Posted: June 28, 2023
The Boys in the Boarding House and Other Stories
If you're curious about what the Philippines is like on the ground "among the natives", these short stories will give you a close look. If you are a Filipino, these stories will be a nice reminder of home.
I picked up Maayo's "The Boys in the Boarding House and Other Stories" during a vacation, I read some of the initial stories, and promptly set the book aside unfinished after my vacation. And there it lay on my shelf for quite some time.
One of the short stories, "The Promise", stuck with me over the years prompting me to pick up the book and finish it.
All the stories in this collection are wonderful reads. Maayo manages a balancing act in which she tells her tales with enough detail to prevent them from being considered sparse or minimalist yet keeping from giving so much information that it makes here prose heavy. Sentence construction is simple but the plot of a tale can be entertainingly intricate. Maayo also - and I love this quality - lets the reader experience the story; what I mean is, she does not tell us what the story is or how to think about the story. She lets the story unfold and leaves us to draw our own conclusions.
It is also my experience on reading these tales that Maayo manages to imbue some of her stories with a quality that I would term near-magical. At the end of some of these stories I would experience a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia. It's a kind of pure emotional hit that elevates the story for me.
These stories are Filipino stories set in the Philippines. I can tell the time period by the technology and the places - these stories are late 20th and early 21st century stories - the nineties and the aughts; around the time when the mobile phone was becoming indispensable to everybody and right before the mobile phone became prevalent.
Here's my take on each and every story:
The Promise
We start with the best story in the collection. "The Promise" is the history of an affair from the mistress's point of view. If you've ever wondered what's it like for the mistress, the wife, and the husband while the affair is going on and after the affair, read "The Promise". The details of this tale kept me hungrily reading, and the poignant ending proved how much empathy Maayo was able to draw out of me by how it affected me emotionally as a reader.
The Boys in the Boarding House
The story that gives its name to the collection is fairly lighthearted; a "ships passing in the night" sort of tale. What I like about it is that it brings me back to the Philippine resort city of Baguio with it's relatively cooler climate. I get to walk down Session Road again through this story.
Woman of God
I was not very hopeful about "Woman of God" since I find stories with a religious slant off-putting. Surprisingly, there is no religion in "Woman of God". What it has is troubled person using religion as a crutch. I'm sympathetic toward her, really, since, when your that vulnerable, any kind of support will do, including the ever-present enticement of religion. I think "Woman of God" has the most psychological depth of all the stories in this collection. Even after I finished this tale I was musing about what could have happened to its protagonist.
Querida
"Querida" means "mistress". In this story we are pulled into the life of a close-knit neighborhood where something colorful and unusual is happening on one of the houses. Maayo gives us a snippet here and a snippet there and leaves us to assemble the entire picture. Again, I am wondering what fate awates the protagonist after reading the last word of this tale.
Madeleine
The genius of Maayo is that she tells us these little details that to her might be commonplace, but she must know, somehow, that, to us, her readers, these everyday details are deeply interesting. "Madeliene" is a perfect example. No murders here, no car chases, no mysteries; just the days in the life of a college professor that has me rivetted. The ending approaches the poignancy of "The Promise".
All That Stuff
"All That Stuff" is for people who think that they're missing out because they never married or had any children. The bottom line is that the married life is not better or worse than the unmarried life; this story - though one of the weaker offerings in this collection - might cure some bellyaching.
The Arrangement
Gene gets every girl he wants. Has parallel affairs with them. Gene somehow survives and lives decently on his writing skills. I want to be Gene.
A Christmas Lunch and Some Issues of Consequence
This story has me joining the ladies at the Aristocrat Restaurant, a place I used to eat in, but have not visited in a long time, and most likely never will again since the restaurant chaine is on the wane. "A Christmas Lunch and Some Issues of Consequence" is to travel what "All That Stuff" is to marriage. Again, one of the weaker offerings in this collection.
The House of Mirrors
I loved the detailed description of the provincial trip in "The House of Mirrors", especially the curious matter about the electricity cutting out regularly during the night. A very physical and seemingly lusty affair occurs within this story that I wish was handled in a more visceral manner - instead the handling was much too demure.
Friends
Abortion in the Philippines is the subject matter of "Friends". This story brings to mind Irving Stone's "Cider House Rules".
The Strangers
This is the second story here about a one night stand. Unlike "The House of Mirrors" this is a more thorough treatment, not so much of the physical part but of the emotional aspect of such occurrences. For those of us who cannot afford such illicit activities, reading this makes us experience it vicariously; albeit the PG-rated version.
His Father's Son
Again about the philandering husband or, in this case, husbands. Maayo uses a funeral as anchor then timejumps to various scenes as she weaves the tale. I found the structure effective and entertaining.
Swept Leaves
In the tradition of "Querida", we are once again living across the street from a neighbor and piecing together a tale from goings-on in front of the house and the occasional rumor. This brings a quiet end to the collection which is, for the most part, about the beauty and excitement of quiet, normal lives.