The Woman Who Had Two Navels

by Nick Joaquín

This book is a fictional story of a Filipina woman who believes she has two navels. It is widely considered as a classic in Philippine literature. It is divided into 5 chapters: Paco, Macho, La Vidal, The Chinese Moon, and Doctor Monson.

This is a novel, not be confused with the short story collection of the same name.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Asia, Magical Realism, Asian Literature, Novels

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Nicomedes Márquez Joaquín (1917–2004) was a Filipino writer and journalist best known for his short stories and novels in the English language. He also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. In 1976, Joaquin was conferred the rank and title of National Artist of the Philippines for Literature. He has been considered one of the most important Filipino writers, along with José Rizal and Claro M. Recto. Unlike Rizal and Recto, whose works were written in Spanish, Joaquin's major works were written in English despite being a native Spanish speaker.

Before becoming one of the leading practitioners of Philippine literature in English, he was a seminarian in Hong Kong – who later realized that he could better serve God and humanity by being a writer. This is reflected in the content and style of his works, as he emphasizes the need to restore national consciousness through important elements of Catholic Spanish Heritage.

In his self-confessed mission as a writer, he is a sort of "cultural apostle" whose purpose is to revive interest in Philippine national life through literature – and provide the necessary drive and inspiration for a fuller comprehension of their cultural background. His awareness of the significance of the past to the present is part of a concerted effort to preserve the spiritual tradition and the orthodox faith of the Catholic past – which he perceives as the only solution to our modern ills.

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

”The identity of a Filipino today is of a person asking what is his identity.” - Nick Joaquin

When I bought this book a couple of months ago, I immediately skimmed the first two pages. I did think that this was a book about a female character with anatomical deformity and the book was about what caused the deformity and what should be done to correct it. I thought that this book would make me endlessly laugh.

Having formed that ridiculous image in my mind, I set this book aside. There were and there still are so many books by foreign authors that beckon on me. Also, just like most Filipinos, I always thought that foreign books were far better than local ones even those by our local literary greats.

On many counts, I was awfully wrong. First, this novel has nothing to do with the study of medicine, anthropology or anatomy. It is a novel that every Filipino should be proud of. It is a novel written by a Filipino about Filipinos and for the Filipinos. However, it does not preach. It does not self-deprecate. It does not promote self-interest nor does it encourage us Filipinos to hate ourselves and wish that we were of different nationalities. This novel is part of who we are as it shows a pivotal part in our nation’s history and how our race was formed or came into being by getting sustenance from two colonizers, akin to two navels: those of Mother Spain’s and Mother USA’s. The two countries that greatly influenced our nation’s psyche and will forever be part of who we are as an Asian race.

But I was right too. It made me endless laugh. But not for the thought of a person having two navels. I laughed endlessly albeit silently as I grieved about having to realize how much I’ve been missing while I prioritize foreign authors in my book choices. I also shamelessly laughed realizing how distorted asking myself who we are as a raceour culture is and we just couldn’t do anything about it.

Nicomedes “Onching”, today just “Nick” Joaquin (1917-2004) was awarded the National Artist for Literature trophy in 1976. This award is the highest national recognition given to Filipino artists who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts and to the cultural heritages of the country. He was said to be the Greatest Filipino writer of the 20th century and third to Rizal and Recto as the greatest Filipino writer ever. He was #1 in Filipino writers list in English. Dr. Alejandro Roces compared him to William Faulkner. His Portrait of the Artist as Filipino is said to be the most important Filipino play in English. Before his death due to cardiac arrest in 2004, he was a friend and the biographer of the former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. After his death, this bookworm with a gift of total recall, expressed his wish of donating the 3,000 books from his personal library to University of Santo Thomas. He did not marry.

Without providing too many spoilers, the story is about a Connie Escobar who claims to have two navels. She discloses this to a Filipino doctor, Pepe Monson who is one (the other being the priest Father Tony) of the two sons of a former rich Filipino businessman who is hiding in Hong Kong to avoid postwar trials of post war independence. Connie is in Hong Kong apparently to chase a band player Paco Texiera even if she is already married to Macho Escobar. However, Connie says that she left the Philippines to run away from her husband because he is having an affair with her mother Senora de Vidal.

The novel’s theme of pressure of the past upon the present is similar to G. G. Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude although Joaquin did not cover as many generations as Marquez did. In fact, Connie has only the relationship between her husband and mother as the immediate past that greatly affect her present. However, the symbolisms are clear. Connie suffers due to the strong influence of her mother when she was growing up (with the incident about the dolls as the image that got etched in my mind) and the indiscretions the mother did in having extra-marital affairs. All these while the supposedly the strong patriarch Don Manolo Vidal was busy protecting his business and his political turfs. Don Vidal can be likened to the Filipino businessmen who sided to whoever was in power during the Spanish and American occupations just to protect their interest while overlooking the interest of the many poor peasants (symbolized by Connie Escobar).

This is not an easy read though. Joaquin’s narrative is confusing especially in the first 50 pages of the book due to mixed points of view and multiple flows of thoughts in just one paragraph. I worked for two years in Hong Kong and I thought it would have been more interesting if Joaquin took time to describe his milieu for imagery impact. He also did not resort to using local languages or phrases, e.g., Chinese nor in Filipino, to give authenticity to the spoken dialogues. Lastly, I did not notice any effort to give distinct and recognizable voices at least to the main characters. All the voices seem to be coming from the same person.

However, the plot is brilliant. My first time to read a local book with Hong Kong and Philippines as settings. Prior to this, I thought that the post-war (WWII) era has been that part of Philippine history that seems to be “untouched” by fictional writers. This was due to the fact that many literary works mainly focused on the time when the WWII was on-going. Joaquin’s use of his characters to symbolize the bigger scope – the Philippines as it is trying to rise from the ashes – is astounding and the impact is comparable to the intent that Dr. Jose Rizal probably had when he was writing his Noli and Fili.

I will be reading Joaquin’s Cave and Shadows and Tropical Gothic next to know more about the man.

[Apokripos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Past Engagements
(A Book Review of Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels)

In 1955, Nick Joaquin left the Philippines on a Rockefeller creative writing grant taking him to countries such as Spain, the United States, and Mexico. This two-year sojourn gave birth to his first novel inspired by an earlier, shorter work, The Woman Who Had Two Navels, published in 1961 having won the very first Harry Stonehill award.

A historic novel now considered a seminal work in Philippine Literature, it revolves on the lives of Filipino emigrants living in Hong Kong centering on the story of Connie Escobar, a woman who indulges and deludes herself as having two belly buttons/navels so as to set herself apart and seen as somehow special by others. She confers this secret to Doctor Pepe Monson, a horse veterinarian, son of a former Filipino businessman and revolutionary in self-imposed exile terrified to deal with the trials of post war independence. As the book progresses we meet these characters at muted wars with themselves and, as if serving like a mirror reflecting Joaquin’s experiences prior his travels and composition of the novel, it portrays their struggle to keep their identity amidst different cultural point of views.

I’m sure this novel’s odd title, the point of inquiry and fascination of anyone who had either merely read it on the front cover or read the book through, is what excites anyone’s curiosity: how can someone have two navels and what are the reasons concerning it? Is it because of an anatomical or genetic anomaly here unto now unheard of? Or it is an outright lie from someone’s disjointed view of reality? In a stroke I will call nothing short of brilliant, Joaquin paints an efficient literary device, a catalyst from which to springboard questions pertaining to nationalism amidst the heavy influence and heritage of past colonial masters, society’s collapse wrought by past wars, and the Filipino identity as it basks in its new-found freedom.

Aside from the occasional critical essays I’ve encountered (I still particularly recall his colorful essay about Nora Aunor which I read ages ago in our college’s Introduction to Film subject), it’s like encountering an all too different Nick Joaquin in the pages of this novel. Getting into the novel requires a huge amount of comprehension and perception in the part of the reader, and in no pretension whatsoever, it is truly a difficult read, I lumbered through the first part myself. Yet carried on I did and I’m quite delighted by the pay off. If I’m ever qualified to make suggestions as how to read the book, I say take it in stride, like a leisurely walk on the battlements of Intramuros paying the utmost attention to the cobbled stones you walk upon, the brick work of the structure, the sun that illuminates the place with an unfathomable wonder and the location’s sense of history. Joaquin’s prose is intricate, at times profoundly confusing and has this surreal quality as if entering upon a dream at once overwhelms and likewise gratifies in ways that words can’t quite express; with eloquently beautiful scenes, imagery and flashbacks similar to viewing sepia-tinted pictures, it makes reader wax poetic about the past, of a Philippines in its youthful glow in its erstwhile glory during a time when the epithet The Pearl of the Orient rings true.

The Woman Who Had Two Navels is a many-layered, chaotic and less-than-prefect novel that taunts out universal paradoxes of truth and falsehood, illusion and reality, past and present by paralleling it to the characters and reader’s inner turmoil and puts it in the context of the Filipino’s search for identity. In Nick Joaquin’s view, we must look at the past with the consciousness need of engaging the present world in its own terms.


