Father Solo, sex, and the wisdom of the Greek

When, for my book review for writing class, I plucked Isagani Cruz’s “Father Solo and Other Stories for Adults Only” off the bookstore’s shelf, I knew I was presenting myself with a daunting task. When you grew up in a deeply religious family and were educated in a staunchly Catholic university like me, the first impulse is to declare the literary work’s salacious content as gratuitous and therefore pornographic. My challenge was to fight all my prudish instincts and view the work as a literary critic would, unbiased and professional.

While my resolve to accomplish my task was firm, however, I had no idea where to begin. It was fortunate that while I was wrestling with Cruz for class, I had “Great Books,” a chronicle of “The New Yorker” film critic David Denby’s return to Columbia University some thirty years after his college graduation to revisit the works of the invincible writers of the western world, for my bedside reading. I was on his chapter on the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides when it suddenly occurred to me to, as so many of our ancestors fumbling for answers had done, draw from the infallible wisdom of the Greeks.

Denby recounts the “Birth of Tragedy” wherein the young Friedrich Nietzsche talks about how the tragedy began as a celebration for Dionysus, the god of wine. The story of Dionysus goes like this: His birth, the fruit of Zeus’ affair with a mortal woman, arouses the hate of Hera, his father’s jealous wife, who then orders the Titans to ravage him and eat him raw. The doting father, however, destroys the giants and rebuilds the infant. The Greek celebration was made in honor of this god who was twice born, and was a highly bibulous and sexual affair in which the individual experienced liberation from the self and was, in essence, reborn. While this rebirth was manifested in booze and sex, however, it was certainly about more than just that. This liberation most of all pertained to enlightenment of the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural sort, with the Greeks fervently believing in Dionysus’ power to loosen their inhibitions so that creativity may freely flow. The thwarted human spirit was unleashed so that it may go back to its primal instincts and be reminded of its humanity, passionate and turbulent. Soon, as history shows, the frenzied feast was tamed into the tragic form and went on to father many of the world’s greatest works of literature. The tragedies reveal a culture of individuals who were so free they were extraordinarily aware of their subconscious, of their innermost fears and desires. They reveal a culture of individuals who had subjected themselves to the uprising of the self so that they may truly know themselves.

Throughout history, a number of books emerged to shock audiences with their unreserved sexual content—D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Jane Austen’s “Lady Susan” and Choderlos de Laclos’ “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”, for instance. Unlike the Greek tragedies, they were ruthlessly unappreciated and shunned during their time, primarily for their supposed barbarism and obscenity. Like the Greek tragedies, the sexual liberation of their characters represent a liberation of another kind, one that is more profound. Lady Chatterley’s libidinous affair with the gamekeeper is a breaking free from the stringent class system and loveless marriages. Lady Susan, for all her cunning and deviousness, sets the woman free from the obedient and acquiescent stereotype. Laclos’ masterpiece, finally, is a merciless exposé of France’s depraved aristocracy. Years after these books were published, I remember my eighteen-year-old self reading them and then being utterly disturbed by their impure themes, even as I joyfully unraveled their indispensable sociopolitical insights. Perhaps the role of the books’ salacious content is to introduce unrest within me so that I may be in the disposition to discover the other discords in the stories—from the merely priggish like my discomfort for sexual themes to the legitimate like the world-changing predicaments of society.

Isagani Cruz’s “Father Solo and Other Stories for Adults Only,” perhaps comes from the same seditious tradition. The book is a collection of five stories about different things written at different times, but which are bound by the subtitle “For Adults Only.” Each story in the anthology is shockingly carnal in its content and represents a liberation of some sort. Cruz begins with “Father Solo,” the tale of a priest who projects his fixation with his penis onto the members of his church. In order to atone for his sin, regardless of the day’s gospel, his every sermon is about the evils of masturbation. In his exposé of the weaknesses of this man of god, the author begins to loosen the death grip the inordinately puritanical clergy has on society.

