Awaiting Trespass [A Pasión]

by Linda Ty-Casper

Gathered at a wake for Don Severino Gil in 1981, the year martial law was lifted in the Philippines, his curious relatives wonder why the old philanderer's coffin is sealed

Genres: Fiction, Asia, Asian Literature

180 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1985

About the author

Linda Ty-Casper is a highly-acclaimed Filipino writer. She was born as Belinda Ty in Manila, Philippines in 1931. Her father worked in the Philippine National Railways; her mother was a school teacher and textbook writer. It was her grandmother who told her stories about the Philippine struggle for independence, a topic she picked up in her novels. She has law degrees from the University of the Philippines and Harvard. However, erroneous and biased statements in books at Widener Library converted her into an advocate, through faithfully researched historical fiction, of Filipino's right to self-definition/determination.

Her numerous books are generally historical fiction. The Peninsulars centers on eighteenth-century Manila; The Three-Cornered Sun written on a Radcliffe Institute grant, deals with the 1896 Revolution; and Ten Thousand Seeds, the start of the Philippine American War. Contemporary events, including martial law years, appear in Dread Empire, Hazards of Distance, Fortress in the Plaza, Awaiting Trespass, Wings of Stone, A Small Party in a Garden, and DreamEden.

Her stories, collected in Transparent Sun, The Secret Runner, and Common Continent, originally appeared in magazines such as Antioch Review, The Asia Magazine, Windsor Review, Hawaii Review, and Triquarterly. One short story was cited in The Best American Short Stories of 1977 Honor Roll. Another won a UNESCO and P.E.N. prizes.
She has held grants from the Djerassi Foundation, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the Wheatland Foundation. She and her husband, (literary critic and professor emeritus of Boston College) Leonard Casper, reside in Massachusetts. They have two daughters.

(biography lifted from: http://www.palhbooks.com/Linda.htm)

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Family patriarch Don Severino Gil has died, and Linda Ty-Casper knits a tremendous story of a suffering land surrounding the grieving affluent Filipino family. The story is told through the eyes of the favored niece Telly - her unstable life plays the parallel to the Philippines people beyond the privileged life of her clan.

The Marcos dictatorship supplies the background for this novel, and although the government is never alluded to directly in the story, this book was still banned in Ty-Casper's native land during Marcos' rule. The last 30 pages of the novel are just fantastic and worth the time invested in this little known gem of a novel. Fans of Marquez's work will note wonderful parallels with his writing (especially 100 Years of Solitude).

2nd book read of 500 Great Books By Women

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manila, 1981. An old, rich playboy, Don Severino Gil, passed away under mysterious circumstances. His coffin with his body inside was delivered at his ancestral house sealed. No one knew, at first, why it was sealed. People attending the wake had all sorts of suspicions why.

The country, then, was under the grip of a dictatorship (though President Marcos' name was never mentioned here even once). The blurbs say this book, first published in 1985 abroad, could not be published in the Philippines for political reasons.

Cast of characters included Don Severino's son Sevi, a priest with his heart for the poor; Don Severino's three surviving sisters (all past the age of 80): Maria Esperanza, Maria Caridad and Maria Paz; his favorite niece Telly, a divorcee whose lyrical thoughts would often burst into short poems; Paeng, a student activist; and one Atty. Sandoval, a pragmatist who advocates prudence and cooperation with the regime. The novel has the air of Rizal's Noli and Fili novels due to its social commentaries and depiction of Filipino customs and traditions, although in a much modern setting.

Eventually, the reason for Don Severino's sealed casket was revealed: during the last days of his life he had been helping political prisoners. Hint was given that he was murdered by people identified with the regime. His body bore the marks of torture and a cruel death. His priest son Sevi then ordered the casket opened and his body displayed, even during their procession towards the cemetery which attracted local and foreign media.

If this sounds similar to Ninoy Aquino's assassination and funeral march don't be surprised. The book was published a few years after Aquino's assassination. However, it seems it was published before the first EDSA Revolution so one could not help but admire how prophetic this book was. I especially liked its final sentence. But let me quote the last four paragraphs of the novel when they had finished burying Don Severino's remains and they are walking away from the graveside:

"On passing Telly, Paeng holds out his hand to her. She hesitates, then takes it, gives her other hand to Susan who is walking by, even as Paeng reaches out for Maria Caridad's hand and she for her sister Maria Paz who is already holding on to Maria Esperanza.

"Their grief, Telly thinks, has become very much like the singing cries of birds; and she hangs on tightly to the hands holding hers. The heads of all I love/Are bones/Down my back/Life-locked/We bleed life's breaths/Sometimes my body remembers them singing.

"She looks up to fix in her mind what she has seen happen. The sky is no longer dark to her; it looks like an empty tree that is beginning to fill with new life, brightening with leaves and promises in an unenclosed garden.

"Looking for Sevi a last time, Telly sees him still praying by himself at the grave. The flowers that came too late to be dropped from the plane have been piled up on the raw mound of earth. Jaime, her brother Matias, and the priest sons of Maria Caridad and Maria Paz are walking alonside the Monsignor. Their white cassocks sweep forward with the relentless force of driven rain."

People marching, holding each others' arms, no longer afraid. Priests with "(t)heir white cossacks sweep(ing) forward with the relentless force of driven rain". Wasn't this the 1986 People Power Revolution?

[Martina R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I unexpectedly found a copy of this book in my university library (in Malta, of all places). This is the first book I read by Linda Ty-Casper -- I bought a copy of the reprinted The Three-Cornered Sun a few months ago but I still haven't gotten around to reading it.

Awaiting Trespass is a story set in the time of Martial Law. It's frequently mentioned by the main character's family, but because they belong to the upper classes of Manila society, we get a sense that, even though they're afraid of Martial Law, they're still very much protected from its dangers, with some relatives even enjoying the perks of being administration cronies. The final act is really where things get dreadful and the reveal at the end is haunting.

It's also a beautiful portrait of a rapidly changing downtown Manila.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Ty-Casper's work.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Awaiting Trespass" finds a prominent upper-crust family in Manila coping with the unexpected death and funeral of its oldest member, Don Severino Gil. There is a divide between the older generation, represented by Don Severino's three sisters, who are old-fashioned, formal, and very conscious of appearances, and the younger generation, represented by his divorced, occasionally suicidal niece Telly, a poet, and his estranged son Sevi, a priest, who are less comfortable supporting a regime that they know to be unjust. Don Severino's coffin is closed and there is much speculation and hinting about what might have happened to him and whether it ought to be kept quiet (as, it is implied, the powers that be require) or made public, an act of rebellion that might attract reprisals. Also the pope is about to visit and everyone's kind of getting ready for that. The prose is precise and lovely, full of devastating little insights like: "Her aunts pat her hands and order her a cup of chocolate with finger-length biscuits. Hunger is all they know how to feed."

This review is an excerpt from a post on my blog, Around the World in 2000 Books.