_________________________
Book Details: Book #30 for 2011
Published by Bookmark Inc.
(Paperback, 1991 Edition)
336 pages
Started: July 26, 2011
Finished: August, 2011
My Rating: ★★★★

[See this review on my book blog Dark Chest of Wonders and for many others.]

[Rise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over damp Hong Kong the day dawned drizzling, astonishing with sunshine the first passengers huddled inside the ferries, luring them out on deck to spread cold fingers in the blond air and to smile excitedly (that night was full moon of the Chinese New Year) at the great rock city coming up across the black water, rising so fat and spongy in the splashing light the waterfront's belt of buildings looked like a cake, with alleys cutting deep into the icing and hordes of rickshaws vanishing like ants between the slices.

The postwar Hong Kong setting of Nick Joaquín's first novel was significant in at least one respect. It highlighted the exiled condition of its Filipino characters, exile of the physical and spiritual kind. The Monson family—the elder Doctor Monson and his sons Doctor Pepe Monson and Father Tony Monson—had been living in Hong Kong for the better part or the whole of their lives. The elder Monson was veteran of the turn of the century wars against Spanish and American colonial armies. It was also to Hong Kong where General Emilio Aguinaldo (first president of the Philippine Republic), whose image adorned the younger doctor's clinic, went into a short-lived voluntary exile after a political settlement with the Spanish government. It had been Monson's dream to come back to the country only when "it was a free country again", which he finally did after the second world war. What he had seen when he came back to Manila, however, had so disappointed him it dashed the idyllic images of the country he harbored in his mind.

Also fleeing to Hong Kong was Connie Escobar, the woman who thought she has two navels. Whereas the elder Monson was haunted by the specter of the past and the shame of discovering its impermanence, a different kind of shame, anatomical in nature, was haunting Connie Escobar. She ran away from Manila, presumably to flee her husband and to seek out Doctor Pepe Monson. She wanted to undergo an operation, "something surgical", that would remove one of the two orifices that supposedly peered from her belly like eyes. Her complaint may be psychological yet it clearly had something metaphorical about it. It seemed like a product of her sensitivity and a trauma from childhood, a projection of her repressed anxieties. The same physical deformity marked a "defaced" statue of the Biliken, a "toy" grudgingly given to her by her parents when she was a child. Although meant as a good luck charm, owing to its perpetually smiling face, there was something sinister associated with the Biliken in the novel—"an old fat god, with sagging udders, bald and huge-eared and squatting like a buddha; and the sly look in its eyes was repeated by the two navels that winked from its gross belly".



Billiken statue


Connie's "imagined" condition could also be caused by emotional rebellion. She felt betrayed by her husband (Macho Escobar) and mother (Concha Vidal) when she learned that they were former lovers. She was so affected by this that it may have triggered a kind of internal division in her, a branching of consciousness that manifested itself on her body. Those around her, those she told of it, denied the possible existence of an extra navel, almost taking her for a madwoman. The symbol of the two navels, the aberration it signifies, was so rich with implications that unraveling it almost made for a mystery story, although to call the novel a horror story was not farfetched either.

Another character seemingly in search of direction was Paco Texeira, a married band vocalist living in Hong Kong. Paco, a Filipino-Portuguese, went to work for a while in Manila's entertainment clubs and became entangled with Concha Vidal (La Vidal), Connie's mother. He became her constant escort, accompanying her in various parties and functions. Paco also got involved with Connie but he had to flee the two women as he detected a kind of evil force around them.

"They're both agents of the devil—she and her mother. They work as a team: the mother catches you and plays with you until you're a bloody rag; then she feeds you over to her daughter.... They work for each other. Whenever I was with one of them I could feel the other watching greedily. They share each other's pleasure, watching you twitch. And when they've screwed you up to the breaking point the daughter springs her abominable revelation [of having two navels]—and you go mad and run amuck. And there's one more soul that's damned."

Connie's mother was also in Hong Kong, presumably on business. The two women were actually pursuing Paco. To add to the complication, Macho Escobar arrived looking for his wife. These characters were all exiles of a spiritual kind, imprisoned by their desires and baffled by their pride.

Connie's characterization, with her unstable mental condition, was already a far cry from that of Maria Clara in José Rizal's nationalist novel Noli Me Tangere (1887). The latter had always been seen as the representation of the ideal Filipina and symbol of the 'motherland'. Maria Clara turned out to be an illegitimate child of a villainous Spanish priest (Padre Damaso), a secret which when she discovered brought her unimaginable shame. The source of Connie's shame, for her part, was seeing her own self as a freak of nature.

An obvious meaning of the two navels was Connie's inheritance of a dual identity, her being a child of two worlds, of Spanish and American cultures. Her cultural environment, wracked by a recent war, created in her soul a kind of hybrid self. It may be too transparent a metaphor: the Filipino identity being frayed twice by conquistadors during bloody conflicts and colonial administrations, native culture hostage to two cultural axes. Punctuating these cultural crises were the major wars (the Philippine Revolution against Spain, the Philippine-American War, and World War II against the Japanese) which left destruction in their wakes: the savaging of lives, landscapes, and, again, identities.

This transparent reading of the Joaquín's inquiry into Filipino identity was complicated by the clash of the male and female. The dramatic battle of the sexes that figured in the novelist's other works of fiction was here played out in its full barbaric sensuality. And Joaquín being Joaquín, the writing was a celebration of existence. His sentences were acute expressions of beauty, horror, and vitality.

From the ramparts where the Spaniards had watched for Chinese pirate and English buccaneer, the younger taller city beyond the walls seemed rimmed with flame, belted with fire, cupped in a conflagration, for a wind was sweeping the avenue of flametrees below, and the massed treetops, crimson in the hot light, moved in the wind like a track of fire, the red flowers falling so thickly like coals the street itself seemed to be burning.

The prose was rich with color and details; reading it sometimes felt like watching a fashion show. The Vidal mother and daughter strutted their clothes, hats, pearls, and furs like ramp models. Even the description of postwar destruction had a surreal energy about it.

Macho had suddenly packed up one day and flown off to Manila; not really caring to see the city again or anyone there; not really moved when he saw it, flat and spiky, its bared ribs and twisted limbs a graph of pain in the air; not really astonished even by its vivacity—traffic brimming between the banks of rubble; daylong blocklong queues at the movie houses; the ruins noisy with night clubs; and, on his third night there, like a nightmare's climax, a glittering fashion show in the bullet-pocked ballroom of a gutted hotel, where Macho, turning away from the sequins and diamonds, the shattered ceiling and the bloodstained floor, had so abruptly come face to face with Concha Vidal ...[H]e had suddenly and sharply and exultantly known, with the old ache in the marrow and a blaze of flametrees in the mind, that he had never stopped wanting, he had never stopped desiring this woman.

The imagery that lighted the novel's hallways was determined by poetry. But it was a fixed form poetry, as the repetitions of details were deliberate, creating the patterning effect of an elaborate tapestry. The symmetric structure of repetition was like that of a villanelle's, with the images repeated like a refrain after several lines.

Consider a flashback scene near the novel's end, in the final chapter titled "DOCTOR MONSON". (The penultimate chapter was called "THE CHINESE MOON"; the double letter "O" in these titles almost concretized the presence of the two navels).

Behind him now, like smoky flames in the noon sun, the whole beautiful beloved city, the city that he guarded even now, here on this mountain pass, and for which he had come so far away to die—to the edge of the land, into the wilderness, up the cold soggy mountains of the north—and he told himself that, finally, one discovered that one had been fighting, not for a flag or a people, but for just one town, one street, one house; for the sound of a canal in the morning, the look of some roofs in the noon sun, and the fragrance of a certain evening flower.

He told himself that, finally, one found oneself willing to die, not for a great public future, but a small private past; and he picked up his pistol, having finished eating, and crawled back to the cliff's edge.

The elder Monson was here on his deathbed dreaming retrospectively of his participation as a young fighter in the decisive battle in the mountain of Tirad Pass, the last stand of Filipino fighters against Americans. It was an inspired juxtaposition of his imagined death years ago in the battlefield with that of his actual dying in old age. The same images were repeated later in the novel, a kind of closure for the old man as he finally defined his once conflicted nationalism.

Opening his eyes he saw, not the stars or pine branches, but the canopy of a bed and the faces of his two sons hovering over him; seeing suddenly in their faces all the years of foreign wandering, the years of exile, but knowing suddenly now that the exile had, after all, been more than a vain gesture, that his task had not ended with that other death in the pinewoods, that he had stood on guard, all these years, as on the mountain pass, while something precious was carried to safety. For there it was now in the faces of his sons—the mountain pass, and the pinewoods, and the shapes of the men who had died there. There it was now in their faces—the Revolution and the Republic, and that small private past for which he had come so far away to die. It had not been lost ... [T]here was no need to cross the sea to find it. Here it was before him (and he strove to rise to salute it) in the faces of his sons. He had saved it and it was now in the present, and the hovering faces brightened and blurred about him, became the sound of a canal in the morning, the look of some roofs in the noon sun, and the fragrance of a certain evening flower. Here he was, home at last ... and before him, like smoky flames in the sunset, the whole beautiful beloved city.

