Yñiga

by Glenn Diaz

Yñiga Calinauan’s quiet life is upended when a retired army general wanted for the murder of peasants and activists in the countryside is captured across the street from her house. Days later the neighborhood is burned to the ground in what some say is retaliation. With nowhere to go, she returns to M—, the small fishing town where she grew up and now hopes to regain the quiet life she has lost. But soon she discovers that the terror she thought she had escaped in the city is right on her trail, and she must face the “forest of history” that has long haunted her family.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Historical, Literary Fiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022

About the author

Glenn Diaz is the author of the novels The Quiet Ones (2017) and Yñiga (2022), recipients of the Philippine National Book Award, and When the World Ended I Was Thinking about the Forest (2022), published by Paper Trail Projects. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Rosa Mercedes, Liminal, The Johannesburg Review of Books, and others. Born and raised in Manila, he holds a PhD from the University of Adelaide and currently teaches with the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Glenn Diaz's Yñiga talks a lot about astrology and guessing other people's sun signs. I've never related more in my life.)

In this book, Glenn Diaz served as the readers' guide to the forest that was his central character Yñiga's life and psyche. With erudite and engrossing prose, Diaz slowly unfolded what made Yñiga the person she was: a composed, astrology-loving, intelligent, if lazy and absentminded at times, forty-year old who carried a terror and trauma much heavier than she could handle, than what people around her thought she had. The way Diaz weaved past, present, and future events fluidly was my favorite thing here. I enjoy this blurring of the chronology in the book, for a more elegant unravelling of one's life. And isn't that how we live? Through stories and memories half-told, half-contained. While Yñiga, through her practiced composure, tried not to be the victim she actually was, the horror brought by powerful political forces that followed her as a kid growing up in M—, to her life in the city of T—, and to her eventual return to her childhood town was palpable, not only to her or to the people that went close to her, but also to the readers. Diaz did not hold back at all in incorporating this real-life muggy atmosphere in his text and it was as important and as all-encompassing in Yñiga's life as it was to the novel itself. In his book, When the World Ended, I Was Thinking about the Forest, Diaz wrote: “I think what I'm trying to do is turn the uncertainty into a clearing; the terror, into a project. (A kaingin.)” A novel like this, thought of for ten years, conceptualized and written amidst actual political threats in the country, would for sure had that same uncertainty and terror entailed, but Diaz has succeeded with his kaingin. Yñiga materialized with great strength.

[Jodesz Gavilan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Every search is a search for something that had always been at hand and therefore beside the point."
———
Glenn Diaz's YÑIGA follows a has-been teacher and writer whose life is marked by loss, both in the literal and figurative sense, and how these play out within the bigger picture of Philippine society.

The novel starts with the arrest of a fugitive military officer responsible for disappeared and killed activists. The protagonist Yñiga watches as state forces swarm into his hiding place one night after years of evading the law. But as the novel progresses, we see that the berdugo (the butcher) is just one of the tools in the bigger machinery of oppression. And such as we've witnessed in reality, the likes of him are still embedded in our daily lives, waiting to redtag (or worse, kill) anyone who dare express opposition to the state.

Yñiga knows these things all too well. The events growing up in a small town north of Metro Manila has predisposed her to the cruelty of life in general. But all cruelty is compounded by the ravenous state across different administrations, which many people in Yñiga's life – most especially his family – has accepted to be the norm. It's that or risk ending up bloated and lifeless floating near shore, after all.

Yñiga herself has tried to evade being involved. She's accepted herself as being mundane, of just becoming a passive viewer of the world. Yet, one cannot really ignore things that have become too blatant to just set aside.

Central to Diaz's recent works are forests, vast playgrounds of trees and animals, also witnesses to clarities that escaped the chaos of the metropolis. In this novel, the forest plays the role of repository of things Yñiga is trying to understand, or perhaps evading. It is in the forest where one understands the most, after all, something that Yñiga has tried her best to not achieve. Understanding, for her, is acknowledgement of things better left untouched.

Reading Diaz is like attending a masterclass. The events that inspired the story are things I know of. The killings, the political history, I've somehow reported on over the years. But when you think you know everything, you're wrong. In YÑIGA, Diaz tackles the communist crackdown with a special focus on the presidency of Ramon Magsaysay and how it played out in the lives of people in Yñiga's community. By doing so, the author makes the political more personal, the history not just words on paper that have to be memorized for examinations.

