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The struggle for form: a conversation between Nick Carbo and M. Evelina Galang
MELUS, Spring, 2004 by Rocio G. Davis
I think that grad school gave me the opportunity to question traditional models of writing. I'll never forget being in a literature seminar on Hawthorne and Stowe and getting absolutely livid when my professor insisted that Nathaniel Hawthorne was THE GREATEST American writer who ever lived. "Who says?" I wanted to know. "Who created the criteria? Who has that power?" That teacher challenged me in a way that has changed the way I look at literature, form, and the teaching of what we call "creative writing." I don't assume anyone is the greatest American writer as much as I like to think in our own ways, we all are. It was the moment in my journey where point of view took on a multiple layer of meaning. Where more than perspective--first, second, third person narratives--what it meant for me was FORM. Depending on where you are coming FROM your stories can be linear or circular--resolved or never ending--character driven, plot driven, image driven, politically driven. Everything was dependent on intention and from what pair of shoes, tsinelas, or bare feet you were standing on. In my understanding of our lives as members of the Filipino Diaspora--we are a community where history and narrative are as disparate and collaged as traffic across Metro Manila. (Who goes in a straight line? It's always ikot ikot--taking short cuts which are actually long, snaking, avenues of traffic jams and dead ends and hard to breathe diesel oil.) My first experience testing this new narrative form was Jessica Hagedorn's Dogeaters. I couldn't figure out who the main character was or what the dominant narrative was and why nothing felt "interior." She challenged my expectations of the book and taught me about my lineage and myself. Now every time I read Dogeaters (as a writer and a teacher) I see something new about how narrative comes together in both substance and form. I see a reflection of our community parties, politics, family myths and legends. No such thing as straight and to the point--something or someone is always interrupting our narratives.
Part of becoming a writer, for me, was to read other writers and to learn from their books. I kept a reading journal and my question always was: "How did he/she do that?" My greatest learning experience was the time I had set aside for reading for my comprehensive exams. I had a list of 75 "master" works (the traditional canon I found myself constantly questioning and at the same time hungry for) and then I got to choose an author of study. I chose the Irish writer Edna O'Brien. Then I was to come up with three lists of ten books that reflected the material in my writing. I decided to focus on Contemporary Women Writers, Immigrant Experience as Revealed through Literature, and Filipino American writers. I found it difficult, in 1990, to come up with a list of ten FilAm writers so I expanded my list to Filipino/Filipino American writers. That time in life was the first time I sat down to study the literature of my kababayan in an academic way. I had to special-order everything. But in the same way, I was lucky that that list was so small. Bienvenido Santos was on that list, and his daughter-in-law was on my thesis committee (she was teaching chemistry at CSU) and so I got to meet him twice before he passed away. And then when my book came out I got the chance to meet so many of the authors on my list--Jessica Hagedorn, Ninotchka Rosca, Peter Bacho, even NVM Gonzales. I feel very honored and blessed to have traveled this road.
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