21st Century Philippine Literature and the World Lesson 1

The World According to Raymundo Mata

[Excerpt]
By Gina Apostol

It was a bolt – a thunder bolt. A rain of bricks, a lightning zap. A pummeling of mountains, heaving,
violent storm at sea – a whiplash [1]. A typhoon, an earthquake. The end of the world. And I was in ruins. It
struck me dumb. It changed my life and the world was new when I was done. And when I raised myself from
bed two days later, I thought: it’s only a novel. If I ever met him, what would my life be? I lay back in bed. But
what a novel! And I cursed him, the writer – what was his name – for doing what I hadn’t done for putting my
world into words before I even had the sense to know what the world r was. That was his triumph [2] – he’d laid
out a trail, and all we had to do was follow in his wake. Even then, I already felt the bitter envy, the acid retch [3]
of the latecomer artist, the one who will always be under the influence, by mere chronology [4] always slightly
suspect, a borrower never lender [5] be. After him, all Filipinos are tardy ingrates. What is the definition of art?
Art is a reproach [6] to those who receive it. That was his curse upon all of us. I was weak, as if drugged. I
realized: I hadn’t eaten in two days. Then I got out of bed and boiled barako for me.

Later it was all rage [7] in the coffee shops, in the bazaars of Binondo. People did not even hide it –
crowds of men, and not just students, not just boys, some women even, with their violent fans – gesticulating [8]
in public, throwing up their hands, putting up fists in debate. Put your knuckles where your mouth is. We were
loud, obstreperous [9], heedless. We were literary critics. We were cantankerous: rude and raving. And no matter
on which side you were, with the crown or with the infidels [10], Spain or spolarium, all of us, each one, seemed
revitalized by spleen, hatched from the wombs of long, venomous silence. And yes, suddenly a world opened
up to me, after the novel, to which before I had been blind.

Still I rushed into other debates, for instance with Benigno and Agapito, who had now moved into my
rooms. Remembering Father Gaspar’s cryptic injunction [11] - “throw it away to someone else,” so that in this
manner the book has traveled rapidly in those dark days of its first printing, now so nostalgically glorious,
though then I had no clue that these were historic acts, the act of reading, or that the book would become such a
collector’s item, or otherwise I would have wrapped it in parchment and sealed it for the highest bidder, what
the hell, I only knew holding the book could very likely constitute a glorious crime – in short, I lent it to
Benigno.

Vocabulary builder:
1. (n.) something resembling a blow from a whip
2. (n.) a great or important success or achievement
3. (v.) to vomit or feel as if your about to vomit
4. (n.) the order in which a series of events happened
5. (n.) someone who lends you something
6. (n.) an expression of rebuke or disapproval
7. (n.) a sudden expression of anger
8. (v.) to move your arms and hands especially when speaking in an angry or emotional way
9. (adj.) difficult to control and often noisy
10. (n.) a person who does not believe in a religion that someone regards as the true religion
11. (n.) to direct or impose by authoritative order or urgent admonition

References:
For vocabulary builder: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/
Uychoco, M.T.A. (2016 Edition) 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World, Rex Printing Company, Inc., Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City

1 Student Copy/ Handouts by Mrs. Rose Emmanuelle D. Garcia

This document is created solely for academic purposes and not for reproduction.