She is only saved from almost certain death by manipulations of her best friend, Eliza, a high-class courtesan whose favours are sought by two powerful Colonels.Rosca's graphic writing powerfully recreates pain, perils and desires of her characters. In love between Anna and Adrian, in friendship and loyalty between Anna and Eliza, she creates a strong nexus of human relationships which holds firm against annihilating machinery of totalitarian state. Her fiction reaches for human reality behind creative lies of ruling men, beyond perversity of a man like Amor, who calls his torture chamber the romancing room, who does not rape his victims but prefers to disinter their private lives and fuck soul.The poignancy of situations of Adrian, Anna and Eliza also stands in stark contrast to pedantries of state's bureaucracy, which hides its intentions behind subtlest of orchestrations. In a passage of black humour, Rosca recounts a speech made by a government functionary who is so versed in intricacies of jargon that he requires a translator:Why be content with providing only alternative of vertical sepulchrization? …
Publication Year: 1989
Publication Date: 1989-05-31
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot