Through the generosity of the late Professor Benedict Anderson and Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri, the Thammasat University Library has acquired some important books of interest for students of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) studies, political science, literature, and related fields.
They are part of a special bequest of over 2800 books from the personal scholarly library of Professor Benedict Anderson at Cornell University, in addition to the previous donation of books from the library of Professor Anderson at his home in Bangkok. These items are shelved in the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus.
Among them is a book useful for TU students, How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other Short Stories by Manuel Arguilla. It is shelved in the Fiction section of the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room in the Pridi Banomyong Library.
Manuel Estabilla Arguilla (1911 – 1944) was an Ilocano writer in English. The Ilocanos are the third largest Filipino ethnolinguistic group. They mostly live within the Ilocos Region in the northwestern seaboard of Luzon, Philippines.
Manuel Arguilla is known for his widely anthologized tale, “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife,” the main text in the collection How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife and Other Short Stories.
Most of Arguilla’s fiction describes events in Barrio Nagrebcan, Bauang, La Union, where he was born.
Bauang is a municipality in the province of La Union, Philippines.
There is another distinguished Filipino author who writes about Bauang in his fiction: Francisco Sionil José. F. Sionil José celebrated his 96th birthday in December.
Professor Benedict Anderson and Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri also donated books by him to the TU Library, where they are shelved in the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room.
F. Sionil José is one of the most widely read Filipino writers in the English language. His novels and short stories describe social class struggles and colonialism in Filipino society. José’s works are written in English and have been translated into many languages, including Korean and Indonesian.
His compatriot Manuel Arguilla studied at the University of the Philippines in Manila, earning a bachelor of science degree in education.
He became a creative writing teacher at the University of Manila. He secretly organized an intelligence unit to fight against the Japanese when they occupied the Philippines during World War II. In August 1944, he was captured, tortured and executed by the Japanese army.
Although he only lived for just over 30 years, Manuel Arguilla is remembered and admired in his homeland.
In 2019, an article in The Manila Times pointed out how well Arguilla wrote in English, which was his literary language of choice.
In Philippine Pastoral: Tradition and Variation in Manuel Arguilla, an academic research paper published in Philippine Studies in 1975, Fr. Joseph Galdon, S.J. expresses his admiration for the artistry of Arguilla.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes other books by Fr. Galdon about Filipino literature donated to the library by Professor Benedict Anderson and Ajarn Charnvit Kasetsiri. They are also shelved in the Charnvit Kasetsiri Room of the Pridi Banomyong Library.
Fr. Joseph Galdon, S.J. was a Jesuit priest and writer. He was a former dean at the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines.
He also served as editor of the academic journal Philippine Studies.
As its presentation on JSTOR indicates, Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints is an internationally refereed journal that publishes scholarly articles and other materials on the history of the Philippines and its peoples, both in the homeland and overseas. It believes the past is illuminated by historians as well as scholars from other disciplines; at the same time, it prefers ethnographic approaches to the history of the present. It welcomes works that are theoretically informed but not encumbered by jargon. It promotes a comparative and transnational sensibility, and seeks to engage scholars who may not be specialists on the Philippines. Founded in 1953 as Philippine Studies, the journal is published quarterly by the Ateneo de Manila University.
Father Galdon wrote:
I do not intend to impose a tradition upon Arguilla. Tracing influences is a hypothetical game in any case, and in the absence of clear biographical or literary data, it can be a risky business at best. It is a much better critical process to let the stories of Arguilla speak for themselves. No doubt what is in the stories is the result of Arguilla’s own experience. He was writing about a setting that was rural and provincial. But it is interesting that what is in the stories is also in the tradition, whether Arguilla was aware of it or not.
That Manuel Arguilla’s published stories are in the pastoral tradition is not a new insight. Both Leonard Casper and Fr. Miguel Bernad have used the word “pastoral” to describe the stories of Arguilla. Nineteen stories are collected in How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife… The pastoral is a piece of literature dealing with life in the country, especially a poem or story that treats of the rustic lives and loves of shepherds in a conventionalized, artificial manner. The pastoral, from the Latin pastor (shepherd), portrays rural life, especially a conventionalized form of rustic life among shepherds. It emphasizes the rural qualities of peace, simplicity, naturalness and quiet… Eight of Arguilla’s nineteen stories are set in Nagrebcan, La Union. These stories deal with the province and with the simple occupations of the rural folk…
In summary then, if we insist upon the setting as the first characteristic of the pastoral, ten of Arguilla’s nineteen stories are set in a provincial or rural setting… A corollary of the pastoral setting is simplicity of language… Arguilla has attempted an interesting experiment at fusing the English and rustic dialect speech of his characters. The language remains English, but he has attempted to portray the rhythm and speech patterns of the dialect. He has added to this effect by interspersing dialect words, especially in the forms of address. Ina, Tia, Apo are frequent and he has scattered dialect words for the more common objects through the text, words like talunasariy basi , tangga , dulang and ledda… Arguilla’s romanticism needs little proof. It is perhaps his most obvious quality, and his best stories, without a doubt, are romantic tales of innocent and melancholy love…
Arguilla is a traditionalist, perhaps not by intention, but certainly in fact. He is writing in the long tradition of the pastoral, in the tradition of the rural setting, the contrast between the country and the city, the idyllic escape from reality to a kind of golden age, romantic love, allegory and satire. But Arguilla is also an individualist. He has taken the tradition and made it Filipino. We have accepted him for being uniquely Filipino; perhaps his true talent will be recognized when we understand more deeply and accept the tradition in which he writes.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)