New Lease on Life: O'CONNOR The Violent Bear It Away

This novel published in 1960, was written by Flannery O’Connor while she was battling a debilitating disease that has left her crippled. It was probably because of her difficult physical condition that she increasingly turned to her faith for emotional and psychological support. During her lifetime, there was no treatment yet available for lupus, the disease which also claimed her father’s life. She retired to a restricted life, under the care of her mother, in a farm in Milledgeville, Georgia where she produced her brilliant novel and her celebrated short stories.

The Violent Bear It Away, like her other novel, Wise Blood, is a complex and extremely disturbing work. It’s about a 14-year old boy, Tarwater, who is split between his “destined” vocation as a would-be “prophet”, having been trained by his explosive, bible-thumping preacher-great-uncle Mason, and the secular, almost-fanatical rationalist views and lifestyle of his uncle, Rayber who had been estranged from the old man. The action revolves around Tarwater carrying out the assignment given by the now-dead Mason, to baptize Bishop, the idiot son of Rayber.

The problem is that the boy is reluctant and unconvinced of his vocation, and opposes and tries to reject his previous formation and calling with every fibre of his being, while at the same time, accepts none of the rationalization and psychology of his secular uncle. This provides the backdrop of the story, as Tarwater is locked in an inner battle with himself, against belief and acceptance.

The battle for Tarwater’s soul is reflected in the conflict of wills: Mason dies right from the start of the novel, but his presence is strongly felt throughout, he’s like the boy’s conscience. On the other hand, his conflict with his uncle is aided by an unseen, new “friend”, a sinister voice in his mind only made obvious in the last pages, who ultimately directs him to the final fearsome events of the novel: the drowning of his nephew, Bishop and his getting violently raped by a hitchhiker.

Much like in Wise Blood, O’Connor draws again from biblical events for her inspiration. The old man clearly represents the uncompromising John the Baptist, while Tarwater reminds one of the sulky Jonah in the Old Testament, who stubbornly refused his vocation until he is forced to a final choice.

Again, as a recurring theme for most of her works, violence is used here as the “agent of grace”. It is this final violation that made Tarwater realize the futility of his independence of will. God will get his way, and He will force you to accept his will, whether you want it or not.

The intensity of the conflict becomes apparent by the masterful descriptions of the settings. It’s as if nature were a witness to the supernatural combat over Tarwater’s soul as well. It is the classic fight between good and evil.

O’Connor’s religious convictions manifest itself in the novel. The story, according to the author, is about baptism, specifically baptism in Christ. Tarwater got a new lease on life, a new life in Christ. The violence and pain he underwent symbolized an important process of renewing his life, much like giving birth. This is his baptism.

It is like with us. We get a new life through baptism. The main difference is that we need not suffer, experience pain and violence anymore, because Christ has already done it for us on the Cross. In order to be eligible to this saving grace, however, there is only one condition: that we need to be “born again” and wash away our old sins (meaning original sin). We need baptism. That explains why for the author, it IS a matter of life and death.

Unfortunately, the so-called “born again” groups mistakenly think the words being “born again” means attending their bible studies, simply proclaiming “Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior” (does this phrase even exist in the bible?) and consequently joining their ranks in order to be saved “properly”. It is not. It clearly refers to the rite of baptism. Christ underscored the importance of this rite when he allowed himself to be baptized by John.

I remember clearly the pastor of my friend who gave an impromptu lecture, that baptism is unchristian and pagan, and Donita Rose proclaiming on TV that she doesn’t believe in baptism. I always wondered whether they knew what they were talking about.

O’Connor is certainly an apologist. But it is her extraordinary skills in conveying her convictions by dramatizing the individual’s conflict in accepting and opposing these that manages to startle. On the surface, she writes like a witch, the ferocity of the violence is unsettling. She once said that she had to “imbue this action (baptism) with an awe and terror which will suggest its awful mystery. (She had) to distort the look of the thing in order to represent both the mystery and the fact”.

Whether you subscribe to this belief or not, The Violent Bear It Away is a thought-provoking work, very much like Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, that forces us to understand, in no uncertain terms, that Christ died on the cross, saved us from sin and allows us to have a new, eternal life.

Big Berta

Nang Berta was our big neighbor with no front teeth. She, her husband and five kids lived right next door. Growing up in Bukidnon in the 1980s, inside a housing camp for employees provided by my father’s multinational employer, she was among the most fascinating characters in our part of the neighborhood. Her kids, Napie, Bam-bam and Jun-jun were my playmates.