“Once Upon a Time Some Years From Now” is an imagination of the Philippines of the future. Here, the woman president, Cory Fernandez, is a mere figurehead, sexual orgasms are facilitated artificially through the portable orgasm machine (POM), books are obsolete, the poor hail from Forbes Park, the civilized follow “Dolphy’s Book of Etiquette” and Americans rule the country. When the president has to make the agonizing decision whether to make POMs illegal or not, she consults the wisdom of Imelda Marcos. “According to Imelda’s Theory, the one patterned after the philosophy of Sigmund Freud, sex starvation leads to political unrest, something long accepted since the First Dictatorship forced people to see sex films in order to deaden their political desires during pre-Accident days.” What is especially remarkable about the story is that these fantastical situations are rooted in actual events in our history, thus making this imagined Philippines a very cogent possibility. The story, in its daring foresight of the consequences of our current mistakes, attempts to liberate the country from a dreadful fate.

In “Termination,” a doomed relationship finds closure in passionate sex. The story starts like a passionate love affair. She is running after her boyfriend in the bus when they stumble upon each other in the rain and their hands touch unexpectedly. They go to a motel room to let their clothes dry, but they make fiery love instead. He recounts, “She was unbelievable. We started in the shower, did it there, moved still wet to the bed, did it again, moved to the floor and did it again. And again. And again. I lost count after her thirtieth orgasm.” When the sex is over and the characters are revealed to be lovers and he is revealed to be the adulterous boyfriend whom the girl is running after at the beginning of the story, the girl decides that their relationship is over, too. After thirty orgasms, the girl finally liberates herself from a relationship that has the sexual intensity of a one-night stand but also its lack of fidelity.

“What I Did Last Summer,” which chronicles the sexual encounter of a girl with a certain B.T., frees the female from the stifling stereotype and instead portrays her as the dominant person in the act of sex and the master of her craft. In the story, the girl is able to skillfully please herself and achieve orgasms while B.T. struggles to keep up while raving about a certain book he likes—which in the end, turns out to have been written by the girl herself.

“Picked,” finally, is about a beautiful lesbian who goes to urban Manila to experience freedom from the conservatism of her province but is instead disillusioned. When a down-on-his-luck former corrupt official helps her when she is pick-pocketed, she is given not only money for her jeepney fare but also a bit of faith in the humanity she has learned to violently distrust.

What is notable about Cruz’s anthology is the absence of the villain in all the stories. Father Solo could be heartless, true, in his neglect to attend to the parishioners’ spiritual needs, but I feel pity and not hatred for him because of his helpless imprisonment to his bodily desires. The conceited lesbian and thieving government employee in “Picked” are hardly laudable, but I can see that they, too, are only trying to survive in this world. In the book, no one is truly good and truly bad.

In “Father Solo and Other Stories for Adults Only,” there is no morally right and wrong. The world of the anthology is not one that makes moral sense—the stories and characters are at odds with themselves. Jess, a man notorious for pre-marital sex and abortion, comes on to Father Solo. “ I fuck [women] at night and you forgive me in the morning. I realized tonight, while I was fucking the abortionist, that I have never been happy with a woman. They have all seen my prick, but only you have seen my soul.” At this confession, the priest is conflicted, and when he is later raped by Jess, he finds it pleasurable. Cruz does not, however, portray this scene as right or wrong. He depicts it not as abhorrent and disgusting but neither does he tolerate it. Perhaps this is because the goal of the literary work is not of erudition and the imposition of rules of conduct, but merely to ruffle my feathers. What is right and what is wrong does not matter. What matters is that the social order be disturbed for it has been stifling. It is up to me to sift and weigh. Like the writers of the tragedies and Laclos, Lawrence and Austen, Isagani Cruz introduces unrest in a world that is highly mechanized and where I am constantly overwhelmed by, as Aristotle puts it, “the hubris of excessive rationality.” When I am allowed to go back to my primal instincts and reminded that I am a passionate and turbulent human being with fears and desires, I am reborn. Now that I know myself truly, I can transform myself like so.