YÑIGA is the third Glenn Diaz work I've read. As always, I'm blown away. It solidified my belief that he is really one of the best Filipino writers in our generation. I can't wait for his next work (no presure, Glenn hehe)!

5/5

[Sasha Dalabajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glenn Diaz understands IPBK on historical, dialectical, and personal levels. Having works like this available in the mainstream is nothing short of revolutionary, especially for a nation where the littlest reference to the world's longest insurgency gets red-tagged. I wish this book becomes a reading requirement across learning institutions.

That being said, there's something about Glenn's writing that makes me feel like I am always put at an arm's length away, unable to fully be engrossed by the personal lives of the characters he depicts. I'm not sure if it was intentional, or if it was the writing style itself, but I also felt it when I read his debut novel The Quiet Ones.

I read this before I read Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming, which is similar in how their main characters grapple with their positions in the movement, tainted by their loss of having been left by their parent for it. I couldn't help but compare the two throughout; but ultimately, Yñiga's ending had more weight to it than Olga's.

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was one of my favorite books to read ever it’s unbelievably compelling and poetic, such an amazing character study

[Kin · Rating 5 out of 5]

who in philippine literature but glenn diaz has mustered the courage to deal with images of global capitalism and modernity at the level of content? the quiet ones is sui generis in this regard (to my knowledge, at least) and stands as a compelling literary representation of our contemporary moment (gina apostol hailed it as the novel the philippines had been waiting for; i can't help but agree with her). in yñiga, diaz's material pivots from the dehistoricized and fragmented affect of a globalized present (postcolonial agency/desires in thrall to the mute power of transnational capital backed by state surveillance, etc.) to the "forest of history" that characterizes philippine class relations vis-a-vis the fraught project that is the philippine nation. to be sure, there is a thematic throughline that can be gleaned across both novels: the call center-employed precariat of the quiet ones aren't too far removed from the urban, educated, middle-class positionality of yñiga's beleaguered titular protagonist. in yñiga, however, class struggle comes to the fore in its most naked and most virulent form, stripped of the seductive trappings of third-world (post)modernity—short-lived material affordances, diaz shows in the quiet ones, that compensate for the sheer psychic toll exacted on neocolonial manila's "immaterial labor." yñiga, on the other hand, is practically homo sacer, a woman whose very existence is hounded by trauma born of political violence; there is a sense here in which history weighs on her psyche like a nightmare, one that is all the more paralyzing because the state, a key player in this unfolding drama, operates via a state of exception that renders its enemies (including, of couse, individuals deemed subversive) vulnerable to a kind of unchecked violence; this is the biopolitical reality that yñiga is all too familiar with, the pervasive "terror" that follows her everywhere she goes. "preordained. impossible to escape," she says. (her obsession with predetermination is reflected by her frequent references to astrology, her earnest analysis of people in terms of their star signs providing much-needed comic relief.) but the novel is far from realist. its language is not a straightforward signification of political reality in the philippines. if anything, diaz's subversion of writing conventions (quote marks excised from dialogue, unconspicuous temporal leaps) is its own insight, and the novel's most meaningful narrative strategy. by dislodging the principle of legibility, diaz demonstrates the constitutive indeterminacy of the political question, where nothing is, can ever be, final. the novel its own "invisible forest." (watch out for the absolutely gorgeous ending. ripped my heart out.)

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. This book felt like reading a lonely lonely child. Snug and fragile and poignant. Kept imagining my province as M—

2. The laughable It's still me line from TQO

3. More readable than the first novel, I think

4. Ang ganda-ganda, ang lungkot-lungkot, ang hopeful-hopeful

Hay. Sana magkaroon ng time para muling basahin.

[Maria Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am done! Finally!!! Tough to swallow, but these are some inputs for discussion questions:

1. Maganda po ba ang experience ng salamin sa motmot char
2. Astral projection po ba yung jumping timelines and ano po ba si Y, bakit ang hilig sa Sepia? GenX po ba sya?
3. Hindi naman po Scorpio ang mga masuswerteng nilalang, abah? Dapat intense lang sila pero most likely walang accountability char eme
4. Ano pong hilig ni madam sa mga er-er bakit parang bet ko rin yung friendly and flirty experiences ng er-er — writer, construction worker, soldier, garbage collecter, boat rider, cheter (theater) performer, etc.
5. Inflections ba ng teacher (er-er din pala sya) ang magsabi ng "and so on and so forth" kapag nage-explain tulad ni Glenn sa podcast nila ni Egay? char eme

#emenisms putting here before I reassess my book reivew. Tough to crack, this novel. Marami akong tanong sa kabotehan ng coke at bakit gusto na lang ng Pepsi ng mga taga-Kabankalan, Negros.