Her style of raising her kids was out-of-the-ordinary, I’m telling you. She made them strip to the barebones and let them roam the streets in their full naked glory every time they offended and crossed her.

Her house was bigger than ours because her husband had a higher position in the company than my father’s. However, I always thought her hubby a doormat. Berta’s voice was like the voice of God. She had her way with everything. I always thought that she’d forced herself on him, and since he was too chicken to say no, they ended up getting married.

For some reason, the family was always short on cash. So she had to resort to creative ways to make ends meet. She’d sell the beef-and-pork provisions for employees at higher prices to expensive restaurants in the city, which were prohibited by the company. She also had this habit of buying expensive appliances on credit, only to be "embargoed", or returned after a few months, due to non-payment.

I was a frequent visitor at her house. She was always out trying to borrow money from some people, so I get to play with the kids. We’d play hide-and-seek in the cabinets and closets, crawl out of windows, and jump up-and-down non-stop in the huge mattress. In fact, that’s the only place where I successfully did a full ‘gymnastic’ tumble.

She had this weird idea of putting the king-sized mattress in the living room, so that the kids would go straight to sleep after watching TV. And for some reason, she converted one bedroom into the dining room.

She was also fond of listening to AM radio. Eddie Ilarde and Helen Vela created a craze in re-enacting letter-writers’ life stories on radio and dispensing advice afterwards. In Cagayan de Oro, Phil Yburan ruled the airwaves. With stirring orchestral music and the radio talent’s knack for using highly-poetic Bisaya, the show was highly-rated and popular, so much that Phil Yburan was considered a local celebrity.

Since Nang Berta felt her life story worthy of a radio re-enactment, she wrote Phil her life story and promptly got a reply, promising to meet her for lunch at her home. Berta prepared a sumptuous lunch. The whole neighborhood was abuzz with the news. Lunchtime came and no Phil. When Phil and his crew arrived, the food was already gone. Filled with shame, she ran out of the house into the backyard, and hid among the banana trees near the cornfield.

Phil returned to Cagayan de Oro, hungry as hell. He didn’t feature her life story.

Shrill Voices in the Wilderness

The Left is at it again. Over the weekend, the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno (May 1 Movement) branded call centers, the number one provider of jobs nowadays, especially to the fresh graduates, as nothing more than “air-conditioned hubs for exploiting workers”. Its spokesperson, Prestoline Suyat, said that business process outsourcing firms and call centers provide poor working conditions to its employees, pay them less-than-adequate compensation and in effect, exploit them for profit.

I do not know what to make of these comments, coming from close-minded quarters who have basically pledged lifelong allegiance to Marx, Engels, Lenin and his Bolsheviks, Mao Tse Tung and other relics of the cold war. Members of these leftist groups, who by the way, have never probably set foot in any capitalist office as a matter of principle, have again demonstrated why people generally shun them, relegate them to the margins, and basically regard them with contempt: they shoot their mouths off while their brains get stuck in their asses. They speak before they think, all in the context of Marx and Lenin, of course. What capitalist venture have they not condemned as exploitative, anyway?

The call center phenomenon is certainly no silver bullet, its presence here will not lead this country to economic progress. But it does provide jobs, lots of them, to our people. To say that call center employees should be paid the same wages as their US counterparts only goes to show how ignorant the KMU is on the economic realities of the present. You know what, if they do that, then there’s simply no point in relocating and transferring BPO operations to countries like the Philippines and India. Yes? The cost structures are different across countries: the standards of living differ, the over-head costs are not the same.

I think, for the moment, the BPO situation in the country is a win-win situation: call centers do earn a tidy profit, considering that all revenues are generated from overseas while the local fixed cost structure is cheap relative to its country of origin; but call center agent salaries are among the highest compared to say, entry-level banking jobs. In fact, call centers resort to creative means to recruit and retain top level agents: sign-in bonuses, free cell phones, gym and spa privileges, bonuses here and there. Most office workers never had and still do not have those perks. You call that exploitative?

Even Latin America, China, Eastern Europe, and now Africa, are clamoring to join in the band wagon and are learning and polishing their English and foreign language skills, fast. Sooner or later, these countries, where wages are even lower than ours, will become more competitive and take away our call center jobs. But for the moment, call center agents here are able to send their kids to school, have money for groceries and save up a little something for the rainy days.

