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A review by dessuarez
Tiempo Muerto by Caroline S. Hau
5.0
Holy fuck, one of the best books I've read from a Filipino writer. Like comparable to Nick Joaquin levels I'm not even joking rn.
Hau's background as a historian and scholar has enabled her to create such an expansive, nuanced, and accurate picture of the archipelago -- with emphasis on its archipelagic nature; this book is distinctively regional, weaving in stories from the islands of Panay, Negros, and Cebu specifically. There must be a name for her method, like world-building but there's a bibliography at the end, and everything is real actually. Everything Hau has somehow been able to thoroughly discuss in this book -- the fiefdoms dating back to Spanish times, the shameless, debauched padrino system, the repression and violence experienced by activists and workers even to this day, the rebellions that resulted from it -- these are not fictional, it's true. She did her damn research and she's got the bibliography to prove it!
I read this because it is categorically a Martial Law novel, but it would be a hundred pages yet before any references to the dictatorship is actually made, and the words Martial Law and dictator are used maybe just 2-4 times in the book. Which is how I know it's a good Martial Law novel, because it depicts the aftermath of that extended period of stagnation, through the lives of OFWs who have had to carry that burden for our nation. The book does not ever mention the Marcoses explicitly and barely even implicitly. This Martial Law novel is about the dictstorship's catalysts and biggest beneficiaries, the crony. The crony who is a landlord, who is heir to a feudal legacy that begun and will end this country, who is a businessman and politician, who has wrought so much destruction for no other reason but greed.
Do not read this as a mystery because that is not the point. You will be disappointed, you must think bigger. The point of the ghosts and crimes in this novel is not to solve or resolve them. The point is precisely to challenge an easy resolution, Bertolt Brecht style. This is a common characteristic of Philippine postmodern fiction (see: Nick Joaquin's Cave and Shadows) as a way to show what postcolonialism looks like not just through figures of speech but through the overall literary design. It's form. It's poetics. Honestly, I would even call it praxis.
Hau's background as a historian and scholar has enabled her to create such an expansive, nuanced, and accurate picture of the archipelago -- with emphasis on its archipelagic nature; this book is distinctively regional, weaving in stories from the islands of Panay, Negros, and Cebu specifically. There must be a name for her method, like world-building but there's a bibliography at the end, and everything is real actually. Everything Hau has somehow been able to thoroughly discuss in this book -- the fiefdoms dating back to Spanish times, the shameless, debauched padrino system, the repression and violence experienced by activists and workers even to this day, the rebellions that resulted from it -- these are not fictional, it's true. She did her damn research and she's got the bibliography to prove it!
I read this because it is categorically a Martial Law novel, but it would be a hundred pages yet before any references to the dictatorship is actually made, and the words Martial Law and dictator are used maybe just 2-4 times in the book. Which is how I know it's a good Martial Law novel, because it depicts the aftermath of that extended period of stagnation, through the lives of OFWs who have had to carry that burden for our nation. The book does not ever mention the Marcoses explicitly and barely even implicitly. This Martial Law novel is about the dictstorship's catalysts and biggest beneficiaries, the crony. The crony who is a landlord, who is heir to a feudal legacy that begun and will end this country, who is a businessman and politician, who has wrought so much destruction for no other reason but greed.
Do not read this as a mystery because that is not the point. You will be disappointed, you must think bigger. The point of the ghosts and crimes in this novel is not to solve or resolve them. The point is precisely to challenge an easy resolution, Bertolt Brecht style. This is a common characteristic of Philippine postmodern fiction (see: Nick Joaquin's Cave and Shadows) as a way to show what postcolonialism looks like not just through figures of speech but through the overall literary design. It's form. It's poetics. Honestly, I would even call it praxis.