Char eme ulit.

[Meeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glenn Diaz wrote Yñiga as a character with so many layers and someone who is flawed and human which makes her story more interesting to read and follow. Each character was written with distinct depth and personality with their own singular story of purpose and contribution. Diaz’ fixation with the forest was referenced a lot of times, literally and metaphorically, but it was laid out beautifully, aligned with the entirety of the story. The essence of community, may it be in the urban center of T— or in the provincial setting of M—, albeit different in its capacity, aspect, and way of life, reflected to be the same but powerful when combined if and should every indivual person come together for a one true purpose.

Yes, as brave as this story can be described, Diaz once again has proved to be one hell of a storyteller in the modern Philippine literature. His choice of narration with scattered flashbacks and conversation without the use of quotation marks never lead the reader to confusion. His writing style is unique to his own and dare I say, a breath of fresh air in the local lit.

[JY · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Isn't it comforting to know, he said, that we are part of something so colossal and unending?"

Glenn Diaz effortlessly, as usual, jumps between multiple interweaved timelines that cut across time and space. He does this to the effect of putting matter-of-factly the institutional and cyclical nature of state-sanctioned violence - so matter-of-factly that it's almost insidious because you come to this realisation only toward the last few pages (when the micros accrue to the societal; why would I expect any other ending?), paralleling the creeping nature of it in reality. I always find Diaz's writing much more engaging because the side characters are fleshed out well and realistically, with their own set of anxieties and ambitions, and it's the same in Yniga - there is that essence of the barangay ("the air smelling of kalachuchi, candles. the hum of prayer laced with the roar of the generator, errant xylophone notes, the buzz of conversation"); the city as desperation, the only escape from (and culminating in) "nostalgic despair".

The only issue is that you can tell Diaz' stories are informed by experiences that are very real - too real, in fact - so while the story ends, the ideas and problems underpinning it do not - and all that's left for the reader is that immense sense of hopelessness, because how else?

[Andre Aniñon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A captivating read -- I've developed a newfound appreciation for the idea of a forest that this novel portrays.

[Cho Timbol · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Yñiga, yet another finely crafted meditation on being Filipino from Glenn Diaz, the author suggests a solution to our learned helplessness in the face of tyranny, “a thing so entrenched it had become invisible.” This solution is community, not trying to be brave by ourselves. “The error was going at it alone,” a character chides Yñiga—and me—as they plan a protest against authorities while smoking cigarettes under a duhat tree.

⭐⭐⭐

My favorite thing about Yñiga is its contemplation of Filipino life. In the novel we hear a Zambales boatman contemplating his town and declaring it “beautiful, but life is hard,” and a long-time resident of a Manila slum describing common sights in the looban—crunched cockroach carcasses and dog turds coexisting with beautiful backyard vegetable gardens. Yñiga ennobles banal experiences by memorializing these in print.

Like Diaz’ other novel, The Quiet Ones, Yñiga is thematically complex and tackles much more than what I’ve described here (the hypocrisies of academia? How a country’s heroes are made? The price of activism? And much more). Glenn Diaz might be the best Filipino novelist right now, and I hope everyone gets to read him.

[jesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diaz’s Yñiga transpires on the aftermath of aftermaths— what it meant to grow up with an activist father na namundok sa kasagsagan ng Martial Law, what it meant to live as his daughter, the trauma of having to cope and adjust to a myriad of losses (both coincidental and intentional), and her inner resignation and defiance to commonly-held tenets of how her life must fare out, among others.

Her childhood was rife with political anecdotes, and although some of them weren’t explicitly stated, there was a tacit understanding between the reader (Filipino readers, or readers who are familiar with Philippine history) and the author as to what these anecdotes were exactly about in the grander scheme of history, even from a child’s perspective.

The story begins and ends with Yñiga’s departure, of having to reckon with the liminalities of how events has shaped her life, of having to move forward with an internal compass that points nowhere but assures her that she’s headed towards the right path.