I know wherof I speak. I do free lance jobs for local and overseas companies and as such I work pretty much the same way as a call center agent: I accept outsourced research jobs from overseas. My clients value my work because I give them top quality work for a competitive rate, relative to their usual research agencies, of course, but by local standards, it is rather high. See? It’s a win-win situation.

So how do you deal with leftist groups fronting as cause-oriented civil society NGOs and labor unions foisting their hard-core, recycled, straight-from-the-Marxist-textbook commentaries about present economic realities? IGNORE THEM. Because that’s what they deserve for being what they truly are: shrill voices in the wilderness.

A Vision of Resurrection: MAHLER Symphony No. 2 in C Minor

As a lifelong classical music enthusiast, I have always been fascinated by Mahler, his life and his works. Born to Jewish parents, he converted to Roman Catholicism later in life, but more as a matter of convenience rather than through any force of conviction (this may explain the fact that Wagner’s widow, Cosima remained bigoted towards him all throughout her life, much like Richard Wagner himself). Be that as it may, he managed to compose nine large-scale symphonies, much like Ludwig van Beethoven, a number of which deal with religious subjects.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor is also popularly known as the Resurrection Symphony. This work mimics Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (“Ode to Joy”) with the use of a chorus and solo voices in the last movement. Beethoven’s inclusion of a chorus in what was considered purely an instrumental field, the Symphony, prompted Wagner to comment that this innovation was in effect “a declaration of the bankruptcy of instrumental music”.

But in fact, Beethoven, and later on Mahler, realized that integrating human voices to a purely instrumental work could only heighten, or intensify further, rather than distract, the expression of joy and the most elevated affirmation of life in their works. No man-made instrument could ever replicate that sort of experience like the human voice does. The triumphal and jubilant fireworks generated by the chorus in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth is really akin to listening to a crowd of angels welcoming the recently departed to the gates of heaven, for an audience with God. The listening experience is that profound. The stunning contrasts from the disquieting struggle in the first two movements among the strings (life and death?), followed by the really serene, very tranquil resignation and acceptance in the third movement, all of which were treated instrumentally, are simply astounding, as the quartet of voices and the chorus enters majestically only in the final fourth singing the unforgettable melody of joy, as if one were coming home to victorious welcome after a long journey and a hard-fought battle.

Obviously, Mahler had Beethoven in mind as his model when he composed his Second. The lay-out is quite similar in structure but employs massive orchestral and choral forces never encountered in the past. (Mahler outdid himself still with his Symphony no. 8, a.k.a. the Symphony of a Thousand, as he took the form and size of the orchestra beyond limits, thus the nickname.)

The first movement marked allegro maestoso, oscillates between pianissimo and fortissimo (very soft and very loud), a dreamy mood tries to assert itself in the course of the movement but is slapped and consequently dominated by wild, hammering rhythms, concluding in an enormous climax. With the turmoil created, the entire movement paints a picture of an impending death.

The subsequent two movements, marked andante moderato and a scherzo, respectively are remarkably different from the first. The second movement breathes a dream-of-life mood, idyllic and carefree, like a stroll in the woods or a walk in the beach, interspersed with a somewhat naïve folk melody or waltz-like theme (dance of the fairies?). The third smells of earth: primitive, coarse, sometimes vulgar and even grotesque, providing a stark contrast to the previous one. My interpretation on these movements is rather simplistic: it’s a heaven-or-hell scenario, period. How else would you explain it?

The enormous final movement breathes grandeur and ecstatic joy. The mezzo-soprano intones a death wish with moving simplicity and delicacy:

Man lies in direst need
Man lies in deepest pain

I would rather be in heaven

I came upon a broad path:
An angel came and sought to turn me back
Ah no. I would not be sent away

I am from God, and to God I will return
He will give me light
That will lead me to eternal, blessed life

Suddenly, the orchestra shudders and a horn call sounds from a distance, along with a delicate melody that emerges from the stillness: this is the song of the dead, at the Day of Judgement. A march develops and moves forward. You can actually visualize the dead marching to the Last Judgement, as the orchestra breaks out with festive trumpet flourishes, clashing with restive, driving elemental rhythms after which it gradually fades into silence.

