Exploding Galaxies returns to its roots by publishing the short stories of Wilfrido D. Nolledo, whose novel “But for the Lovers” marked the audacious birth of the publishing company in 2023, focused exclusively on bringing lost Filipino classics to light. 

“I put a tongue to all the wounds.”

Nolledo’s mastery of the English language can put many native born writers to shame. Perhaps his long absence from the Philippines (the family migrated to the US in 1998, where the author passed away in 2004) has something to do with why the author is not as well known as literary giant Nick Joaquin, but to this reader, Nolledo is every bit his equal.

Nolledo is Joaquinesque in the baroque structure of sentences never simple, yet always, always beautiful. And the subject does not matter: even the stench of all the sins of wartime Manila is masked in the perfume of Nolledo’s prose, wordsmith-poet unraveling narratives one bejeweled syllable at a time. 

These stories are full of love: uncontrollable, unrequited, and even if returned, unhappy (In one short story of a joyous wedding night, he ends it with the new bride remarking: “And yet tomorrow, we will grow old and die.”) Nolledo’s tales are full of lovers who (like the main characters in his novel) are both individuals and symbols, working out their doom or glory in the most radiant sentences that are impossible to speed-read through, so great was this reader’s need to savor, to reread after almost every period.

And this, perhaps, is what makes Nolledo stand out from that generation of literary peers who also wrote excellently: he focuses on beauty in all its forms, with the desperation of a man who has seen too much ugliness in war and the formerly civilized citizens transformed into rapacious, hardened folk in its wake.

Yet, precisely because he has been through and seen so much, these short stories seem incapable of neat happy ever-afters.

“There had been iniquity, but there was sanctity, too.”

The collection features the stories that won him awards, but the jewels that shone brightest for this reader were his stories of a middle-aged school marm who starts to feel more than teacherly affection for a promising pupil (“Because Your Eyes are Deeper than Conches”), and the secrets behind a blind balladeer’s annual pilgrimage back to his hometown where he sang his first kundiman (“Harana”).

Being a teacher myself, I took his teaching advice to heart (especially in the age of AI slop that threatens to homogenize thought):

“Assign them knights, the moors, the war of roses, the jurisprudence of amour. Anything, everything with identity that they may assume faces too. Assign them conflicts, contracts, consummations. Worry, worry, worry, about the static of the heart.”

And although written generations ago, this reader still recognizes the Philippines he describes, in the descriptions of pleasures sought despite penury, in the unjust divide between social classes, in the petty quarrels that lead to epic conflagrations that determine destinies. He knew the Filipino psyche well, and put it down on paper so our people may live forever.

“I deal with languages. 

That’s a beautiful way to live. I think it’s the only way to live.”

Any review of this remarkable book would be incomplete without mentioning the touching introduction penned by the author’s better half, Blanca Nolledo. Anyone who has read “In Caress of Beloved Faces” would half-believe, as I do, that we had been present at their wedding, so vivid were the descriptions of their fierce joy, that first night immortalized as a beautiful meeting of minds and souls in love with learning and each other. 

To read Blanca’s mini biography of her partner is to understand what Nolledo wrote: “He was going to write; write closer to truth, and she would knit something… and read the ultimate nature of his life.”

This is the kind of book one presses gently into the hands of literary friends, with only one word whispered in entreaty: Read. Then let the work of this literary sorcerer speak for itself.

~ ~ ~

Read our reviews of past Exploding Galaxies publications below:

But For The Lovers by Wilfrido D. Nolledo

The Three-Cornered Sun by Linda Ty-Casper (With another review : two of our book club members were moved to write)

The Firewalkers by Erwin E. Castillo

[The reviewer was given a copy of Canticles for Dark Lovers for review. It is available from Exploding Galaxies for P780.00. Copies are also available on Shopee, as well as select branches of local bookstores.]

ABOUT THE REVIEWER:

Gabi Francisco is a classically trained soprano who now performs in the English / Music / Drama classroom. On weekends she soaks in as much art and literature as she can, so she can pass her love for the arts on to her students. She passionately believes in the transformative role of arts education in nation-building. (IG: teacher.gabi.reads )