While researching for this review, I found myself becoming especially aware of the current reemergence of erotic literature in our bookstores. There is the highly popular “Fifty Shades of Grey,” for one, and the reissue of Anne Rice’s risqué version of the Sleeping Beauty story. Perhaps, I thought, this phenomenon is a response to the sociopolitical climate of the times. In “Once Upon a Time Some Years from Now,” the president’s lover recounts how the suffocating conditions of the Martial Law provided fertile ground for the birth of the Bomba film industry. Society cries for liberation, and the sexual freedom of the movies represented a freedom that transcends the libido. Perhaps the current order could use a bit of shaking; perhaps society is craving to be unchained. From what exactly, I am uncertain, but seen from this purview, the existence of erotic literature in bookstores’ shelves is ennobled—be they the work of a pantheon of Philippine literature like Isagani Cruz or something seemingly pedestrian like “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

At Bar Dolci

The sandwiches we ordered were beautiful. Mine had thick slices of ruby red tomatoes and emerald leaves of basil resting on warm focaccia bread cloaked with mozzarella. His had pale pink slivers of porkloin coupled with a sweet layer of what we guessed was pickled radish. Everything looked simple and fresh and we imagined lunches at an Italian countryside would include such fare. They were as delicious as they looked and when the last mouthful was gone we were satisfied and happy, but we knew that we will not go back for seconds. We were in Bar Dolci, after all, for the dessert. There, the dessert is the main course and everything else is but a prelude. The array of sandwiches and bruschettas is delightful, but they serve the diner the same purpose as, say, the legendary spoonful of olive oil does to the wine connoisseur. In the same way that the olive oil lines the wine connoisseur’s stomach to fortify it against the unwelcome inebriation hours of drinking will bring, the sandwiches merely prepare the tummy for the saccharine feast ahead.

We found Bar Dolci in Burgos Circle in Taguig, that plaza of small restaurants and cafes towards which epicures have lately been flocking. True to its name, the establishment operates like a bar of Italian confectionery. We entered the door to find ourselves in what appeared like a cocktail lounge. As in trendy speakeasies, the slender space was lined with stainless steel counters and glass cases, but which did not cradle bottles of liquor. Instead, they had sweets—rows and rows of rainbow-colored macarons, or the Italian re-appropriation macarone, dainty squares of berry-flavored jelly bonbons and glorious tubs of gelato. Against the stairs was a tall glass refrigerator that advertised pastry lollipops in a plethora of flavors but which was empty. Perhaps they were still baking in the oven and we came too early. The counter across the door was a caffè bar, and the hum of the machines and the subtle smell of the coffee beans heralded cups of espresso, machiatto and affogato.

The upstairs, too, looked and felt like a cocktail lounge. The walls were painted orange and the floor was a dark grey, almost black. The space was dotted with narrow black tables and pops of tangerine plastic stools, and looked inexorably cool and modern. The booth by the window was where we ate our sandwiches, and it was a very chic affair that consisted of two round glass coffee tables framed by three low backless sofas in black velvet that looked impossibly sleek and hip but which were also impossibly uncomfortable. Here lay our quandary: while the sandwiches were lovely and reminiscent of Diane Lane’s sojourn in “Under the Tuscan Sun” and the view of Burgos Circle was not bad at all, we were uncertain if Italian cuisine belonged to a restaurant that had such cold and stylish interiors. Part of the charm of Italian gastronomy, after all, is its sense of the natural and utter lack of affectations. Such meals, we believed, should be had al fresco under the shade of a tree and served on a long, unvarnished wooden table covered with crisp white linen and jars of fresh flowers and pretty heirloom china. The group of high school students across us did not seem to mind, though, and looked right at home. Perhaps as we are now too old for nightclubs, we are also too old for Italian dessert bars.