Nationalism was here depicted as a homage to one's "small private past" and testified by Monson's two sons who will carry on after his death, even if they remains as exiles in Hong Kong. (Contrast the same battle of Tirad Pass in the closing scene of F. Sionil José's nationalist novel Dusk wherein nationalism was proffered as an inborn "duty".) This scene was a form of making peace with the past, the kind of closure that eluded Connie Escobar. In one of her imagined death scenes, she was arguing with her father, Manolo Vidal, about acceptance and letting go of the past. Her father's advice hinted at looking back at their lives with a critical eye, repairing the generational break, the severed connections:

"If you must go down, go down raging. Do not lose that ability, like I did. Take things hard, make a fuss, and refuse to accept what we are—no not even now. Rage, rage against us—even now!"

The reference here was to the poem by Dylan Thomas, with "Do not lose that ability" paralleling "Do not go gentle into that good night". The poem was in fact a villanelle constantly echoing the famous passage about raging against darkness and stagnant death.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

...

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The poem's subject was the poet's dying father. Joaquín's paraphrase was relevant as the poem's theme contextualized his discourse on memory and nationalism. In addition to the borrowing of novelistic structure of repetition, it anticipated the death scene of old doctor Monson and illuminated the meaning of Connie's (four) death scenes. Four times, the poet urged his father about why he must rage against the dying light, must not go gently with the good night. In the particular hallucinatory scene in the novel, the roles were reversed. Connie was with her father on an airplane ("there on the sad height", as in the poem; atop Mount Tirad as in the case of old Monson). Manolo was appealing to her to finally face the specter haunting her and embrace her destiny, her identity, whatever she may have thought of it. Present reality check as key to affirming life, to attaining rebirth and regeneration.

In The Woman Who Had Two Navels, as with his only other novel (Cave and Shadows) which appeared more than 20 years later, Joaquín abstracted his ideas on memory and identity and played the devil's advocate on the subject of nationalism. He was ever the sly novelist and consummate prose writer.

[fableknot · Rating 1 out of 5]

After glossing through hundreds of glowing four-to-five star ratings and insightful theme analyses of The Woman With Two Navels, you may be led to believe that I too will conduct this review in an appropriate, almost distant manner, praising Joaquin for such a glorious masterpiece.



You have been sorely mistaken.

There will be no detached observations. There will be no compulsory censoring. I will rant. I will spoil. It will be messy. If you take exception to this, then find another reviewer, because I cannot politely contain the fury of my emotions or thoughts this book has provoked. Classic or not, nothing can change my opinion that The Woman Who Had Two Navels, while not a waste of my time, was one of the worst novellas I ever had to sit through.

The two-naveled woman in question is Connie Escobar, a spoiled, selfish, and delusional Filipina who travels to Hong Kong in search of a treatment for her condition from a horse doctor. Yes, a horse doctor. For a condition which may not actually exist since she refuses to show her deformity to anyone who asks. Note that there is a moment when Connie relents, much later in the book, but the author thought it would be more meaningful or some shit to fade-to-black at the last possible moment, since it shouldn't fucking matter whether she actually has two navels or not, and the title is supposed to double as a fucking metaphor.

Now I digress. Her visit sparks a chain reaction, one that effects everyone from her family to a group of childhood friends that she's never met. Each of their lives will never be the same, and they'll be forced to face the actions of the past, present, and future, regardless of whether these actions were, are, or will be theirs to make.

If you beget a monster of a child it could prove you were rather monstrous yourself.

But the story truly begins with Concha Vidal, Connie's flighty mother who's experienced much heartbreak and disillusion throughout each era she experiences. In one of them, she encounters Macho, a younger man who shares her thrill-seeking ways and eventually becomes someone she grows to love. Unfortunately, she's married and he's, well, young. Although her latest husband is one of necessity and they've come to an understanding, Macho and Concha's relationship is frowned upon by society and is the subject of much ridicule among their peers. Concha, not wanting to destroy the boy's life, leaves the country, thus ending their dalliances and breaking his heart. When she returns, she asks him to marry her daughter Connie, in order to obtain the happiness of the two people she cares about most in this world.

"If your hands were not clean, your good actions had grimmer and more relentless consequences than your sins."

Unbeknownst to anyone, Connie has been corrupted by her mother's past and this very decision, which leads the little girl on the path to insanity, for lack of a better word. In one method of coping with this, she makes friends with the hideous, inanimate idol Biliken. Biliken becomes her anchor, a way of shielding her from the harsh realities lurking beyond her safe little bubble.

After Connie grows up and experiences a few blissful months of marriage with Macho, she finds a stack of letters in the back of his closet. Although they're old, written before she was even born, they contain every excruciating detail of her husband and her mother's past relationship, something they'd kept secret for a very good reason. Upset by this shocking revelation, she runs away to Hong Kong while struggling to gain the courage to face her problems head-on.

The unfortunate victims of the Vidal family's shenanigans are a tight-knit circle of friends who grew up away from their heritage and the country it came from. There's Rita, the likeable, sympathetic leader of their group that pulls all the stops to keep them together; Paco, a poor musician who blames Connie for his unhealthy obsession with her when really, he's just a cheating, victim-blaming scumbag and unforgivable almost-rapist; Mary, the unfortunate wife to said scumbag who doesn't grab her kids and leave Paco's ass the moment he tells her of his escapades in the Philippines; and Pepe, a... blank sheet that really only serves to ask Connie questions and inadvertently draw her closer to mess up their lives even further. Following behind is his father Doctor Monson, a demented old man who seeks to go back to the good ol' days by becoming a druggie, and his brother Father Tony, a priest who begins to question if he's cut out for his line of work.

Together, they will unrealistically think and speak in strange riddles and analogies, rife with hidden meanings, as they will, without reason, help this one suicidal stranger, who will effectively ruin the lives of each and every one of them to obtain her happy ending without so much as a proper apology. Forget if it might be temporary, necessary, or done unintentionally. That's fucked up.

"But don't you understand, Father? I want to be good. I'm trying to stay good. Does one go mad for trying to do that? Is it that hard?"

"It's very hard indeed. But you, Connie, have taken the easiest way out. You are not trying, you have given up... When you convinced yourself you had two navels, you retreated, not from evil, but only from the struggle against evil. People can't be good unless they know they're free to be bad if they wanted to."

If this whole thing wasn't a mess already, Connie's narratives get confusing as hell towards the end. The hallucinations she experiences are supposed to show her unstable mental state and how she slowly overcomes her issues, but most of the time I had no clue what was going on or what was really happening. Only until after I had gone through these scenes over and over again for weeks did I finally get that her dreams were in fact dreams.

On a matter of personal taste, I have a few more complaints. The last fifty pages were utter crap. Everyone had a chance to be redeemed in my eyes, but any sliver of hope—and I mean for every single character—was kicked to the curb after I crossed that final lap. I was ecstatic Concha was killed—tbh there was a chapter or two where I thought she was great but damn, girl—yet did Macho have to die too? They were apart of the past and so needed to be left behind, but I wanted Macho and Connie to ride off into the sunset, especially after Macho confesses that he had grown to love his little wife and forgotten all about her mother, which he'd only realized until that moment. And what the fuck was up with Connie and Doctor Monson having some dipshit, meaningful conversation in his final moments? It's past meets future, I know that too! Yet I felt like the honor of his last words shouldn't have been randomly bestowed on our pathetic excuse for a protagonist.

But despite its glaring faults, I couldn't put it down. Like a bystander drawn to the sight of a trainwreck, I couldn't tear my eyes until I reached the last page. I felt a burning hatred for every single character and every one of their stupid actions but still, I couldn't, which leaves me to my next point.

I could label this as a godawful book and leave it at that. But oh no. My feelings, much like this book, are much more complex. (See! I can do this too, Father Tony. You self-righteous piece of shit.) As a work of commentary regarding the Philippine identity and society, it does a brilliant job. I admit, I will give credit where credit is due. As an enjoyable work of fiction... no. Just no. Joaquin focuses too much on getting a point across than writing a story. Which would be fine, since he probably meant for it to be that way, but I wish he could have managed to have balanced both of these elements, so that the reader could be satisfied in the message and the ultimate fate of the cast.

Perhaps their lives needed to be changed. Perhaps Connie needed to go to a veterinarian instead of the psychiatrist she so obviously needs. Perhaps Connie needed to take that idiotic confrontation with Doctor Monson on his deathbed. Perhaps Connie needed to take that *coughs* unconventional step of courage. Perhaps Mary needed for her husband to be stolen away and left with a gaggle of kids to "find herself". Perhaps Paco shouldn't have gotten his comeuppance. Perhaps Macho needed to shoot Concha and himself in the fucking head instead of Connie starting over with him and living happily ever after. But this does not make me hate these choices any less, and this doesn't make any of these characters less of a dumbass for doing what needed to be done. I end this review with one big fat middle finger to all of them.

one-and-a-half stars

[Steno · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na-stress ako sa pagbabasa ng novel na ito ni Nick Joaquin. Bukod sa nahirapan akong unawain ang mga nangyayari sa kuwentong may iba't ibang punto de bista ng mga tauhan, ang hilig din niya sa napakahahabang pangungusap. Imagine, one sentence, umaabot ng 3 pages? Kahilig n'ya sa ganitong style.

