by: Nene Pimentel

(Comments given on the occasion of the launching of Antonio Enriquez's latest novel, The Living and the Dead, on September 17, 1994, at the VIP Hotel, Cagayan de Oro City)

I HAVE A confession to make.  When Joy Enriquez asked me days ago to do an oral review during the launching of the novel, The Living and the Dead, written by her husband, Tony Enriquez, I did not quite know how to respond.  First because I have not done any review of any novel before.  And second, because I haven't touched a novel for at least half a year now, having spent my leisure on reading history, biographies and the bible.  And at that point when Joy talked to me, I did not have any intention of breaking that trend.  

     On second thought, however, I remember that years ago, I had pored over Tony's Surveyors of the Liguasan Marsh and had con- cluded that here was a first-rate Filipino author who definitely could hold his own against any writer of any nationality in English story-telling.  In brief, I was impressed.  And that first impression of Tony's ability as a writer won the day for Joy's request.

     And so, here I am attempting to do an oral review of Tony's second novel, The Living and the Dead.  Incidentally, his third novel, Subanons, had won last year's Palanca Grand prize for literature while still in manuscript form.  But to go back to The Living and the Dead, after having had the pleasure of reading it, I add my humble voice to the chorus of accolades heaped upon Tony Enriquez by foreign critics who find him a "consummate story teller" (Jacob Wu of Asiaweek) and one of the "two ... leading Filipino writers in English", the other one being the legendary Nick Joaquin (Alison Broinowski of the ASAA).

     The novel revolves around the death watch which a family of old time Zamboangueos, the Gonzaleses, keep over their dying patriarch, Don Flavio, and the struggle among members of the clan --- those who want to cling to the facade of wealth and preeminence of Don Flavio in the days of yore by giving him an elabo- rate burial against those who want to be practical and cheap in their preparations for his last trip to the cemetery.

     As the death-watch progresses into the inevitable hour, when the don breathes his last, one sees intrigue, duplicity, greed, plots and counterplots swirl around the characters which are in reality not merely true as truth  is reflected in a work of fiction like the novel but, indeed, true as life is truth.

     One reads of Fernandito, a grandson of the don, now a lawyer, who proposes to his cousin, Alberto, to affix the dying don's signature on an extrajudicial document dividing Flavio's estate, even as the latter was already comatose.  And of Alber- to's reposte:  "But what about delicadeza?  That old tradition rooted in our family, that has kept it honorable and respectable, without which our family would have rotted and crumbled like a rotted coconut log?"  This outburst coming from Alberto is ironic in the thoughts of Fernandito, who knows that Alberto had, him-  self brought shame to the Gonzales family "by fighting in the street, sleeping off his drunkenness in a public place like Plaza Pershing, and associating with that Moro outcast Oto and his gang of roughnecks ...."  Then there is Gerardo intriguing against Cecilia whom he calls a "very crafty, guileful woman" who had rummaged through Don Flavio's old trunk while the old man was still warm."  And Alberto's own suspicions, which turned out true, that his cousins, Gerardo and Cecilia and Tia Laura had stripped Don Flavio's room of his personal belongings without "waiting for the old patriarch's body to be taken away or left to rest in its grave ...."

     Although the book is in a sense ethnic and local (read the passage about giants and gnomes or kapri or manitianak as we Cagayanons would put it, on p. 62), because of the attention to detail that Tony puts into his characterization of the novel's protagonists, the fluidity of his style and the richness of his language that borders on the lyrical, the story gets rivetting.

     Look at Tia Margarita: "... her hair, thick, is almost of pure gold, and hairline threatening to join her eyebrows which rise as she peers at Alberto" (p. 27).  Or Fernandito whose bum leg carries "a bullet hole which still had not totally dried so that one could insert a small stick through" (p. 31).  Or the prayers for their safety with which the Gonzales womenfolk storm heaven while they are hiding in a bomb shelter from retreating Japanese troopers"  "Rising in singular ripple, from the barrel of his bomb-shelter, the hum of prayers droned in a wavering pattern like a swarm of bees" (p. 35).

     Beautiful.  Ole!  I shout to myself seeing in my mind's eye Tony, the toreador gracefully evading the horns of a raging bull in a Spanish corrida.  Bravo!  the acclaim explodes in my brains as Tony intrudes into my view like a prima ballerina doing the dying swan in a bolshoi ballet.  For even these passages alone make reading the novel a pleasure-trip, indeed.

     But I am getting ecstatic and long-winded.  I am afraid that if I go on, I'd be using more words than the 182 pages of Tony's book.

     Having said that, let me stress that the novel also relates hilarious circumstances that are all so true --- even today.  One reads of a fleeting character in the book who could very well be any village's or community's pompous ass --- Tony uses the more polite "a prominent citizen" --- who argues that "freedom of defecation in the streets was not a virtue of a civilized city, nor the right of a horse which had no rights in the city charter or the country's constitution."  All he had really wanted to say was that horses drawing calesas or tartanillas, as we call them in this city should not be allowed to drop waste on city streets but should be provided with "flour-sack receptacles strung behind their rumps."  And again, there is the Visayan casket-vendor, whose hard tongue "is unused to the Chavacano soft vowels" so that he changes the "I's into "e"s and vice versa and the "v"s to "b"s and who is chided by Seorita Clara for calling her "Siora Clara".  Or the village girl, who could be anyone's favorite aspiring yodeler, who sang:  "Lab is a many-splendored think ... a reason to be livink, a kolden crown that mayges a man a kink" (p. 43).

     I won't tell you how the novel ends.  It will deprive you of the delight and the excitement of discovering for yourself whe- ther or not Don Flavio gets the funeral that he deserves.  That would be cruel to do to you who still have to read the book and to Tony, who wants you to get a copy.

     As I wind up, however, may I mention in passing a very slight historical inexactitude in the novel which refers to Cagayan de Oro "during the war" (p. 87).  The point may be perti- nent to me only because I am a Cagayanon.  Cagayan de Oro is a post war terminology.  We became Cagayan de Oro city only in  1950.  During the war, Cagayan de Oro was simply Cagayan, Misamis Oriental.  That all too minute lapse in historical reference, aside, I commend the book to all those who love good, clean literature in fluid, forceful English and to those who would like to peek at the living past in the pulsating present as lived by the characters in the novel. 

     In sum, I see Tony Enriquez's book:  The Living and the Dead as more than a novel.  It is a historical commentary that bears a kernel of truth concerning the evanescence of wealth that, unfor- tunately, to this day, continues to define many a person's atti- tude towards life in purely mundane terms, forgetting that man is not only a body, he also has an immortal soul.

     Congratulations are due to the author, Tony Enriquez, for this enjoyable work of historical fiction which makes for very interesting reading.  Cagayanons are particularly proud of him because we would like to think he is one of ours --- not only due to the ephemeral reason of his residing in our beautiful city now, but by reason of the eternal bond (or is it bondage?) he has willingly (I hope) assumed by marrying Joy who traces her roots to Cagayan de Oro city.

     Daghang salamat sa inyong pagpaminaw.