Think about it
Frank Sionil Jose and Pangasinan
By Jun Velasco
“Writers are unsung architects of the universe,” — Archibald MacLeish
DURING the turbulent 60’s many of our young and “forever-young” adults would hang around two bookshops in Ermita, the Erehwon and La Solidaridad to be in tune with the intellectual outrage against US imperialism and its Philippine “lackey” Ferdinand Marcos.
Erehwon later closed shop, while Frank Sionil Jose’s shop has existed up to now.
In the 80’s, we used to visit him whenever we collected payment for our copies of our book (Entrances). Even then we already looked up to Frankie, as the late Condring Estrella fondly called him, our literary guru. How we marveled at his immensely furnished mind and his prodigious literary output.
We thank the province for inviting us to his lecture before teachers, students and, of course, writers, last week under the aegis of Malou Elduayan’s committee.
There was something in Mr. Jose we wish the other great writers shared: his passion to share to the young his intimate experience and detailed preparation as a writer.
You’d be amazed that age 87, Mr. Jose is still in his elements, not slackening his pace and output in writing novels, short stories, essays, newspaper articles, plays and poetry.
A National Artist in Literature, Jose is a fellow Pangasinense from Rosales town. How he loved to talk about his boyhood. His audience, mostly young, look up to him like a god. But he never disappoints anyone who would ask him about this and that even if the question bordered on the inconsequential; he was always “available.” Very humble, witty, some times funny, he projects one who already transcends all categorizations.
We, academe outsiders, opted to sit at the back of his lecture to have a clear view of his audience’s receptiveness and responsiveness and of his way with the spoken word.
His natural-ness, simple and easy discourse on profound subjects make him a model communicator. He has the conversationalist’s gift of using local color, simple and picture words that glue his audience to their seats. Even after his more than 3-hour talk, the audience won’t let him go. Were it not for some sympathetic guy who warned that the octogenarian might already be dead tired, he wouldn’t have stopped.
A son-in-law of Dagupan by his marriage to the former Tessie Jovellanos, Jose was last year ASNA awardee in Literature, just like our Ermin Garcia Jr., who was cited for his excellence in journalism this year.
In the national level, talk, Mr. Jose was a National Artist and Ramon Magsaysay Awardee.
Back to his lecture, even after his long talk, journalists Orly Guirao and Dennis Mohares and writer Brian Fernandez, members of a convenor group that is forming PEN – Pangasinan which was intimated to us by poet Santiago Villafania, had the temerity to corner and “bludgeon” Jose with more questions about literature, writers, national and world events; the forever young writer remained ebullient and unscathed.
He delighted his audience with his description of Jose Garcia Villa as a great but narcissistic writer, making his writings like outputs of “masturbation.” Frankie Jose has disdain for Jose Maria Sison because “his writings are propaganda.”
Although he is an inspiration to many writers, he gave the impression that he is an agnostic, confessing that there are times he couldn’t accept that God would allow good men to be killed in senseless violence. But he urged writers to “be of noble bearing, capable of lofty deeds, or at the very least, live in a manner that enables us to look others straight in the eye.”
Aside from Jose, the province has produced another great personage in Literature, Carlos Bulosan of whom he has good words.
It will probably take decades if not a century when the province would be able to produce another Jose.
While walking with him to the province’s resort, we felt like a freshman again beside a guru with rekindled thirst for literature.
We later informed charming wife Tessie that our mother’s sister Paz was married to a Llamas, a close kin of the Jovellanos, after which we asked Mr. Jose to write the Foreword to the much awaited book of poems written by the bard from Labrador and Dagupan, the late Bayardo Enciso Estrada.
He said “yes.”
Watch for the book, finally.
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