Ito rin yata ang pinakaburgis n'yang kuwento. Burgis din naman ang "Candido's Apocalypse" (at mahahaba ang pangungusap) pero nilevel up pa ni Joaquin dito. Setting pa lang, can't afford na: sa Hong Kong kasi nangyari ang kuwento. No wonder love na love s'ya ng mga Chinese. Hahaha!

Hindi ko nagustuhan ang kuwento dahil ang weird n'ya at parang pangteleserye ang dialogue (pero in English). Tapos nangyari lang ang lahat in a span of, what, 2 or 3 days? Ang ewan din ng two navels ng bida. Symbolic lang s'ya, metaphorical, pero di ko bet. It's a "coming-of-age" story na mapait sa panlasa.

Ang malala pa, tinapos ang arc ni girl na may two navels sa kudaan. Jinustify ng ibang mga tauhan ang kagagahan niyang ginawa sa didactic na usapan. Bale ang nangyari, nasolve ang problema ni girl by creating another problem. Two wrongs don't make a right, di ba? Pero iyon ang ginawa ni Ateng.

Tapos mega explain lang sa dulo si Father kung bakit nagawa iyon ni girl na may dalawang pusod kuno. Na kesyo she finally found herself, her will to live, her free will. Na kahit "masama" ang desisyon n'ya, at least it's her choice. I mean, WTF, man? Nu pinagsasasabi mo d'yan? Pari ka, di ba? Anyare? Hahaha!

Exciting lang 'yung premise, 'yung simula, nang ireveal ng bida ang tungkol sa dalawa niyang pusod, pero mas umikot ang kuwento sa mga taong nakapalibot sa kanya. Mas marami silang exposure kaysa sa kanya. Puro back story na nakakalitong sundan, although naappreciate ko naman ang history lesson sa end of Spanish colonization at ang panghihimasok ng US.

Naappreciate ko rin syempre ang mahusay na paglalarawan ni Joaquin sa mga eksena, lalo na sa paligid. Vivid naman.

Pero maliban d'yan, wala na. I therefore conclude na hindi ako fan ng fiction ni Joaquin. Maybe I should try reading his nonfiction works next, pero baka matagalan pa. Nababagot talaga kasi ako sa writing n'ya.

I mean, boring din naman ang writing nina Orhan Pamuk at Thomas Mann, pero may mararamdaman ka sa kuwento nila kahit boring ang nangyayari. Nasa delivery e. May astonishment at wonder. E dito kay Joaquin, ang primary emotion ko while reading was ennui. Sorry not sorry.

Read this novel if you want to learn about the past at kung nais mong malaman ang writing style ni Joaquin (at ng mga fictionist natin noon). Pero kung light reading at pure entertainment ang hanap mo, skip this.

[Aj the Ravenous Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nick Joaquin is known for his highly symbolic prose. This novel is no exception.

[Pia · Rating 1 out of 5]

People can’t be normal about Connie Escobar. She is the titular Woman with two Navels who is on a visit to Hong Kong, behaving erratically for constantly changing reasons. Her primadonna persona immediately solicits investment from everyone around her—including a whole group of strangers—in such a way only 18-year old spoiled burgis fictional girls ever get to be. Her visit sparks intense crises, internal and interpersonal, for the whole cast, and changes their lives forever.

What unfolds in The Woman Who Had Two Navels is a melodrama of familiar Filipino proportions, which to me is not really automatically a dud. In fact, I came here expecting that a National Artist would handle this style (including its character archetypes and conflict archetypes and required-cathartic-ending) by troubling the familiar frameworks they occupy.

Unfortunately, people can’t be normal about Connie Escobar, including her own author.

Scene to Scene

“...such formulated "messages" are of less concern to the sensitive reader than the primary source of the novel's beauty: the intense poetry of its language.”
—Josefina D. Constantino, Philippine Studies vol. 9 no. 4

Nick Joaquin is known for his gorgeous prose. On its face, Two Navels shows that prose in perfect form. Looking at the novel’s progression, I saw the structure that allows it to be this way. You’ve heard of the character-driven story, and you’ve heard of the plot-driven story. With Two Navels, I think I’ve encountered for the first time what it means to be a scene-driven story.

Focus on the scene is rewarding for both the writer and reader. For a reader, the moment of most visceral appreciation with a text often comes when it is laid bare before their eyes, simulating the aesthetic-centered experience primarily felt through the visual mediums. The smallest unit that satisfies this is the quote, but a well-written scene can hit the same way.

For Joaquin, prose mastery strengthens his scene work. In The Woman Who Had Two Navels, he channels his renowned style into vivid montages that span decades, revealing extensive character backstories. These biographies unfold in full, tracing familial, social, and political contours with evocative depth. Settings—from Kowloon to Manila—are equally immersive, each scene enriched by a full sensory palette.

In Joaquin's writing style, these elements are already beautiful as presented, but there’s more to it than that. His historically intuitive and culturally excavatory vision fashions character backgrounds that capture potent Filipino truths, ones that feel previously untapped. Foreground and background interlock in illuminating textures, completing each other in a seamless whole.

From the ramparts where the Spaniards had watched for Chinese pirate and English buccaneer, the younger taller city beyond the walls seemed rimmed with flame, belted with fire, cupped in a conflagration, for a wind was sweeping the avenue of flametrees below, and the massed treetops, crimson in the hot light, moved in the wind like a track of fire, the red flowers falling so thickly like coals the street itself seemed to be burning…he was trying to piece together, to add up the night, was trying to understand why a series of unrelated doings…should suddenly fuse into a pattern, exploding in his mind (as though flametrees had ignited a bunch of fireworks) in a great burning shower of joy. The sensation so shocked him breathless that, chattering faster and faster, he lapsed at last into mere noise, into a mystic babbling, half stammer and half laughter; his face lifted to the sun and the wind, the blood ablaze on his cheeks and the tears in his eyes. He was young, it was summer, and the flametrees were in bloom. He was young and healthy and happy, and the city lay at his feet.
— pg 66, Macho’s love for Concha blooms (my favorite passage of this book)

The best written segment (which contains my favorite passage) in Two Navels epitomizes why Joaquin’s writing is perfect for scenes, which is the Macho Escobar and Concha Vidal love story. Joaquin crafts an age-gap love affair that feels wholly romantic and elegant. The character writing feels intimate, made weighty by sharp, grounded societal tensions. The worldliness of the traditional Filipino culture and expectations and rules they navigate juxtaposes effectively with their passionate love, and really heightens the feels.

Macho, turning away from the sequins and the diamonds, the shattered ceiling and the bloodstained floor, had so abruptly come face to face with Concha Vidal…he had suddenly and sharply and exultantly known, with the old ache in the marrow and a blaze of flametrees in the mind, that he had never stopped wanting, he had never stopped desiring this woman.
—pg 77, Macho and Concha’s love symbolized by flametrees

The flametrees of Manila appear here, serving both as a striking visual element and as a conceptual symbol. Nick Joaquin’s love for Manila pulses like a heartbeat through this whole work, and his addition of flametrees in particular demonstrates that writely trait of his. He sees Manila more clearly than any writer before (and arguably after) him; his gaze to the City led him to its red flametrees, and you know he truly sees it, because the emotions he creates with the flametrees’ imagery evokes the raw feeling of truly seeing, for the first time, something that has always been there.

Actually, the flametrees effectively acting as symbolism for love through its different stages cemented my impression that Nick Joaquin could perfectly plan the story using conventional techniques… as long as it only covered the immediate ~40 pages.

The Woman Who Had Two Navel’s narrative shape isn’t an arc, but like an interlocking chain.

If a story were a house, the frame would be overarching themes, because like the frame, the overarching themes guides the whole work and where everything is built upon. Meanwhile, the walls would be the plot, the paint could be voice, secondary ideas, etc. Still essential to the work, but for different reasons. This is how stories are usually written because a sense of direction and cohesion is most effectively done with the frame. But the story of The Woman Who Had Two Navels feels like Joaquin built a house one room at a time, doing the entire thing, from design to framing until the painting, for each room as he went.

You could consider this an artistic choice. The book seems to think it is, considering how its 5 chapters are named after a character, perhaps the intended central character for their respective part. Although each chapter contains backstories for more than one character, not just the titular one.

Overall, its still good because Joaquin built those individual rooms quite nicely. Like, if one accepts the story's design as it is, the absence of a core is made up for by its signature texture: the brief, interesting skirmishes with many compelling ideas, coming together to create a patchwork of Filipino abstractions. I loved every single one of those exposition dumps because he wrote them so well.

Yes, I would have accepted it if not for the fact that the book’s ending couldn't commit to its own internal logic.