After the orchestra reprises the theme sang earlier by the mezzo soprano, the chorus enters softly with deep, dark sounds, as the soprano voice joins in and separates and floats above the chorus, intoning:

Rise again, yes, you shall rise again
My dust, after a brief rest

He who called you
Will grant you immortal life

You are sown to bloom again
The Lord of the harvest goes
And reaps us who died
Like sheaves

The orchestra joins in again, as the mezzo combines with the soprano as they sing the following text with rising anticipation:

O believe, my heart, believe
All is not lost with you

You were not born in vain
You have not lived and suffered in vain

The chorus enters, almost whispering and gradually rising:

What was created must perish
What has perished, rise again!

Cease trembling
Prepare yourself to live

The mezzo and soprano voices enter once again, this time changing keys, from one of mystery in a minor key to excitement in a major key

Oh all piercing pain
From you I have been wrested

Oh all conquering death
Now that you have been conquered
With wings
I shall soar above
To the light which no one has pierced

And the chorus picks this up with profound emotion, gradually rising, and getting louder and more insistent, as the orchestra joins in as all vocal and orchestral forces unite and build up to the powerful climax. The full sound bursts out in full fortissimo, bells ring, trumpets flare as the orchestra and chorus shine out in all its glory, proclaiming the beautiful message of the Resurrection:

With wings that I have gained
I shall soar above

I shall die, so as to live

Rise again, yes, you shall rise again
What you have lived and fought for
Shall all lead to God

Triple Bill for Lent

For the Lenten break, I will be posting my impressions on three works covering different art genres: a German symphony, a Spanish film and an American novel. I believe these three have special significance to the season because these works celebrate, in more ways than we’d ever realize, the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. These works of art are Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor (1894); Pedro Almodovar’s Hable con Ella (2002) or Talk to Her, and Flannery O’Connor’s final novel, The Violent Bear It Away (1963).

All three deal with the same theme: the affirmation and renewal of life, which I firmly believe is central in the salvation story of Christ. It’s a fitting theme for Lent. Do not get me wrong here. I’m sorry but this is not some pseudo-born again treatise a la Coney Reyes. I’m no fanatic. Neither am I an apologist. It’s simply that these works fully embody Christ’s life-affirming message through His resurrection.

Wagnerian Thoughts

For the first time in my life, I watched a four-hour opera on DVD non-stop (except for pee breaks in between Acts). I’m talking about Wagner’s Die Meistersingers von Nuremburg, performed by Deustche Oper Berlin (where Filipina soprano Andion Fernandez is based).

Wagner’s operas are so indulgent-it is so slow-moving and languid, a scene involving a duet (such as in Act II of Tristan und Isolde) can, believe it or not, approach an hour. In fact, if not for the marvelous music, a Wagner opera could easily send one into an instant coma. Tristan and Isolde approached four hours, without intermission; Tannhauser also exceeded the three-hour mark; this one, however was the longest opera I have ever seen on DVD-four and a half-hours without break. Can you imagine the actual performances, which, I reckon ran for around five hours!. I can’t help but visualize the members of the audience squirming in their seats, itching to strangle the musical director.

Opera goers remain divided over their assessment of Wagner. Rabid followers claim he is a genius, the greatest of all opera composers. While others insist he is just an egotistic, self-centered, anti-Semitic composer with an equally egotistic musical agenda. You either love him, or hate him, no in-betweens.

It is easy to see why Wagner remains a controversial figure in the musical world, more than 120 years after his death. Wagner broke with established musical tradition, especially with the staging of Tristan und Isolde. He raged against what he believed then, were the musical excesses that made Italian, and in fact, all opera, absurd. He disposed of the aria, the heart of Italian opera, and the staged ensemble numbers (such as duets, quartets and so forth to which everyone was accustomed), simply because the action on stage gets unnecessarily suspended as the singers engage in vocal acrobatics and fireworks that were not really called for by the text (Rossini and Donizetti comes to mind). This, he believed, reduced the musical drama to a mere “concert in costume”.

He replaced the aria with an “endless melody”, employing a complex system of leading motives (or the leitmotif, a technique he practically invented) that tie the entire music together to a leading musical phrase. For example, snatches of a refrain or a familiar melody introduced earlier in the performance get repeated in different forms to suggest a certain motive associated with a certain character. Puccini (and other post-Wagner composers) employed this technique with the crashing chords of Tosca in the opening Act, effectively associating the ominous chords with the evil henchman Scarpia, and which becomes the defining motive for the evil personality of the character.

Wagner also redefined “music drama” through his characteristic instrumentation. Gone were the days of the plunkety-plunk accompaniments that disfigured much of 18th and 19th century opera. His harmonies are so rich, full of color and vitality and extraordinarily refined many people actually go to “hear” Wagner’s operas, as opposed to “watching” it.

