Answering Gardy By A.M.B. Apalisok
l miglior fabbro, the better craftsman, hence, the master; this was a tempting title for this piece, thanks to T.S. Eliot’s own dedication to his mentor and editor Ezra Pound. Which is to say that when it comes to the arts for which I hold a mystifying torch, Gardy is one of my very few idols.
Gardy of course is Lutgardo Labad. Make that The Gardy, the only one hereabouts and the only Gardy in the Philippine art scene. If I got it right, Gardy is one of the so-called Petatsings, that pioneering youth group plucked out from various backgrounds to make whole what is known as the Philippine Educational Theater’s Association or PETA.
Aaahh, such stuff that dreams are made of. And spun, and flung. I only wish to answer Gardy’s email of some months back. Lucky me (please, not the noodles) as one of Gardy’s email recipients, I got this email about registering with a group and sharing what books one reads.
As I don’t have the inclination for such faceless correspondence with a group, which is short of admitting that low-tech me don’t know how to proceed after reading Gardy’s email (the reason why I never answered invitations from friends to join groups like Friendster or some other techie name), this piece, therefore, is my answer to Gardy.
There are two thin pocketbooks that through some mysterious ways I may just get to memorize one day. I reach for these two whenever I feel low, anywhere. It is my habit to slip these, together with Time and Newsweek magazines, into the outside pocket of my carry-on bag on long trips. Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Nobel Laureate Juan Ramon Jimenez’s Platero and I convince me that a bit of heaven can be found in literacy.
One tackles literature better if one is mindful of history. Literature without history, and vice versa, is like ice cream without the ice. Thus my interest in the classics hasn’t waned, from the ancient to the more current ones of which European literature has the most voluminous legacy.
There will always be William Shakespeare for me. It was reading his complete works, yes, complete, that I began to need thick reading glasses.
But I’m not too picky in my choices as long as I have the reading leisure, from John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Stephen King, to Amy Tan. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention J.K. Rowling.
I’m proud of my complete hardbound Harry Potter books, whose every arrival I’d stake a full meal for the chance to finish reading in one sitting. Thanks to the husband for six of these books and to my friend Helen Sarigumba Sarayno who years ago brought from the US a requested copy of the fourth book, together with cans of special diet food for our obese cat. She had me choose only one of either items, but brought both anyway because I didn’t answer.
Which reminds me, books about cats, be they pet care advice books, T.S. Eliot’s, or some dude’s How To Kill Your Girlfriend’s Cat, are fun, sentimental, and enlightening.
I’m on my third book of Ian McEwan (Saturday, The Innocent), fast becoming one of my current favorites. The Keira Knightley-starrer Atonement is the movie version of his book.
The erudite Umberto Eco also inspires (The Name of the Rose, The Island of the Day Before). So does Stephen Hawking with A Brief History of Time, though this gave me a racing pulse.
Filipino artists are equally good reads. Gregorio Brillantes makes one yearn for our countryside, Nick Joaquin is all things great and literary, and today’s Dr. Resil Mojares, poet and judge Simeon Dumdum, Jr., and Cesar Aquino with his mellifluous essays are all worth one’s reading while, to name a few.
Reading poetry heightens reading pleasure. Mine can be had at home, the husband being a poet whose works I came across long before I saw the man and concluded that he is poetry’s Baryshnikov. Expectedly, our home has his books.
And there’s the book of books worthier of repeated reads. In its completeness, either from a religious or literary perspective, one can find the meaning of worship, the best and worst of man, history, murder and mayhem, imagery, and different literary genres. The Psalms of David alone stands out as great poetry.
As a literary work, the King James version has the edge. For better understanding and insight, the Jerusalem Bible is incomparable, and is thus the greatest book of all.
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