Stories | Kerima Polotan

It was a Tuesday last sem.
And I willingly outed myself as someone who hasn't read anything by Bienvenido Santos in class.

After shock and horror: mentor advised me to warm up more on the canon.

To be honest I can't read everything on the list mentor gave me, but I'm doing what I can:
So one canonical author down: Kerima Polotan.

The selection of stories in the volume deal mostly with corruption--this passing of innocence in its many faces. The first few cuts didn't hook me that much I must admit--but I agree with the observation that Polotan certainly possesses mastery of English--or "e"nglish [ :-) ]. Also, I don't know why but I have this pet peeve with articled titles (curious) [Particularly "The" followed by a noun] and she has decided to let most of the narratives bear this masts: The Door, The Virgin, The Tourists...The Giants. As a consequence this aspect takes away a point in the book's favor (hehehe). Why? Does it suggest a lack of imagination or laziness on the author's part? I have no idea, but maybe what gets to me is not so much the use of articles but the economy? But this doesn't make sense either, why should I hold this against her?...I give up, I'm dropping it.

Most if not all of the stories deal with domestic dramas. They involve female protagonists ranging from a little girl experiencing her first period, a young writer fresh from college, to an adulterous wife.

I am more drawn to the narratives dealing with infidelity (because that's the way I like it--and because I have seen much of it in my family [issue!]). And the story "A Various Season" is one of my favorites. It's about Lourdes, a woman, a mother and a wife, who has a womanizing husband but the focus is on her First act of adultery against her husband, how she came to have a lover--with a tractor seller, Red--who unfortunately really loves her.

A passage goes:

"I love you," he said, and the quarrel had flared up because she said, "What do you mean? Exactly how do you mean that, Red?"

"You want a diagram?" Red asked. "Why not," she replied, "draw me one, as if love were a machine you were selling me Red. Draw lines from a center and let them radiate in all directions, would they touch what, the periphery of your limbs, and converge where, around your hips and stop there? And that is all? And that is love?"

Panalo. Reminds me of another great adulterous narrative, Lawrence's Lady Chatterley, I can't forget how she once said, "is this love? this bouncing of the buttocks?" or something like that. LOL

I just like how the story completely blurs what is right and wrong in the name of marriage, sex and love.

"The Giants" is also notable too, it chronicles Carmen's decent into high society (hayup paradox!) as a young idealistic writer for a notable magazine's society page. With an interesting insight on how the wives of all these powerful men seem to have the upper hand in all of their husband's affairs, one is particularly reminded of Marcos and Imelda.

And lastly the story "Cost Price" which is about a working class man (a book seller) and woman (a small town librarian) struggling to keep a relationship beset with the high cost of living, financial security and the realizing of dreams. I like this on a number of levels hehehe first off I could relate to it--in a vague sense. Cause I liked a rich girl once...way out of my league that sorta thing. I still think about her though, maybe because it's a big "wha--anywaayyysss the story is also cool cause it has "books" as part of its worlding. The last scene though sad, is how they tried to make love in a small room in the library...how they tried to consummate the future of their relationship.

Ayos.