What distinguished Wagner from say, Verdi is that whereas the latter places the dominant musical roles to the voices, the former subordinates these to the orchestra, which for him, is the most important. The orchestra has the unquestionable dominant role, commenting on every psychological and dramatic development through his leitmotifs.

Consequently, Wagner’s ideas created a war of the critics that is still raging up to the present. But clearly, he left a lasting legacy. He remained the chief musical influence on subsequent musical developments for quite a long time.

I will be “reviewing” his works in the future. I look forward to watching his ambitious Ring cycle. I haven’t found a copy yet. I am beginning to suspect that Wagner’s ideas were as large as his ego.

Carpe Diem

Finally, the Pinoy Big Brother reality show concluded last Saturday. Keanna Reeves, an aging Cebuana soft-porn starlet, whose claim to fame was that she slept with some Congressmen, won over a hunky poster boy, a girl-next-door newscaster and an annoying, cloyingly pa-cute teen-age actor. I don’t know about you, but I never got the hang of watching this show. I couldn’t bring myself to sit through an entire episode, really. Watching the ‘housemates’ sleep, eat, or wash dishes is sooo tiresome I usually flick the remote to the Animal Planet channel instead.

It’s like being the protagonist in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, wherein an injured photographer, whose broken leg requires him to be bedridden, spends his days recuperating while observing the goings-on (and a murder) in the other apartments from his rear window. The main difference is that here in PBB, (1) people willingly watch the housemates via cameras attached all over the house, even the loo; (2) that the housemates are conscious of the fact that they are being watched and should make an impression; and that (3) they may win a million bucks if they survive right to the end (an incentive to behave well).

I know a few who’d drop everything just to watch this inane show because of the “exciting” tasks and activities. I have a friend who skips his badminton practice just to catch this show. Imagine that! The “tasks” assigned by the “big brother” are supposed to test the housemates’ capacities to deal with different situations, and in the process, the viewers get to know each person better, whatever.

However, I find the tasks extremely pretentious and phony. Aleck Bovick and that radio DJ Rico, willingly had their hair shaven off in exchange for a hundred grand, which is supposed to go to some relative who needs it badly. Franzen, the booger guy in the first edition (he picks his nose—didn’t he realize there were cameras around?) did this as a tribute to the street kids of Tondo. Sort of like a self-sacrifice in order to help somebody. Yeah, right. What is this, the Oprah Winfrey show?

The big brother, by the way, remains faceless- the people inside only get to hear his all-knowing, omniscient voice. He who controls and decides the fate of every single one of them. And yeah, as far as the show is concerned, big brother IS God. The house even has a "confession room" where each can share his or her private thoughts with 'him'.

From the onset, the celebrities who auditioned for the PBB, have one motive in mind: to get noticed. This may accelerate their popularity and revive their sagging careers. Housemates get immediate publicities, because ostensibly, being seen on TV everyday for two months is supposed to boost their image. That’s why you see them jockeying for plum roles or assignments inside the house, mainly to grab attention. Or they resort to gimmicks.

Roxie Barcelo used every opportunity to share her sob stories, and along with it, her tears. The message is that she’ll make a fine dramatic actress because she can cry copiously in a heart beat. However, I think people got tired of her crying fests, it got to the point where the viewers really just couldn’t care anymore.

The most dramatic of all was the highly anticipated coming-out-of-the-closet of Rustom Padilla, who looked so emaciated I thought he might be stricken with some disease. Everybody knew he was gay anyway, I mean for crying out loud, the guy runs a beauty parlor!

And apparently, Keanna endeared most to the viewers because she remained "true to herself", that is, she pee’d in the bushes while Rustom was waxing sentimental and did his oh-so-dramatic coming out declaration. She didn't want to ruin his big "moment".

In other words, they’re simply using the PBB mainly to generate interest in their flagging careers. You really think they auditioned to demonstrate their humanity and their faith in the human spirit in the face of adversity? You’re watching the wrong show.

The concept of the show is one of voyeurism. We love to gossip about other people, be it our neighbors, colleagues, or friends. We love to observe and criticize their every move. It’s in our nature. And reality shows allow us to do that in the comfort of our homes.

I suspect the ratings were lower than what the top honchos expected. The reason’s easy. Despite our voyeuristic tendencies, Pinoy Big Brother is not only pretentious and phony, it is soooo exhausting to watch, I’d rather catch some sleep.