[Kwe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of Glenn Diaz' writing. I don't recall the pages turning. It's all just vibes. The writing reminds me so much of Celeste Ng's works.

Yñiga is very relatable to me. We both just want the quiet life with a patient partner. And we're both anxious of ruining it that we self sabotage 💅🏼. I really liked that her name is a mix of her mom and dad's name. I have never heard of it but it makes sense as a Filipino. She's also very into Astrology, even though I don't relate, it still felt like it's accurate somehow.

With the story, I feel like I did not get anything, apart from these powerful men still attacking (red tagging, torturing, murdering, etc) dissent and families of dissenters years and years after Martial Law. The writing goes back and forth in time and it's full of conspiracy (w/c come to think of it, is an accurate depiction of our lives). I have no idea what's the truth and what did I hallucinate. Still a very entertaining read though.

[Full review]

[Miguel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collectively, as a society, we should all live in a forest.

Yñiga is a frustrating creature. Lukewarm, aloof, and cannot commit to anyone or anything except for her cat. Maybe it’s deliberate; she is meant to be a reflection of her own frustrating circumstances, which were far more intriguing than her very character.

When I read The Quiet Ones a few years ago, I was more gripped by Diaz’s writing (‘seduced’ was a word I used then) than the narrative itself. With this one I feel like the story is on par with its telling. The sad thing is it all ends abruptly. I honestly would’ve read 600 more pages of this ‘forest of history.’ Yñiga and I would just have to call it a truce.

[june · Rating 4 out of 5]

“she had not been alone. an invisible forest around her.”

[Law of Literature PH · Rating 5 out of 5]

READ FULL REVIEW HERE: https://lawofliteratureph.wordpress.c...

The Duterte administration is one of the worst periods in Philippine history — people are disappeared in the middle of the night, corpses are found littered in ditches, and the masses have grown desensitized to the rising death count of extrajudicial killings. To the older generation, it’s a deja vu of the Martial Law era. But the nightmare hasn’t ended yet.

To write about such a gruesome and violent period with finesse and grace is almost an impossible task. An impossible task that Glenn Diaz not only took on but exceeded in his novel Yñiga with his almost poetic prose. It has been many decades since the death of Jose Garcia Villa, the man whom Gemino Abad credits as the start of when Filipino poets went from writing in English to being wrought from English, and Glenn Diaz shows what being wrought from English truly means. There have been few Filipino writers I’ve read whose prose lingered not only in the eyes but also the tongue and ears such as Nick Joaquin and Gregorio Brillantes, and now Glenn Diaz.

Although I consider Yñiga a crime novel, as there are deaths and mystery in the story, it lacks many of the genre convention I associate with the genre. Maybe it’s more apt to consider it magic realism as there are fantastical scenes that are taken as normal and ordinary, similar to how the Duterte administration was full of crime but felt like magic realism — extraordinary events such as extrajudicial killings and unpresedential behaviors are considered ordinary. I will not claim I understood what Glenn Diaz wanted to say in his novel, it’ll probably take me two or three rereads to fully grasp the story — maybe the novel isn’t even about the Duterte administration and I completely misread the author’s intentions — but I believe it is a book that every Filipino should read.

[Arystine · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

Forty-year-old Yñiga lives with her cat, Jestoni, in
T—, which is located in Central Manila. A former teacher in her province, she works at home and writes essays and papers for foreigners. One day, a retired army general who was notorious for killing activitists was arrested in their neighborhood. Days later, their neighborhood “caught” fire. No house was spared, and Yñiga decided to go back to M—, her hometown in Zambales. However, she did not get the tranquil life she was expecting in her small coastal town. Instead, the horrors of the past followed her, as if history is repeating itself.

This is the second book by Glenn Diaz @kasukalan that I’ve read and again, I am blown away. I annotated and put tabs so much because of the beautiful, beautiful lyrical writing. The author can describe an urban jungle as poetic as he describes the view from a lighthouse. Also, the author made me so emotionally invested with Jestoni the cat that I hugged my cats extra tighter after reading the book.😺

Yñiga is a character with so much depth. She witnessed so much when she was young that she suffered traumas; she did not know that she was just waiting for the right time to avenge for her family. Socio-political issues and activism were tackled, entwined with Yñiga’s penchant for analyzing people through astrology (which really amused me since I related so much). There were scenes difficult and painful to read, but what is even more painful is that this fiction could not be far from what happens in real life.

