Tatlong Proposisyon ng Puting Hangin

From embodying a literary megastar’s writer daughter and narrating about overseas contract workers in her novels to refining the languishing woman trope as a playwright, Professor Luna Sicat Cleto has done everything she can to escape the pitfall of replication. Now we see that this has been the case with her short stories all along. This newest selection of works chronologically collected by Isang Balangay Media Productions is a faithful testament to Sicat Cleto’s range and reluctance to repeat herself. A revelation, especially to those who don’t know her outside the glorious “Ang Lohika ng mga Bula ng Sabon” and Makinilyang Altar, probably her most popular work. She takes the playful and the fabulist’s route in the stunning openers “Alakdan” and “Ang Bayan ng Kosmopolit,” and proves that she’s comfortable with humour by deploying Dickensian caricature in academic milieu and sprinkling it with culinary prattle in “Delphi” and “Petri Dish.” In more minimalist settings, say, in the ill-fated lovers’ tale “Ang Babaeng Nakatanghod sa Labas,” the complex juxtaposition and untangling of the senses is made deceptively easy and plausible, as in “Bigkis,” a deeper, masterful dip into the intricacies of the domestic, and in “Kalat,” where castigating hoarders of things tangible and not seems the most natural thing to do. Tatlong Proposisyon ng Puting Hangin, the collection and the banner story written only some five years ago, is close-to-perfection LSC: postmodern, technical, witty, yet still razor-sharp psychological, unapologetically feminist, and uncouth-in-training, an indication that that she—as fictionist—is not done yet. In essence, this collection screams what should have long been proclaimed if LSC weren’t so modest and self-effacing: that she has experimented and played and enjoyed and done what all of us young ones think has never been executed before.

--RM Topacio-Aplaon

author of El Árbol de la Alegria

Isang pagtitipon ng mga multo ng panahon ang Tatlong Proposisyon ng Puting Hangin. Nangyayari ito sa “bayan ng kosmopolit,” sa “apartment na amoy-langka ang bawat kuwarto,” “sa mga bula ng sabon,” sa “petri dish,” sa “music room,” sa isang arts school sa Makiling, at may pagtanggi ang isang alakdan na si Jaime sa karahasan ng ritwal ng bayan at monopolyo ng karapatan ng komunidad. Nasa katawan ng babaeng artista — si Bayang — ang kababalaghan. At tulad ng tauhan sa dula ni Henrik Ibsen, ng tauhan ni Luna na si Delphi, nagsasabing I’m mourning for my life. Napaka-interesante ng ginagawa rito ni Luna, isa ring pagtatagpo ng kaniyang talino at husay bilang mandudula, makata, kuwentista: kumakanta ang mga pangungusap sa ningning ng mga pagsa-alamat ng ating sikolohikal na topograpiya. Sa bawat kuwento, ang “Alon at Agos” ng dugo: nagnanaknak, nangangamoy, nangangambala sa kaniyang “psst, pssst.” Mamamangha ka sa pilosopikal na tayog ng mga diyalogo, sa gimbal ng katotohanan ng mga pangyayari sa kanilang “eternal present” at/ngunit “Wala nang halaga ang tuklaw. Nasa puso na niya ang awit.”

Mangangahas akong magdeklara: ito ang post-reyalismo ng ating panitikan sa ika-21 siglo: mahiwagang takot, ang ating arkipelagotik, at si Luna Sicat Cleto ay isang kosmopolitan na katutubo sa sopistikasyon ng wika’t teknik, global na tema at pamumulso sa lagay at takbo ng mundo, at sa gayuma nitong silakbo’t sindak; tili’t kiliti, landi’t lapot, saya’t kirot. Mapalad tayong mambabasa niya.

--Genevieve L. Asenjo

awtor ng Lumbay ng Dila

at Ang Itim na Orkidyas ng Isla Boracay