Regardless, we enjoyed and finished our sandwiches, and soon it was time for dessert. The two main attractions of Bar Dolci’s selection of sweets, the gelato and the macaron, are as fashionable as the restaurant’s interior design. Macaron empires and artisanal ice cream stands appear to have dethroned the cupcake and the yogurt, which were in such vogue just a couple of years ago. I told my friend that I am a devoted fan myself, and used to not let Sundays pass without going to Greenhills to indulge in a Bizu macaron and a cup of Café Publico’s pistachio strawberry gelato.

First, we had the gelato. My earliest experience of the iced dessert was vicarious and through the film “Under the Tuscan Sun.” In the story, Diane Lane plays a recent divorcee who, on a whim, flies of to Italy to find herself. One day, while strolling down the plaza, she sees a striking Italian woman in a slinky black dress eating a cone of gelato blissfully and like she was making passionate love. Lane was struck by the sexual intensity of the sight. I remember being struck too, I told my friend, by the dessert that could inspire such sensuality.

While the gelato is often called the Italian ice cream, the term is actually not apt. Unlike the traditional ice cream, it is lighter and contains less butterfat. The sweet frozen dessert, which is a delectable mixture of milk, cream, sugar, fresh fruit, and nut purees, first gained fame when it was served during a banquet at the Medici court in Florence. Catherine de Medici, the renowned patroness of all things beautiful, soon introduced the novelty to France and the rest is food history.

Numerous gelateries have sprouted across Metro Manila in the recent years, but what sets Bar Dolci apart is its scrumptious collection of flavors. Everyday in their kitchen, gelatos inspired by Italy and the cuisines of the world are created—honey praline, limoncello sorbet, green tea, olive citron, tiramisu, French vanilla, walnut torte and the local buko pandan, among others. All are lovingly concocted from scratch and from natural ingredients. The day we went to dine there, they had around fifteen flavors. They looked exquisite and colorful side by side in their metal tubs and under the bright light. I ordered the torrone, and he had the salted caramel.

The salted caramel, the restaurant’s bestseller, reminded us of Café Publico’s own salted butter taffy gelato. This one though, we agreed, was subtler in flavor. The saltiness and sweetness that were so distinct in Café Publico’s creation were but hints in the Bar Dolci version. It was smoother, too, and melted in our mouths and glided down to our blissful bellies gracefully. Even before we were done with the cup, we decided that we loved its mutedness. Our judgment, however, was merely instinctive and we longed to be intelligent food critics, and so I consulted my students who had vacationed in Italy and experienced the authentic gelato. They told me that the true Italian gelato, while light and smooth, is unbelievably rich in flavor. This knowledge saddened me because I thoroughly enjoyed the subdued salted caramel at Bar Dolci, which means that my taste buds are terribly uncultivated. The closest we have to the authentic gelato in Manila, my students said, is that of Gelatissimo in Serendra.

The torrone gelato, on the other hand, was a wonderful surprise. Torrone is the Italian word for nougat and is a dessert that hailed from Sicily. It is made with honey, egg whites, vanilla and almonds, is sometimes sprinkled with spices and bits of preserved fruit, and is without a doubt my favorite food of all time. The torrone gelato at Bar Dolci was a mountain of vanilla strewn with shavings of almonds and fruit jelly that looked like jewels and was absolutely beautiful. When we had our first spoonful, my friend and I agreed that the gelato translation of the classic Sicilian pastry was genius. To make it chewy like the nougat would be too literal an interpretation, and so instead it was smooth and graceful just as gelato should be. What it took from the nougat was the seamless marriage of the flavors of its various ingredients. 

When we were done with our gelatos, we were already feeling a bit full but still we braved the macaron counter. It was a delight, looking at the colorful circles lined up so neatly, and selecting which to have was torture. I finally settled on raspberry and green tea. He ordered salted caramel to complement the gelato he had previously. We decided to have them with a blackcurrant bonbon and a cup of hot tea, an infusion of cranberries, elderberries and rosehips, to cleanse our slightly exhausted palates.