This is Philippine literary fiction at its best. No wonder it won the Best Novel in English during the 41st National Book Awards.👏 I am sharing my review so that Filipino bookstagrammers will take notice of this gem of a book by Glenn Diaz.


Fave lines:
“They didn’t leave apparently. Not all of then. She had not been alone. An invisible forest around her.”

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://nordis.net/2024/03/31/article...

In Glenn Diaz’s Yñiga, the titular character was with Lolo Ben, a 90-year-old interviewee of an Americana pursuing doctoral tenure (or a promotion?) and academic points by ~investigating~ the possible links between lighthouses and social movements (“sounds like a lot of hubbub for metaphor work,” Yñiga quipped). Lolo Ben claimed that his father and uncle have participated in the 1896 Revolution, and seemed to be familiar with Itos, Yniga’s father who also once supported the armed rebellion not only by handing out resources, but by being part of it himself.

Partly due to Lolo Ben’s presumed dementia and old age, and Diaz’s fictional deployment of techniques (should be: deployment of fictional techniques?), and my selectively redundant excerptions, you will be left with hazy associations…

“That your nobyo, hija? Lolo Ben asked after Marco left. Good-looking guy. He looks familiar. Did he ever go up with Abril?

Go up? Yñiga asked, shielding her eyes from sunlight. Abril?

What’s he saying? Claire (the Americana doing an academic study on lighthouses) asked.

Up, he repeated. A hand impatiently thrown behind him, as if she ought to know what he meant” (see pp. 126-7).

…that will be of service to what I’m getting at with “going up,” pagsampa, resurrections. As if you know what I am getting at, what I mean.

[Gabriela Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the very best of novels (this one included), personal narratives combine with the country’s tale, imbuing both with greater clarity and meaning. What Diaz also does in Yñiga is to force his reader to take on the mentality of a novelist. It’s not only his chapters that jump backward and forward in time, but sometimes, even his paragraphs (and in one memorable, brief portion, his omniscient narrator becomes a cat). The reader-as-novelist has quite a bit of filling in to do. One needs to read deeply in order to follow the narrative thread, woven mainly through the eyes of a very troubled woman, no longer young, yet lost in a fight that has no end, forever seeking vengeance for her father’s disappearance..."

Read the rest of the review : https://exlibrisphilippines.com/2025/...

[Miguel Carlos Lazarte · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What a blessing it would be to be left alone. For the great landlord of the cosmos to see her tiny figure and declare, with utmost boredom, Nothing to see here, move on.”

Yniga is an important novel in this time of political unrest and unnamed persecutions, reported and unknown to us in the cities. The main character, Yniga, is more colorful than what she claims to be passive and escapist (and a little bit of an Aquarius tbh). Written in non-linear fashion, the events, although fiction, are stories that do not surprise anymore, yet retellings of a national crackdown agenda, state oppressions, disappearances, and the emphasis of the collective (tsk, Yniga, you did things alone too much.)

[Faizal Capili · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to go on a trek after reading this book. 😅

This brilliantly written work follows the journey of Yñiga, a 40-year-old teacher and writer trying to escape her tangled life in T, however, her past will continue to haunt her.


If there is one thing I learned from this book, it is how to handle grief.

Grief is a monster, yet it can be tamed.

You will never truly escape the terror of losing someone you love, but the wonderful memories, lessons, and love you've shared will help you embrace the pain.

This is my first novel as a Filipino.

This is my first novel by a Filipino author, but certainly not my last.

[Jean Louise | bookloure · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is currently too smart for me at the moment. So much about the main subject matter just went over my head. As a middle class millennial who has lived all her life in Imperial Manila, has little to no interest in politics, and an infant sense of history, I needed things to be spelled out for me more—and this book is an absolute read-between-the-lines one, which I am unable to do because I lack the schema for it.

Definitely one that needs to be read in an academic setting, with guided discussions afterwards. I plan to revisit this one after I read all the books mention in the acknowledgment.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel feels like wading into calm waters only to encounter a rip current that disgorges you into a place you thought you would never see if you pretend not to see it long enough. The pace is slow and non-linear but you can sense the tremor in the nerves and the mad rush of anger in the vessels of the masses who are always at the losing end when facing the state and its forces. A stark reminder to all of us to at least aim, or hope, to get what is due to us as citizens of a country that is supposed to derive its power 'from the people, by the people, and for the people'.