God’s Favor

People can’t be normal about Connie Escobar. The way she made every character drop everything to accommodate her, center her, annoyed me throughout the story, yet I kept going because I thought that this effect was intentional. That, and that we would go somewhere with this. We are observing how men behave towards different types of women, and we are going to critique those men. I should have known better, since we’ve established going somewhere isn’t this book’s style. The absurdly illogical, simpering ending instead shows that this book was written by one of those same men.

Before the story concludes, the story finally solves the mystery that teased the cast and the reader since the beginning. The nature of her two-navel delusions was family trauma, and the big reveal being a basic Freudian dilemma made the whole mystery component ridiculous in hindsight. Throughout the novel, the plot meandered aimlessly because when Connie asks for help, she speaks in circles.

Connie's characterization really suffered from the near-sighted plot development style. For most of the story, Connie Escobar was framed like a duplicitous seductress with a roundabout flirting approach rather than a genuinely mentally ill person, sitting in dancehall balconies and monasteries covered in furs, speaking to male characters with what seemed like coded invitations. It goes nowhere conceptually or plot-wise with this, except to provide charged conversation with the male characters, her air of a mystery stringing them dazedly along.

By the end, the book abruptly pivots to assert that her incoherence has a story point: she can’t make sense because she refuses to acknowledge reality, and she refuses to acknowledge reality to protect herself from facing more pain from her family’s actions.

Sure, whatever.

The mystery of the two navels returns near the end, when Connie finally asks Pepe to confirm how many she really has—symbolically facing reality. This triggers a breakdown as she drives her Jaguar in circles around a hill, hallucinating confrontations with her childhood villains. Her husband, mother, and father each appear to argue with her, but nothing is resolved. How would arguing even address her trauma? They’re not even the real them, so she doesn’t even get closure.

Still, the novel considers its central conflict done and dusted. These visions of villains are killed off, suggesting that the issue was snuffed out like that. OK. I push on. Is this literary conflict handling a bit hyper-condensed? Matter of style. Is this psychologically infeasible and, in fact, wrong? Fuck it, its fiction anyway.

Connie Escobar proceeds to Kowloon, where the text takes time to admire her walking through Chinese New Year celebrations. Look, says the book, she is transformed! Beautifu! mature!. It really drives the point home that she’s mature before we watch her take the first steps of her new life, basking her with soft light. There are three decisive decisions:

1) She chooses to live, in spite of her trauma from family betrayal, to live for herself.
2) She chooses to leave her family and the pain they cause, to truly heal
3) She runs away with a man who has a wife and 2 newly-born babies

Her demons tamed, Connie’s affect finally calms for the first time. Don’t worry, the book reassures us via Paco (aka the man with a wife and 2 children that Connie is running away with) that Connie is even more sexy when she’s calm, via his internal monologue.

Their rendezvous at the cafe before running away to Macao was the worst part of the book, so much reprehensible shit back to back to back. From the 18 year-old repeatedly getting called “woman” (because we all know women mature overnight), to the adulterer-pedo saying how his mistress looks like how his wife used to when he first liked her, to the romanticized, dreamy sheen over it all.

Number 3 was when the book lost any chance of rising above 3 stars.
What came next sealed it as a 2-star read.

Obviously sensing the possible pushback of depicting infidelity and child abandonment with his prose’s beautifying powers at full strength, Nick Joaquin tried to get ahead of the criticism in the sloppiest way possible. The narrative suddenly snaps awake, lucid and pointed and partisan, to hurriedly round out the ending by having three characters debate those ideas, directly and at length. These selected few motifs and ideas were mentioned offhandedly, just like the others, and so the debate has to do a loooooooot of legwork to get to where it needs to go, and ends up stumbling.

Then some pig of a girl comes along and breaks up everything we've been trying to preserve—and what do you do? You all rush to her side. You pity her, you help her, you defend her. She's the heroine, she has greatness of spirit. She has you all cheering behind her —yes, even God!
—pg 191, Rita correctly criticizes her author’s book ending

He writes at length a debate: on one side, Rita, a female character, friends with Paco’s wife who is now single mother of two children; on the other, Pepe and Father Tony, two brothers who were super invested in Connie’s problems.

Rita is drawn to be hysterical, cursing Connie, calling her names, while articulating quite correctly all the fucked up consequences and incorrectness of Connie’s actions. In pairing hysterics to the well-articulated problems, the writer tries to make the reader subconsciously frame annoyance at his ending as an unreasonable, emotional response.

Meanwhile, the two men, one of them being a fucking priest and a symbol of moral authority, defends Connie at length. The book piles on every trick, every symbol and shortcut of legitimacy to the men’s side. Yet, even at a glance, the defense is weak because fundamentally, Connie is wrong, and bearing the weight of her defense will be riddled with logical fallacies (like false dilemma fallacy). If we look past the surface and into the argument’s core ideas, we can see that the men's argument is rooted in base, primal patriarchal instincts. Regardless, they end up winning the argument anyway, the author deciding on the conundrum’s answer for us.

This is the 1961 version of doing “It is too late, I have drawn myself as the chad and you as the soyjak”.

This is so weird to me, because this exchange means the author had the foresight to see the problems with his ending immediately after he wrote it. And there could have been two directions to go from there:

1) Rewrite the ending to address the concerns. Reimagine and massage the ending so that the catharsis can be fully rendered without the baggage of those problems. Have Connie do Step 1 and Step 2 only, or do Step 3 but don’t romanticize it, cast it in the shadowy vibes of moral ambiguity.
2) Simply have audacity. Be aware of those problems in the ending, and commit to it without extended justifications. Prepare for blowback but still stand on business. Have some dignity.

Instead, we get the ending as is, warts and all, and with a cheap defense tacked onto it. IN TEXT.

Rita’s frustration with the situation extends to God—and rightly so. The logic of our world and Rita’s diverge at the ending, and we see who the god of Two Navels is: the author. It is her God’s machinations that allowed this injustice to happen to her, to Mary, to her two children. The question isn’t whether the ending is realistic, but what it is the author wants. Author-God wants this heroine to exist, wants her to have this story, and wants her to have this ending, in this exact manner. Author-God wants it, therefore it is so.

This Author-God’s power is so total that when criticism comes from his own characters, and he can’t refute it with reason, he simply overrides them. Rita is suddenly stripped of her righteous anger and tenderly forgives Pepe—despite everything still being wrong—because Author-God forces it.

Leading up to this point, there were many off writing decisions in this book’s gender dimension. The biggest example is Connie's inconsistent characterizations having one constant—being desirable. While mental ill, it only dysfunctions in the way male fiction authors like to imagine it for women: just imbalanced enough to be pitiful and worth saving, but not too much as to be inconvenient to men, like forgetting how to dress beautifully or rejecting men’s help. When she's healed, she immediately runs towards another man. And her personality after being transformed anew are traits which still primarily make her romantically desirable.

The other characters are also shaded by sexist dynamics. The men are consumed by the enigma of Connie Escobar, the text framing grown men’s overwhelming fixation on an 18-year-old as a moral obligation and not weird at all. Women who aren’t young, wealthy, or glamorously unstable are either harshly judged for having inconvenient mental illnesses or continue being thankless domestic laborers for their male partners—and even take up the extra work that enables their partners’ to pursue their new young-woman-centered advocacy.

I tried to cooly acknowledge them as they appeared. Now, I realize that when there’s smoke, there’s fire. And fiery it was. In spite of my polite disregard, the author’s patriarchal tendencies eventually asserted itself front and center, its hands grabbing this story by the pen, wildly thrashing its characters about, shattering the air of elegance and subtlety that held strong through 178 pages. It fucked shit up, for its own base desires. That ending was that way because Nick Joaquin wanted it that way.

When I was racing through the ending, blood pressure surging, hands cold and brows furrowed, I only had one thought: Why? Why do it like this? He may be able to misdirect Rita’s anger, but he has no such control over the reader. The reader’s reaction can only be facilitated through what the text presents. By overexplaining itself with a badly thought through justification, Nick Joaquin inadvertently takes away my attention from his own story, and draws it towards the pattern of sexism and classism that was present in the story.

The ending is memorable and striking, not because of its quality as a piece of literature but as a really wild instance of an author who is otherwise always masterful suddenly being so amateurishly revealing in their text. A mask off moment immortalized forever.

This weird ending plus the values of the author that his own weird ending revealed makes me give this 2 stars.

Final Thoughts
Nick Joaquin's prose shines beautifully in the near-sighted, chain-link structure of The Woman Who Had Two Navels. His historically intuitive and culturally excavatory sensibilities, precise emotion modulation, and intimate character writing combined to create one-of-a-kind literary moments, casting a tender glow over early 1900s Filipino life. Unfortunately, it stumbled badly in its final stretch. The last chapter's sequence so unbelievably bad that it forced me to confront the story's sexist and classist undercurrents that I tried playing down in good faith for most of the reading. Well, at least I can say I’ve read a Nick Joaquin now.

