20/07/2025
๐๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ ๐๐ฐ๐ค๐ข๐ญ, ๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ช๐ฆ๐ธ ๐๐ฐ๐ค๐ข๐ญ #76 | ๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฌ ๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ช๐ฆ๐ธ #240 | ๐๐ฆ๐ท๐ช๐ฆ๐ธ ๐ฃ๐บ ๐๐ข๐ณ๐ช๐ข ๐๐ญ๐ญ๐ข ๐๐ฆ๐ต๐ฐ๐ด
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ก๐ญ ๐๐ญ ๐๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ฅ๐: ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ก๐ข๐ฅ๐ข๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ก๐จ๐ซ๐ญ ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฒ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฐ๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฒ-๐
๐ข๐ซ๐ฌ๐ญ ๐๐๐ง๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ฒ
๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ซ๐๐ฅ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐ฌ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐จ๐ฌ๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ฒ (๐๐๐ข๐ญ๐จ๐ซ๐ฌ)
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What Light It Can Hold is a collection of Filipino writers with their stories were released after the millenium bug hey-days. I admire the curation, it has representations across the regions and also the male, female and q***r demographic (please correct me if I am wrong on this).
I read the collection at a random pace. In one sitting, I read the first and the last story, and in the other days, I pick whatever I feel like reading. The first and the last story indeed tie the theme behind the books title. Casocot's Things You Don't know ended in a sunset (or dusk) scene of confessions and a touch of hope, while Groyon's The Haunting Martina Luzuriaga ended with a new day with its sunbeam erasing the sad past and an epiphany after years of solitude. I appreciate how endings and beginning weave through these respective stories. As the introduction alludes, the book echoed the idea of fragility and illumination.
What I find challenging (aside from my daily Corporate grind) is the search for the contemporary themes that seem to be limited across the collection. I was actively looking for the use of social media, online bullying and cancel culture, the emergence of memes, bekimon vocabulary, or even some snippets of millennial activities of undeground indie bands, collective jogging, and heavy use of technology, or bitcoin grind. Where is the onslaught of the 2008 Financial crisis, or even scamming via Multilevel Marketing? Though the stories are okay with its overarching themes of injustices and powerplay, family bonds, or Love, maybe I was actively reaching for a distinct flavor of a craft (being a millennial myself, overusing parenthesis, oxford commas and em dashes โ a punctuation politically being a pet peeve by AI detectors).
What the collection showed me instead are remnants of the B-type movie from 80's (Tenorio's Monstress), or early 90's sea travels (Pagliawan's Manila-Bound), or late '90s elementary school bullying (Habana's The Mop Closet). All of them are marvelous on their own ways โ especially the moniker "Monstress" โ but these allusions are not in 21st century, but rather, they are remnants of the previous one being carried by the writers themselves. The only hallmark 21st century storyline for me personally is seething through Bengan's Armor and his storytelling of the Davao Death Squad conflict (if I may say so).
I do hope that there will be another collection that can tackle the more recent events or timelines, or maybe the pens respsonsible for them belong to us now, the contemporary consumers and players of the post-pandemic hyperrealities.
For now, I soldier on.
๐https://s.shopee.ph/6ppid5hv2F