[Miguel Imperial · Rating 3 out of 5]

+ The author writes action and stillness very well.
+ I love small towns in books... the layout of the town, the lighthouse, the powerplant.
+ It feels great to read fiction mixed with history. The story felt more real but, at the same time, far from me.

- "Sitting on your punches" is to basically lessen movement to increase power in combat sports. This book could have done that. There are many flashbacks where the setting is similar in both times that it felt mixed. Strong points are sparse.

[retired to the salton sea · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked this A LOT but i have to acknowledge the stray hair swinging by my sight of view the whole time, just enough for me to remember, and it's the same thing that a lot of books suffer because a man has written a woman yet again. that's not to say yñiga is incurably and *wholly* a stereotypical product of that (there were a lot of "she's just like me fr's" honestly), but that it's a palpable enough symptom i couldn't set aside when circumstances revolved around how the narrative treats her body. other than that, it's one of the best books ive read this year

[Amaris Laelle Tomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

finished it last night b4 i started my chem grind...

tough read, really. the political and historical backdrop makes the experiences feel larger-than-life! love the vivid imagery...especially when it comes to the bits of introspection and flashbacks...

will comment more later, kase ANG GANDUH MGA TEH GIVE IT A READ IF U SEE IT

which brings me to thinking how lucky am i to pick this very book among the rest that were in the shelf...

edit: will edit soon HAHSHAHAHA

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could say I enjoyed the Quiet Ones more than this. But overall, I loved the story itself; it’s timeless. Fiction based on reality.

Writing style: Reading novels without quotation marks and proper pauses is really a struggle for me. In a single paragraph, multiple characters are speaking and I just got lost. Shifting timeline is not seamless.

[Peter Immanuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad I guess. I struggled with this one. I liked that it touched on social issues, but I wasn't too drawn into the story. The shifting timelines were confusing and could have been more seamless. Without dialogue quotations, it was sometimes hard to figure out who was talking because the characters seemed to talk the same way.

[justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The man struck Yñiga as sincere, if overeager. A Pisces?"

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Can the forest be both content and form, idea as well as structure?” 


ANG LIBRO 

Ang Yñiga ni Glenn Diaz ay parehong pakikipagbuno’t pakikipagniig ng tityular na protagonista sa kaniyang nakaraan, kasalukuyan, at hinaharap: ilang araw matapos madakip ang mamamatay-aktibistang retiradong heneral—na halaw sa tunay na buhay ni Jovito Palparan o mas kilala bilang “The Butcher”—ay nasunog ang kanilang baryo sa T—, na siyang nagtulay kay Yñiga na umuwi (o mas mainam na sabihing bumalik) sa M—, ang kaniyang kinalakhangbayan. Hindi maiiwasan, na ang madalas nating tinatakasan ang mismong daratnan natin sa dulo; ganiyan ang karanasan ni Yñiga, at ang pakikipagbuno nito sa “forest of history” ng kaniyang katauhan (Diaz, 2024, pah. 58). 

Gayong nabanggit ang kagubatan (forest), ito ay ginamit ni Diaz sa tatlong magkakaiba ngunit magkakaugnay na paraan: una, bilang hugpungan ng pantasmagorikong anekdota—halimbawa, ng kay Itos, ang ama ni Yñiga, at ang pakikisangkot nito sa digmang-bayan; pangalawa, bilang kanlungan, na siyang nakapagbibigay-proteksyon o maski pakiramdam nito, sa gitna ng lumalawak ngunit lumiliit na mundo bunga ng kapitalismo’t imperyalismo; at panghuli, bilang lunsaran ng pagbabago—ng makauring pagbalikwas (Diaz, 2024). Samakatuwid, ang kagubatan sa nobela ay nagbabagong-anyo: bilang espasyo o tagpuan; bilang historikal na lugar ng tunggalian; bilang lawas na siyang pinaghahalawan ng alaala; bilang mapa ng kasaysayan, na siyang masukal, pasikot-sikot, kung kaya’t lumalabo (na, kabalintunaan man isipin, ang siyang mas nagpatingkad lalo) ang realidad; bilang sagot sa katanungan.