[John Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this book is more than about the Philippines and its history as other reviews suggest. Many allusions to events in the Philippine history was used but I guess they are there to contextualize "some things" in relation to one's personhood during those times. There are other topics about personhood discussed - like freedom, morality, etc. - and I think they are still relevant today as it was in the times when the plot is contextualized.

I think that the plot presents in an intricate yet subtle way how human nature cope with life experiences - from one's childhood to one's adult life. This novel is more of psychological in its theme that reflects on one's life experiences. But more than that, it is also about one's struggle to go out from the grip of the past to acknowledge that one is free to do what one should do in the face of the struggle for the moral thing to do. This is just my reflection on the book. But maybe I could re-read this in the perspective of Philippine identity, but as of now, I believe that this novel is more about one's struggle to find one's self in thick of one's present reality and not bound up by the past.

As for how the book was written, it was delicately and brilliantly written. There are a lot of "verses" that Nick Joaquin uses and turns around to give new meaning. These lines are like recreating their meaning, at times, and on other times, they are reinforcing the image they portray and creating allusions within the text. Great style! I have never encountered anything like this yet.

Admittedly, this is not an easy read. I wrote this review only after my second reading of the book. There are many flashback scenes in the plot but was flawlessly incorporated to lead the reader back to the present (i.e., present time in the novel). Again, excellent style!

[Maria Julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just the best book I've read this year! Sobrang galing. Breathtaking as it is profound. I'm officially a fan, Sir. :)

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book deals with the absurd. The book is a complex story on individual choice as a step in living a more fulfilling life and through the characters an allegory on how a developing country chooses democracy in its steps for self-determination. I understand how some people find this book a hard read because the character's engage in a sort of stream of consciousness montage that occasionally shifts from past to the present as well alternate scenerious that one can interpret as hallucinations. Parts 3-5 is excellent piece of experimental writing as well as having complex moral dilemmas so I will give this book a 5 stars.

A southern landlord, Mr Escobar gave his boy on his 15 birthday a servant girl whose father was a tenant father who had debts owed to Mr. Escobar. When she got pregnant, Escobar tried to hide the girl but Macho got pisses off and rebelled against his father since she was his first experience. After going to boarding school in Manila, Macho came home and became fast friends with his father who he hunted, drank, and whored with.

Macho tells on how he met Senora Vidal. Mr Vidal told his wife that they should court the Escobars because they had significant voting blocs that they could secure. While Mr Vidal led Mr Escobar to the gambling tables, Senora de Vidal entertained Macho. Escobar said that Concha was a good wife and devoted mother who had a reputation for being lecherous though no one could place anything definite on her. Mr Escobar said that she probably had an itch to cheat but just need an opportunity to and joked that Macho should go after her before she goes after him.

After a few months of being a bad boy galavanting around town, Macho meets Concha again by chance and was taken with her passion and excitement for him so much so that she did not try to hide their affair. What started out as a fling became something more where they both fell in love. Love was something that was serious and needed to be hidden because it destabilizes stable societal ties. Macho suggested that they run away together so they could live happily ever after without having to look over their shoulders but Concha could not bring her 9 yrs old daughter with her.

Concha said she would go away on her own because she did not want to destroy Connie nor Macho's life and urge him to tell his father that the affair was over. His father wanted progeny so he urged his son to leave Concha. After Escobar died and Concha left him, Macho became the evil landlord like his father and their forefathers before them so that the tenant farmers nothing ever seems to change in which one master is just replaced with someone who is as equally as cruel. During WWII, he became a cruel guerilla overlord who got his tenants together into a small guerilla army to kill Japs and their collaborators with a sadistic pleasure since he considered his life destroyed.

After the war, he bumped into Concha again and knew he still desired and wanted her. Due to war, Concha changed into a hardened woman. Later, she wanted Macho to marry Connie which Concha thought would be the best solution for the both of them. Macho hated Concha for suggesting such a match but married Connie anyway since it was Concha who asked. Only when Macho discovered that Connie knew about the love letters did he realized the magnitude of the betrayal that he shared with Concha against Connie.

For Senora Vidal, whatever she does seems wrong. She tried to break off with Macho because her conscience demanded it only to see him destroy his own life. She also tried to match Macho and Connie because she knew that they would be happy together only to find people thought what she did was depraved. In trying to save the two most important people in her life, she destroyed them and damned her life to misery. Joaquin says it best, "Anguish was manufactured by her benevolence; her private hell was indeed paved with good intentions."

Paco Texeira's band was the only band playing American jazz during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. Filipinos are the only Asians who understood and mimic American jazz rhythm. Unlike the Monson boys who were constantly reminded that they were sons of a patriot in exile, Paco had no sense of country as long as he had his music he could live anywhere. The only thing he remembers of his father talking about the Philippines is a description of its mountain ranges as a woman lying down. Paco lived with his mother because his father had an unstable income because he was also a musician. He makes an interesting observation in juxtaposing between Filipino traditions and Americanized Filipinos occurring in the same individual Filipino.

In one of his gigs, Paco befriended Senora de Vidal so they could swap tips on where to go in Hong Kong vs Manila. Paco thought their relationship strictly platonic as his marriage to Mary was great in that they seemed to be extensions of one another. But despite the platonic nature of Paco and de Vidal's relationship, the gossip of them being lovers made their friendship lose its luster. For a couple of weeks, he stopped seeing her and found a Manila that was poverty stricken unlike de Vidal's rich Manila. Two Manila's living side by side but never seeing each other.

One day while waiting for de Vidal, Paco found Connie and from that moment on wanted her. It was during this time that Connie found the love letters between Concha and Macho and went to her mother's house to confront her. Connie became a groupie of his band showing up in clubs that he would play in perhaps to distract herself from problems at home or possibly even get revenge from her husbands affair with her mother. In am moment of terror in which one man shot another, Paco comforted Connie and was driven to him by his protection. Knowing that the attraction was mutual, Paco allowed her desire for him to overtake her mental reservation on cheating on her husband. Not knowing her background story and thinking that she was a tease, Paco was about to rape her but was scared off by the all seeing eye. Paco states that both Connie and Senora de Vidal have an evil hold on him and he knows that he will go running to them when they call him. Pepe realized both his father and Paco have a similar traumatized look after they came back from the Philippines.

The book starts of with Connie visiting a horse doctor in Hong Kong believing she is abnormal because she has two navels and wants something to be done about it because she does not want to seem like a freak when she has to undress for her husband. Later, Connie asked Pepe to act as a go between her and Macho. For Pepe, Connie seemed to be a troubled girl with a compulsive lying past.

Senora Vidal remembers how Dr Monson courageously chose exile rather than pledging allegiance to the US after they took over the Philippines. Senora forced her daughter, Connie, to marry because she became upset by the common rumor that her father was pilfering from state coffers in order to send his daughters to a good private school. Connie believed the rumors and did not want to go to school with blood money.

According to Senora Vidal, Connie is now chasing a band leader Paco Texeira because she was forced to marry a man she did not love or even choose. Connie runs away to Hong Kong and is followed by her mother and husband. De Vidal matched Connie up with Macho though neither one was in love with the other she gradually grew to like him a lot due to his good humor and good looks. For his part though he liked her too, he did not seem present when they were together. Macho came to Hong Kong to take Connie home so she would not embarrass her politician father during election time by creating a scandal that can hand the opposition gossip as ammunition. When Macho realized he could lose Connie forever due to the love letters, he changed his tune and wanted her back in her own terms no matter how long that took.

Meanwhile, Rita and Helen owns a successful interior decorator venture that Is expanding due to the rapid expansion of Hong Kong. Rita was her batches leader and matched Paco and Mary together since they seemed each others extension of the other. While Mary used to be independent in traveling to other parts of the world while her batch mates stayed in Hong Kong, now that she is a mother, she is servile to Paco as she feels they are two halves to the same soul. But ever since Paco and Pepe's father returned from the Philippines it seemed the group is falling apart.

CHAPTER III: VIDAL

During Concha's childhood, it was known that the house lizards were "servants of the Virgin". In April at age 15, Concha met her first husband during a play in which the ambivalent new empire the Americans established tried to censor the theatre as a means for expressing nationalistic sentiments after the Filipino-American war. It was here that Concha met her first love, an Esteban Borromeo who was a former editor of her fathers nationalistic newspaper who was sued by libel because he called the American merchant propping up in the Philippines carpetbaggers. Because nationalistic sentiment remained high after the Filipino-American war, Senior Gil mortgaged his home so that Esteban could be freed from prison. Since Senor Gil's paper closed, Esteban started working as a playwrite of a subversive play critical of American occupation.

Esteban Borromeo had a Byron cool on the outside hiding an interior lightening. As expected when it came to the subversive part of the play, the Americans closed down the play and arrested all the actors including Esteban himself. For Concha, Esteban represented the heroism that she was looking for in a real man who stood for nationalistic impulse against a foreign power. When she met him, she felt that for the first time she was a real woman because she knew what it was like to be in love. Reading his poetry, she was intrigued how naughty the words were which she juxtaposed by his sweet demeanor towards her.