I fell in love with macarons a bit belatedly when I first saw them in Sofia Coppola’s film “Marie Antoinette,” but I fell in love with them ardently. The hedonistic queen played by Kirsten Dunst is in her boudoir, trying on luminous jewels and luxurious garments, but my eyes were on a table in the background where a pretty tower of pastel colored cookies were resting. The cookies stole the scene. I have never, I declared to my friend, met a pastry more delicate and light and beautiful.

The macaron is first and foremost a French dessert, but was re-appropriated by the Italians as the macarone. It begins with the outer cookie, that rainbow-colored delicate shell that splits at the faintest pressure to reveal a divine interior that is slightly chewy and nutty. Sandwiched by two such cookies is a spread of ganache or some other lush filling. 

Our problem with the Bar Dolci macarons was that they were too intense. The fillings were so rich and flavorful that we did not get to relish the delicate shell and savor its lightness and airiness. The cookie was supposed to melt in the mouth, leisurely and fluidly, before it mingled with the soft flavor of the filling. The raspberry macaron was too tangy, the salted caramel was too buttery, and biting into the green tea macaron was like swallowing a bag of tea whole. We finished all three macarons down to the last crumb, but violently declared that dainty pastries should taste dainty—an unwritten rule in the matter of French patisserie.

The moment we were out of Bar Dolci’s doors, I expressed my distress to my friend. I was uncertain about my review of the restaurant—did I like it or not? I blamed my uneducated palate. I wished that I had, like my students, once flown to Italy to try the genuine gelato, and then hopped to Paris for a box of Laduree macarons. Perhaps then I can develop a verdict that has credence and verity. We took one final look at the establishment’s façade and at the glass windows that were used as a tally board. The amiable barista had explained the Bar Dolci tradition. The new customer’s name is written on the board, and acquires for his every visit a point to his name. We noted the abundance of names and the scores that went as high as 32s and 41s and 60s. There, I declared, are the true food critics—people who do not bother so much with stringent standards and instead trust their instincts. Celebrated writer of gastronomy and my personal idol AJ Liebling himself said that the food critic, first and foremost, should have a big appetite. My primary criterion should be my taste buds.

And so quickly we went back to Bar Dolci, had the barista write our names on the tally board and, the very next day, went back for one more macaron and one more cup of gelato. I had the vanilla and he had the salted caramel, and then we decided that they were good.

Our menu: Tomato basil mozzarella sandwich (P180), honeyed porkloin sandwich (P240), salted caramel and torrone gelatos (P120 each), green tea, salted caramel, and raspberry macarons (P50 each), hot raspberry tea (P90), blackcurrant jelly bonbon (P15)

Scenes from our breakfast at Antonio's

Over the holidays, we drove to Tagaytay to treat dear Miss Ei to breakfast. The weather was cool and wonderful most of the time, except when it drizzled and we could not go outside except to go on piggyback rides. 

Right after breakfast, we hopped over to Bag of Beans to eat some more and it was delightful. The day was beautiful most of all because the company was beautiful. Before we knew it, it was time to go home in time for Earle's theater rehearsal and Jotham had to scoop his last serving of halo-halo.

Blighted

The rain seeped into the crevice on my window while I was away at work. When I got home and finally sat on my bed I found that the edges of my books that I had positioned on the floor so lovingly and just so were soaked-- the seventh book of the Harry Potter series, which I purchased before everyone else but had never read, my guide to becoming French, which I acquired when I first fell in love with France, and my copy of Edith Wharton's autobiography, which the lady at the bookstore said was the only copy in the country.

The crevice on my window was small and hardly noticeable but the rain had been heavy and lingering.

I will not move my books. Perhaps the rain can learn how to be trusted to respect the smallness of the crevice and the books that were mostly sentimental and valuable that stubbornly nested on the floor.