PAGMUMUNI

Makabuluhan ang politika ng nobela; litaw, halimbawa, ang pagtatala sa kasaysayan ng matagalang digmang-bayan sa kanayunan—na sumasalok mula sa musmos na balon ng pagkabata ni Yñiga—at ang pakikisangkot dito ni Itos, ang ama ni Yñiga, bilang isang cadre at community organizer — na kalauna’y magiging desaparesido sa ilalim ng Batas Militar ni Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. Litaw din dito, halimbawa, ang pagkakaipit ng mga pobreng mamamayan at komunidad sa korapsyon, patronage politics, at political violence: ang “relief goods” na natanggap ng Barangay; ang paninirahan at, kalaunan, pagkakadakip sa retiradong heneral-mamatay-tao; ang pandarahas sa ikinasang kilos-protesta sa M—; atbp. Sumatutal, ang politika ng nobela ay hindi lamang dekorasyon; ito’y umuusbong bilang pang-araw-araw na hamon para sa mga tauhan—lalo na kay Yñiga, na tahimik ngunit unti-unting namumulat sa malupit na lohika ng kapangyarihan, gayundin ang pagkakadawit niya rito. Kaya’t ang naratibo ay hindi lamang paggunita kundi isang anyo rin ng paglaban: isang pagtatangkang itala ang mga di-mabilang na anyo ng pagkawala—ng katawan, ng alaala, ng katarungan—at ang di-mamatay-matay na pagnanasang buuin muli ang sarili sa gitna ng pagkabasag.

Sa kabilang banda, makabuluhan din ang angking hirap ng kuwento—partikular ang panahon kung saan nakalunan ang boses ng tauhan, sapagkat tumatalong ito nang walang pasubali sa mambabasa. Halimbawa: sa isang talata, nasa kasalukuyan (present) ang tauhan, sa susunod naman ay nasa nakaraan (past) ito. Wika nga ni Diaz, “[The novel] flits in and out of the present… shuffling between pasts and futures in a rapid staccato with little discernible premeditation or uniform pattern (p. 64). Ang kalikasan ng prosang ito ang siyang pinakamainam na paraan ng paglalahad sa kompleksidad ng pangunahing tauhan: pinadadaloy ng magkapanabay na pagsasalaysay hinggil sa kasalukuyan at pagbabalik-tanaw ang pag-iral ni Yñiga Calinauan sa nobela—ang pakikipagtuos niya sa kasaysayan, gayundin ang kaniyang paghulagpos mula rito. 

Kung paanong ginugulo ng naratibo ang pag-iral ng pangunahing tauhan, gayundin ang pagyurak nito sa iba pang tauhan—kay Itos, at sa biographer nito o, sa nagkukunwang maging; kay Lourdes; kay Hilaria at kay Yusing, ang isa pang kapatid ni Yñiga’t kaniyang ina; kay Marco; kay Jestoni. May sarili silang buhay, may sariling mundo, at matalas na ipinakikita ni Diaz ang pagkakaugnay-ugnay ng mga mundong ito; dahil dito, lalong nagiging matimbang ang nobela: hindi lang ito tungkol sa mga isyung panlipunan, kundi tungkol sa mga taong patuloy na naghahanap ng puwang sa gitna ng kaguluhan—at sa mga katahimikang puno rin ng pag-asa, sakit, at pagbitaw.

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Sa kabuuan, ang Yñiga ni Glenn Diaz ay isang nobelang pira-piraso ngunit buo, magulo ngunit masinsin—at lahat ng ito, totoo. Winasak ako ni Yñiga; lalo’t higit ang pagkaligaw niya sa kagubatan ng kaniyang kasaysayan. Sa pamamagitan ng naliligaw ngunit bumabalik na naratibo, ng tauhang puno ng pag-aalinlangan, tanong, at sa huli’y pag-asa, at ng mundong lumiliit sa paglaki nito, ginagabayan tayo ni Diaz sa gubat ng bangungot at alaala, habang tayo’y hinahagkan ng ating kinakalimutang kabataan, karanasan sa diktadura, at kasalukuyang pakikipagniig sa mga ito. Gayon, ang Yniga ay, higit sa lahat, hindi lang pag-aakda ng pag-alala, kundi patuloy na pakikibaka upang manatiling buhay sa isang mundong pilit tayong nililimot, binubura.