Despite her interest in Esteban, she tried to be coquettish about her interest to throw her parents off from her precocious interest towards Esteban. She was able to force Esteban into a conventional courtship from the rebellious man since "he had romantic habits but classic custom." Unlike her contemporaries, Concha was able to have her love match. Just like a gentleman, he asked her parents for her hands in marriage. Esteban and Concha saw a bright future for each other with Esteban bursting with ideas not aware that America's presence would drastically change the social and cultural landscape so that Esteban intelligence and faith in the old language of Spanish and its customs would be discarded in favor of English and American culture so much so that their ideas became inaccessible to future Filipino generations. While initially Americans were considered an occupier at the fringe of society, no one knew the extent of how American culture would usurp European or indigenous Filipino cultures. Not until after WWII, did Filipina's even consider being with an American. It was said that Southern girls were the best looking mix of Malay, Chinese, and Spanish blood. It was a land of chieftains. The woman of the south were either heiress, servants, or prostitutes. Esteban was a casualty of this cultural shift from Spanish to English in which a promising man of letters becomes an outdated fossil. Because he was not able to make the shift from Spanish to American rule, he died a broke and broken hearted man. Concha became a widow as Esteban succumbed to his illness and had to live with her father.

During her widowhood, she got pregnant by an effete writer and she turned to Dr Manolo Vidal for help. Vidal was widely known as a man who would perform abortions for sexual favors since to be "with child" outside of marriage was seen as a disgrace to the family. Perhaps because he himself was an old literary revolutionary, he respected Concha Borromeo. Unlike the other old revolutionary intellectuals, he saw the future laid in American politics so he quickly associated himself with Quezon who was backed by Americans as a reward for meeting American's half-way. Because he was able to adapt to changing times, Manolo Vidal political fortunes rose. After her abortion, Concha turned to religion with equal passion which she displayed in earlier love affairs. But before she could dedicate her life to God, Vidal came back into her life to court her. Even though she was in her mid-30's, Manolo surprised her by finding her beautiful enough to marry her.

As a monk, Tony Monson feels that he does not belong in Hong Kong instead seeing it as a place for exile. He does not feel holy either as his monastery is in the middle of the city. As per Pepe suggestion, Connie goes to Tony to find an explanation for her two navels. She felt both troubled and blessed to be different from other people. To Tony, she seems dangerously delusional who does not want to find out that she is delusional though she realizes that this maybe a real possibility.

Concha did not join the group at the club because she just wants to watch the young be young and full of energy. Later she argues with Father Monson that God made women beautiful so she feels it is her duty to God to be beautiful in front of everyone. While Father says it is inner beauty that God looks at, Concha feels it is her vanity that defines her. She says perhaps the real reason she married Macho off to Connie was because of the hate she felt for her daughter for preventing her from running off with Macho unlike her superficial reasoning that she did it because she thought they would make a good match. Concha thinks her inability to face her daughter maybe due to her fear that she actually hates her.

The Monson brothers found Connie in their apartment and relayed the information that Macho wants to start from scratch with Connie wherever she might want to go as long as they are together. She insists that the knowledge of her two navels will scare him away. The Monson brothers think that she is using the delusion of having two navels in order to feel unique and disengage from her problematic life including an excuse for not confronting Macho about being her mother's former lover. She wants to be safe so she retreats from a fully lived life. The Monson brothers want her to reengage in her life in order to live a full, free, responsible life of her own choosing. She wants the Monson brothers to confirm or refute her two navel delusion once and for all by stripping and letting them see for themselves whether or not she has two navel. Father Tony left Pepe to refute her two navel delusion which Pepe hesitantly acquiesced to.

Chapter IV

When Pepe confirmed that she only had on navel her delusional world broke apart. She proceeded to do what she always has done to run away first toward the monastery. During her drive towards the monastery she had both flashbacks and hallucinations of the destruction of her family.

FLASHBACKS:
When she was 5, Connie went to a carnival and wanted her doll Minnie to see Bililken, a carnival god who was going to be her idol in her belief in having two navels. Connie being a spoiled brat wanted the Biliken idol even going as far as throwing Minnie away and lying about it in order to convince he mother to get Bilikern for her. Here we see Connie as a compulsive liar because she equates her lies with safety and the outside world as having the 3 hags of terror in it.

When she was 11, she was able to possesses Biliken because Mr. Vidal thought it would represent happy memories during the beginning of WWII. For Connie, Biliken represented the joyous past before WWII destroyed it. It was during this time that mother broke up with Macho and the happy illusion of a family broke up. Up to that point, Connie idealized her mother as good and beautiful. But when she came back from Hong Kong, she became cold and mean. For Connie, Biliken represented a friendly face during American occupation before the horrors of WWII set in. At age 14, she was evacuated since the war was coming to Manila.

At age 15 after the war, the Vidals returned to the ruins of their home which Connie did not want to be rebuilt because things can never be what it was. She looked for her lucky charm Biliken which was the only thing keeping her sane after her mother emotionally abandoned her and during the horrors of WWII only to find two bullet holes in its belly shocking her. With the mutilated and ugly Biliken, she begins to internalize what she saw as her own disfigurement as having two navels and begins to doubt her happy past as a possible figment of her imagination. Perhaps she sees her past as horrible which was confirmed with Macho and Concha's affair, she takes on the delusion of having two navels as a way of internalizing her traumatic past transforming her into this horrible monster. After her honeymoon with Macho, Connie discovered the love letters. The shock sent her to Biliken not remembering the events that led her search for Biliken.

PRESENT DAY HALLUCINATION OR ALTERNATE PARALLEL UNIVERSE:

Connie is devolving in her delusions based on her own lies now has grown to seeing spies everywhere she looks. When she entered the train compartment, she found Macho waiting for her inside. She realizes that she lacks free-will and her life has been predetermined from the very beginning despite Macho wanting to break from the past and start anew. When Connie told him that she no longer wanted to be with him, Macho dropped the pretense of free will and said that he, Concha, and Connie will forever be linked. He suggests that as a little girl she knew about the affair as was an implicit accomplice to it. She eventually agreed that the love triangle will forever be linked and that when Macho makes love to Connie it will be both with Connie and Concha he is making love to. Even though Macho wants to escape so that it is just he and Connie, he knows that Concha presence will always be present. Connie felt comfortable with Macho's presence growing up as he was the stand in for the brothers she never saw while finding the love letters dispelled the myth that Macho and Connie were merely friends. Her childhood was built on a foundation of lies about friendship and false comfort. The hallucination ends with the train crashing and both of them dying.

Connie gets on a ship and sees her mother there. Her mother says that she is there because Connie is there further underscoring their being tied. Connie feels that Concha never loved her but just be kind and not hate her just as if she was a step-daughter not her real daughter. Instead of Connie, Concha got her affection from Macho. Connie thinks she is the fruit of all evil that Concha carried inside her. Concha confesses that she did a terrible thing marrying Manolo. Connie wanted to go on pretending that Conch was the perfect mother but she could no longer pretend to love Connie because of the happiness that being with her cost Concha. Concha agreed that she never wanted Connie and she represents all the evil in Concha's life. The hallucination ends with Connie and Concha drowning in a sinking ship.

[Aira Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Look, child: You can go around forever looking for swords and flags. You want heroes - and when you don't get heroes you make up devils. But we're not heroes and we're not devils. We're just people. And you'll have to learn to accept us as we are."

I was intimidated by this book that I searched about it first before reading which I shouldn't have. Nick Joaquin wrote beautiful proses but they're very lengthy I sometimes feel my mind drifting away. Utter confusion was all I felt after reading this that my initial review was "WTF was that?" (but like in a good way)

It has a lot of symbolism that I cannot even pinpoint what they are anymore. One thing I loved the most about this book is Connie and her conversation with Father Tony. I relate with Connie a lot because I also tend to escape rather than confront things, since I avoid pain. So yes, I always say that I am trying, but in reality, I have already given up.

While other readers see this book as a reflection of the Filipino identity during the Spanish and American colonization, I see it more as a psychological exploration that makes me reflect on my own experiences.

This book just grows on you. I like it better now than when I had just finished reading it.

[Elena ( The Queen Reads ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Filipino classic that’s as complex as it is rewarding. Nick Joaquin��s writing is dense, layered, and full of symbolism. It challenged me in the best way, and I loved discussing its themes of identity, history, and cultural disconnection. Definitely a book that makes you think long after you close it.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

feeling ko ayos na siyang isang chapter lang. sa unang chapter palang naresolve na ang lahat. hindi ko nagustuhan masyado yung ending. gumawa lang ulit si girl ng problema matapos ang isang problema. nahirapan ako basahin 'to sa totoo lang. ang daming naging punto de bista na walang pasabi at mahahabang pangungusap (talagang mahaba, minsan naabot pa ng tatlong pahina).

medyo nakakadisappoint lang na mas umikot ang kwento sa ibang karakter matapos malaman kung bakit may dalawang pusod si girl. mas maraming exposure yung iba kesa sa babaeng may dalawang pusod. gets ko yung gustong ipahiwatig na mensahe ni nick sa buong nobela sapagkat may mga pagkakataon pa rin talaga na nalilihis na talaga yung storya sa babaeng dalawang pusod :")

maganda naman ang pagkakasulat, malikha. magaling si nick joaquin sa mga palitan ng dialogue. siguro ang pinakamasasabi ko lang bilang isang modernong tao ay "wtf, sobrang weird" HAHAHAHAHA

'wag mo 'to basahin kung trip mo lang ng light at pure entertainment, malulungkot ka lang

[Led · Rating 2 out of 5]

Buwan ng Wika read. Soon I discovered how the whimsy title contrasts with its slow plot of a soap opera in pre-war to post-war Manila and Hong Kong. Despite my having an avid appetite for historical fiction and this being written at length, it did not allow me more than five pages of unconfused enjoyment.

