The Javs of the East gave me this book as a gift on my 20th birthday. It's a wonderful book, really, and I wish I spent more time writing down my thoughts while I read it. It's that great. I just wish another great Filipiniana book rolls my way soon. I have to admit that I don't look for them (or at them) that much. Anyway, enough of my self-absorption, let's get on with the book!
Let me explain the title first. 'When elephants dance, the chickens must be careful' is a geo-political metaphor about the World War II. The elephants are the Japanese and the Americans, of course, with all their bombing and fighting. Great countries. Powerful ones. We, the Filipinos, are the chickens who are caught in the middle. We can either choose to get out of the way or get crushed. A small price to pay. A casualty of war. I found the title very moving in itself and if it was any indication of how the book will pan out later on, I braced myself for a wonderful ride. I was right.
When the Elephants Dance is the story of the Karangalan family and the rest of their neighbors during the war. We meet three narrators in the story, Alejandro Karangalan, a guerilla leader named Domingo Matapang and my favorite, Isabelle--Alejandro's older sister. As the fighting and the interrogating continues, the Karangalan family and their neighbors decide to hide in a cellar to be able to survive. This is exactly what I love about the book, its story centers around the struggle to survive during an extraordinary time where the very concept of hope seemed so bleak. And yet hope they had and fight they did to surpass very trying times amidst a vicious war.
Inside the cellar, the Karangalans and their neighbors exchange stories of Filipino myth, superstitions, fables, legends to pass time, spark hope, build courage and teach values. They are spellbound by ghosts, witches, people worth looking up to and even by simple anecdotes from somebody's childhood. I loved all of it. As a child who was kept awake at night by ghost stories swapped with cousins, I adored it all. My favorites, however, were the church that sank to the ground and the story of the fisherman and the bone. You'll just have to read the book to find out what they're all about.
I promise not to spoil the book for everyone so let me just tell you something I found so brilliant. Aside from giving us a glimpse into the Filipino culture through the stories the Karangalans and their neighbors tell, the book also makes us feel the uncertainty, the fear, the injustice and the gravity of the war that was taking place during that time. It is so easy to lose the premise of the book amidst the many beautiful stories of Filipino myth and legend but I never felt disconnected to the bombings, the bloodshed and the treacherous nature of everything--people, places, politics during that time. Truth be told, this novel was a pleasant surprise in that aspect. It came and went like a silent storm. It was powerful but not in an explosive way, it was powerful because the prose is just as great as its story--a generous gift that kept on giving and giving. It was amazing and thrilling and well, it was many other adjectives I have not used in a Filipiniana book for a very long time.
To say that I was floored would be a grave understatement. I wasn't just floored, I was very proud of how colorful our history is and how, underneath the maniacal influence of Western culture, we have stories and values that we can still uphold and call our own. This was a very good read and a very special one, too.
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