CAN A discerning and analytical reading of a literary text be done in less than 550 words for millennials with diminishing attention reading span?
F. J. Parlan, a full-time freelance writer, shows us how. His delightful essay has a body text of 499 words. 514 words, including the epigraph by Scruton; 532, including the complete title and byline.
I yield my column space this Monday to Parlan’s brilliant and smartly written essay on my unproduced play The Wide Ionian Sea. The essay is a masterful exercise on word economy, and effective hypertexting—I mean, I can easily imagine this as a hypertext essay with hyperlinks to Scruton, the Palanca awards, the various theories of literary criticism, the rappers, movie writers and directors, Barthes, and the Greeks.
Parlan has previously taught social sciences at the college and senior high level, most notably at Far Eastern University and University of Santo Tomas.
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Beyond the Shock, Into the Awe
A sociological inquiry into “The Wide Ionian Sea”
by F. J. Parlan
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“When art becomes merely shock value, our sense of humanity is slowly degraded.” — Roger Scruton
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Reading — and critiquing — a tall tale such as Peter Solis Nery’s The Wide Ionian Sea is a tall task. It is not tall in a sense that it is fabricated — the prologue proclaims the play a “re-enactment of actual events.”
The story is tall in that it is an unconventional affair with unusual storytelling (for the intended platform); tall because of its ambitious endeavour — but Nery unequivocally pulls off a shock-and-awe act here.
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Through the Literary Lenses
The way Nery wrote the story easily lends itself to be appreciated through multi-varied literary theories. Beyond the queries presented here, let this piece be an invitation to dive deeperinto The Wide Ionian Sea, the sole winner in the One-Act Play category at the 2010 Palanca Awards:
A literary critic may deconstruct the impressive, if implausible, dialogue to determine the dynamics between Telemakhos and Mentor (the only two characters in the play);
A language teacher may formally scrutinize the sensually sumptuous poetry both in Hiligaynon and English;
A student may go for the most obvious theoretical variants of gender studies such as Feminism or Queer Theory.
From the Greek mythological symbolism and local/international literary references which Nery packed into the 45-minute script, there is a lot more to ponder upon as he showcased his prowess in ways subtler than — but just as convincing to me as — Eminem or Loonie rapping their “greatness” in a song.
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From a Sociological Standpoint
As I floated on the imagined sea for a while, wondering whether to separate the art from the artist (“the death of the author”, as per Roland Barthes) or let my personal knowledge of the author take over my ultimate judgment, there was a whale lurking from afar big enough to swallow me in my thoughts if I did not acknowledge its presence.
Assuming a director’s clever vision matches Nery’s playful imagination, finding a way to economically execute the flashbacks-cum-alternative-scenarios (including a steaming scene) into a theatre stage a la Christopher Nolan’s Inception into the movie screen, would that awe be enough to appease the initial shock?
How would a male-to-male relationship, on top of a significant age gap, be received by a society such as ours where gay marriage is still a flaming debate a decade after this play was written?
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Reading Recommendation
If Telemakhos is Mentor’s “baby” in the story, this story appears to me as Peter Solis Nery’s “baby” (in the way that great comedic writer Larry David describes a script in Curb Your Enthusiasm). As such, I only find it fortunate and deem it deserving to see more light of day in this publication.
Nery’s masterful Hiligaynon deserves translation to local languages for turn-of-age students everywhere in the country to widen their perspectives and deepen their analyses.
Testing the waters of The Wide Ionian Sea is perfect for contemporary criticism of local literature, because if readers are mature enough to move past the ‘shock’, they are ready for the ‘awe’: a “tall tale” of love, lust, and literature./PN
