The iconic historian, journalist Carmen Guerrero Nakpil’s first volume of an autobiographical trilogy series and memoir Myself, Elsewhere is a “must read.” Having read it three times over span of six years, one finds valuable insights.
It is a personal account of her childhood in 1922, the period National Artist Nick Joaquin called, “Manila’s most glittering decade” until 1945 — the year of the city’s devastating destruction. Pre-war Ermita of the ilustrado families such as the Guerrero’s had been the residential area of gentility and refinement. In contrast, the dramatic battle of 1945 brutalized and destroyed it is vividly presented. It was during that battle that entire families were massacred and women were violated then pierced by bayonets.
Flashbacks and forwards are the tools she used to provide the historical background and foreground of her family history. The book describes the romantic, bygone era — the first half of the 20th century. Its cultural frame and way of life are seen in the vignettes on historical figures and famous relatives. One reads about the manners, morals, gossip, and intrigue of the small town on Manila Bay.
Critic Manuel Quezon III wrote: “It is authenticity that makes her book so powerful, her authentic affection for so alien a way of life as to seem impossible to present day readers…This is a look back at the way people really lived, loved, even hated, with details no novelist could have invented.”
The cover of Myself, Elsewhere is a stunningly elegant and formal color portrait of the author (in her 20s) by National Artist Vicente Manansala, done in 1949. The artist had painted only three portraits in his lifetime. This luminous portrait depicts the young author in black, hands demurely clasped with a pink scarf, her worldly wise eyes gazing directly at the viewer. She is portrayed as a strong woman who has survived the war, an independent thinker and achiever.
The book features interesting maps of old Manila and cherished photographs of the family tree and the illustrious ancestors and famous brothers.
The author, “CGN” to her avid admirers, is the epitome of elegance, eloquence and wit. Definitely, an accomplished and wise woman of the world. Her personal style and old world manners are impeccable.
Her writing style is likewise effortless and impeccable. She always uses just the perfect word or turn of phrase to describe an individual or to capture a scene. She makes history so easy to read and enjoy.
Here are some excerpts:
“The year I was born, 1922, was midway in the half century of American formal rule of the Philippines, equidistant from 1898 (when Spain ceded to the US a colony it no longer held) and 1946 (when America granted independence to the Philippines). It had been only 6 years since the great revolution against Spain and the execution of Jose Rizal and barely a generation, since the First Philippine Republic and the Filipino-American War…”
“I was raised among men who had either known Rizal at the Ateneo, or watched him face the firing squad on the Luneta only a few hundred meters from their home; served in the Malolos Congress and an Aguinaldo Cabinet or fought in the war against America…”
“I write about my years in Ermita before World War II, not with the usual maudlin nostalgic weakness for the past, but in profound affection for that lost time and place. While we lived there, none of us felt that we were living better, different, portentous, or exceptional lives. The even tenor of our days was not marred by thought of our uniqueness or significance.
“The cruelty and thoroughness of its destruction are what make our Ermita precious. Alone, of all towns and districts of old Manila, it was never rebuilt or recreated. After February 1945, it was dead and buried, over and done with and it is this finiteness that has made it, like the town of Guernica in Spain, into a memory, and a symbol of all that was innocent, sweet and luminous ruthlessly sacrificed to war.”
“I understand the craze in the Philippines and in Asia for skin-whitening because its 400-year-old roots are sunk deep in racial memory. Centuries of colonial discrimination and repression on the basis of skin pigmentation have left Filipinos and other Asians, especially their women hating the way they look. They yearn for hit skin because history and their own experiences have made fair complexion the symbol of wealth, power and beauty. Few realize that it’s the ultimate denial of their identity.”
Mrs. Nakpil has published the trilogy Myself, Elsewhere (2006), Legends & Adventures and Exeunt. (Nakpil Publishing, Book design by R.G. Nakpil).
Maria Victoria Rufino is an artist, writer and businesswoman. She is president and executive producer of Maverick Productions.