[Neil Franz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.5 stars

Mas marami yung hilo dahil ang hahaba ng sentences kesa sa pagkamangha ko (or kung anuman ang dapat kong maramdaman) sa libro. ✌️🙏

[Arbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Filipino, this book appeals to me on different levels. Joaquin wrote this on a different time and yet its significance remains to be relevant.

I see the character of Connie as the embodiment of the Filipinos. Having two navels, therefore, implying having two mothers, personifies the two nations that colonized the Philippines. The culture, politics and other influences of these two nations have led the Filipinos in a state of being addle on their identity, similar to the state of Connie. At some point, as I try to digest the condition of Connie, I was caught on a quandary on whether her character, or Concha, really existed, since it seems feasible, for me at least, that one of the ladies may be the alter-ego of the other (a case of dual personality).

I'm neutral on the style of writing. There are times that the pacing and transition of the story are not established well. But Joaquin piqued my interest in accounts where he described the old Manila. I got curious about how verisimilar is his description of the place in those days that I Googled old photos.

Overall, Joaquin's work is worth the pride of the Filipinos. This book, along with other works of Filipino authors, should saturate the literature provided to young Filipinos.

[Maria Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

another high-school-compliance-read-this-or-else-zero-grade-in-report-card!

Good read. Concept of incepting an idea to a Filipino mind is not so great since the two-navel idea is not a good comparison with a typical Pinoy with two (or more) identities.

Little did I know is that the navels served as metaphor. :)

[cel de Jesus · Rating 5 out of 5]

it's like watching a play..

[Francisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maravilloso.

[Boone · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!

My first ever Nick Joaquin book and I'll be damned, I've been sleeping on his works for so long.

Reading The Woman Who Had Two Navels was a rollercoaster of emotions. It made me amazed, made me laugh and tear up, and made me confused and upset to the point I considered dropping the book but then kept reading anyway because I was curious on finding out what happens next (Does she really have two navels or not? Did this guy really have the audacity to invalidate this person's feelings? What the fuck is going on??? etc etc.). The ending was a shocker, to say the least. Overall, it was an experience.

Though I can see how this book is not for everyone since things might not make sense at all if you're just in it for the plot. One might even find it nonsensical until the end, and several questions are left unanswered. When it comes to the writing, the prose can be rather hard to follow since the author often jumps from one perspective to another multiple times within a single paragraph, which was quite confusing. But beyond that, if you're into books that make you think, make you pay attention to the dialogue, and leaves you thinking and questioning after you've read it that you want to analyze it further, then this is for you. While I myself am yet to completely digest and understand the message of this book, I can see it has depth and nuance. As far as I was able to catch, it touches upon themes of religion, morality, culture, trauma (lots of it), juicy family and relationship drama, and just dealing with inner demons above all. And did I mention how imaginative it is? True to it being tagged as magical realism, the storytelling does take a shift into these superficial and psychological beats, which blindsided me at first, thinking that it was what was actually happening, but I can't say I didn't like it. Joaquin is also generous when describing his settings. I could only hope Philippine Cinema would be able to do this book justice if they ever took the guts to adapt it into a film. Although I'm aware they've already adapted some of his other books (which I am yet to see), I'm curious how they would translate this book into a film. Not to mention that Filipino films in English are still very rare occasions (colonialism and the masses' ambivalence to the language having something to do with it, I'd bet). Anyhow, this book alone for me warrants Joaquin's many accolades, and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work. Maybe one of these days I'd even consider writing a paper on him.

[Maria Fatima · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first time reading a classic Filipino book. The story looked promising, which made me really curious about it. However, as I dived deeper into it, I had a hard time grasping everything. It was confusing at times, and I must say this is a complex story. It’s not the typical kind of novel, it’s filled with heavy symbolism and layers that require deeper reflection.

There were themes that I think are important: identity, colonialism, trauma. And I admire how the book chose to tackle them through metaphor. But as powerful as that approach is, it also made it hard for me to fully absorb and understand everything. I honestly struggled to keep up.

Still, I think it’s the kind of book that challenges its reader, not to entertain, but to reflect. And for that, I respect it. Maybe someday I’ll reread it with a clearer mind and see it in a different light. For now, I’m just proud I gave it a try.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Built from a volatile manner of story progression, The Woman Who Had Two Navels was likewise incorporated with torturous portraits of characters in superfluous depiction. Affected in symbolism, and as a result, lost in the meaning that was strained to an exhaustive degree.

War holds a severity of suffering that is indicative of the mental torture illustrated throughout the book, regardless of how distant or immediate the individual understanding of the subject matter it held was portrayed. It was in this respect that the significance of its general impact was substantiated, nonetheless, other critical themes that were contended left much to be desired, particularly the major concern on the authoritative effect the past bears against the present. There was an intemperance exhausted over constructing personal histories of characters that compromised the thematic implications of their circumstances, the capacity to scrutinize the weight of that regard was left indistinct on account of the relentless attention towards the most insignificant details.

In conclusion, this was fucking grating.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this story makes sense if you imagine the characters drunk. Otherwise, it’s a very layered and metaphorical piece of work; hours after the final pages and I’m still fitting the pieces together, trying to answer a simple question: what was Nick trying to say?

There is no clear answer, only speculations. I shoot at the dark and hope it lands. Most say it’s a metaphor for the Philippine identity, while some take it more as an individualist story of personhood. What I know is that I’ve met, at some point in my life, the characters made up by Nick, and that’s honestly fucking crazy. I’m 22 years old in 2025; you’re telling me people haven’t changed since the wars? I am convinced I’ve met Connie some place in my path.

[Madelaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels confused and overwhelmed me. The plot is fragmented, jumping between timelines and perspectives in a way that lacks coherence. While the themes of colonial identity and existential struggles are significant, the heavy symbolism and non-linear storytelling made connecting with the characters or the narrative difficult. It felt overly complicated, leaving me more disoriented than engaged. Unfortunately, this novel left me in shambles.

[Ella Dincă · Rating 3 out of 5]

It began promisingly as a Filipino tropical gothic short story, but it lost me towards the end. I suppose there was a lot of historical and cultural subtext that I was unaware of, and it didn’t resonate with me.

[Celine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best collection of short stories (and play) I've read. And Summer Solstice is actually my favorite thing I've read of all time.

[Shey Su · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, valid crashout for a girl who found out that her mother set her up to fall and marry to her former(?) lover. I too, would've had the same reaction.

The books has scenic moods, with post-war Manila and Hong Kong as its backdrop, it's a tale about character's complex familial relationship, estrangement, betrayal, identity crisis as a child of pre and post war colony. I like how Nick incorporates foggy, wet atmospheric and rainy scenes to portray characters' moods, with Connie believing she has two navels, she made the audience feel the double identity she feels as someone who grew up in two varying culture and as someone who had always feel like a shadow of her own mother.

One of the Philippine Classics literature I read in gradeschool, couldn't understand much back then because of the strong mature themes and metaphors, I re-read it in my 20s and it gave me a new light.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I closed this book with my mind brimming with questions and thoughts, and it's a testament to the density and complexity of such a short novel. It also is remarkably interested in and tender towards its characters, even the ones who aren't the ostensible leads. I love how it renders the question at its heart—Does Connie Escobar have two navels?— and how that question is almost beside the point by the end.

On a writerly note, I find it really helpful for my own work. I've been concerned about depicting Metro Manila accurately, whatever that means, but Joaquin has a way of capturing the essence of the city without necessarily getting nitty-gritty with the details.

[guiltlessreader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m on a high right now and my mind is churning with the twists and turns of this amazing novel. Very different from any other Joaquin stories I’ve read so far, this novel spans several generations based on Philippine history from the early 1900s with heavy relevance on the present day.

It started out slow and intriguing but became more and more murky ... then BAM!!! I was surprised as hell as the story came to it revelations and the bittersweet conclusion. This is provocative with its depth and openness to interpretation ... I can’t wait to read other reviews now that I am just brimming with questions! Enough of a glowing review - go get a copy!

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considered as one of the best Philippine works of fiction in English, I found that I did not enjoy reading this work as much as I hoped to. At some point, I kept reading in the hopes that the story would become more interesting or that there would be some structure that would make more sense out of the story.