Love is a concept that is rather cliched by time due to the infinite number of irrepressible plundering of people who know no other topic to explore about. It's normally an innocent concept blamed by humanity for living a miserable life leaving them with nothing to scribble but this all-time-favorite and ironically ill-justified matter. Until Ricky Lee proposes a rather disturbing theory about love in his first attempt to write a novel: Para Kay B: O Kung Papano Dinevastate ng Pag-Ibig ang 4 out of 5 sa Atin (roughly translated as: For B: Or How Love Devastated 4 out 5 of Us).
"May quota ang pag-ibig. Sa bawat limang umiibig ay isa lang ang magiging maligaya."
What we know about love is that it is something that can bring heaven into what seems to be a hellish life, while sometimes it is what brings someone into the deepest, darkest and unknown-of pits of hell. What we may not know is the possible statistics of such cases. But Ricky Lee promotes a theory that love has a quota - that for every five person who is in love, only one will remain happy in the end.
Para Kay B is a story of five women who were caught by the spell of love and who, in the end of each chapter, are seen to have been left alone to brood over their loss in the battle with love. Irene, Sandra, Ericka, Ester and Bessie are faces of typical women who just hoped to love and be loved in return. Irene lived her life clinging into the promise of marriage Jordan made when they were young. Sandra's case is an evidence of love having no boundaries as she fell in love with her brother Lupe who is banished by his father for committing an "immoral" act. Ester's story focused on lesbian affair with her kasambahay Sara while being married with a loving husband who met an unfortunate plight abroad. Ericka is a woman who never felt love until the time Jake was reduced to being incapable of thinking rightly. Finally, Bessie boasts love is not true for she has had several relationships with men and she never felt anything for them until Lucas came into her life.
Left with somehow tragic ending for the women and their lovers, the readers are introduced in the succeeding chapter to the notion that it is the writer - Lucas - who has control over the lives of the characters. While thinking over how he would end his stories one night, he was disturbed by the five main characters demanding for a happy ending. He conceded and eventually gave them what they like except for Sandra who settled on the ending in her chapter. Similarly, Bessie and Lucas' story is also left open-ended as the supposed real Bessie is now with Brigs, a character who inflicted Lucas physical pain. Nevertheless, the manuscript the writer Lucas gave to Bessie give the reader a sense of light on the love between Bessie and Lucas.
Ricky Lee artfully crafted the novel without taking into account literary and moralistic conventions creating impact on the curious reader. Lines are blatant yet truthful, and scenes capture what seem to be an obscured reality in the present society.
A story within a story, Para Kay B is an example of an emerging classic, having a high possibility of becoming an exponent of paradigm shift in mainstream conservative Filipino writing.
0 comments:
Post a Comment