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But for the Lovers
In the 25 years since its original publication, But for the Lovers has acquired an underground reputation as one of the most remarkable novels about World War II, doing for the Pacific war theater what Joseph Heller's Catch-22 did for the European one. Set in the Philippines, But for the Lovers depicts the survival of a cross-section of Filipinos during the Japanese Occupation and the American Liberation. The cast is enormous, including an old man who used to wander the countryside entertaining children, a young girl raped by Japanese soldiers, guerrilla messengers bringing word of the coming of the American army, and a Japanese major who views the war as the first step of the liberation of the Asian people from Western civilization. This extraordinary novel is no less remarkable for the power and the beauty of its language than for the exotic and magical world it creates. Ranging from hallucinatory lyricism to documentary realism, from black humor sketches to scenes of horror and degradation, But for the Lovers is a rich and complex exploration of language, history, and mythology. The hardcover edition (Dutton, 1970) was praised by the New York Times Book Review as "stunning"; this is the first paperback edition, for which novelist Robert Coover has written an appreciative foreword.
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Wilfrido D. Nolledo
4 books11 followersFilipino-American fictionist, playwright, essayist, and editor was once referred to by Nick Joaquin, Philippine National Artist, as a "young magus" who turned the Philippine war experience into a poem, referring to "But For the Lovers," the novel that brought Nolledo to the attention of publisher, E.B. Hutton.
In 1965, he was a Fulbright scholar at Iowa Writers Workshop; from then on, he was at the University of Iowa on various scholarship grants and served as the literary editor of the Iowa Review.
Nolledo led an enriching literary career, producing works that won prizes and awards. Among them were: the National Cultural Award for Drama from the City of Manila, National Award for Drama from the Writers’ Union of the Philippines, and the Roman Grand Prize for Novel. He also garnered a Great Filipino Achiever Award from the U.S.-Philippine Expo ’94 “for distinguished career in literary writing, for the pride he has bestowed on the Filipino people through the recognition given him by…American publishers and readers.” He was recognized in 2001 by his own school (San Beda University) with the Bedan of the Century trophy for lifetime achievement in literature.
His other works have been included in several American quarterlies and magazines (aside from Philippine publications). They can also be found in different fiction anthologies.
In 1965, he was a Fulbright scholar at Iowa Writers Workshop; from then on, he was at the University of Iowa on various scholarship grants and served as the literary editor of the Iowa Review.
Nolledo led an enriching literary career, producing works that won prizes and awards. Among them were: the National Cultural Award for Drama from the City of Manila, National Award for Drama from the Writers’ Union of the Philippines, and the Roman Grand Prize for Novel. He also garnered a Great Filipino Achiever Award from the U.S.-Philippine Expo ’94 “for distinguished career in literary writing, for the pride he has bestowed on the Filipino people through the recognition given him by…American publishers and readers.” He was recognized in 2001 by his own school (San Beda University) with the Bedan of the Century trophy for lifetime achievement in literature.
His other works have been included in several American quarterlies and magazines (aside from Philippine publications). They can also be found in different fiction anthologies.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
August 19, 2023
I've so much thoughts about the book, but first—why haven't I heard of Nolledo before? This is an injustice! This book alone proves that he sits squarely with Rizal and Joaquin as the best of our writers. Why is he practically nonexistent in our literary canon?
Some ramble-y thoughts because I've yet to organize them:
- probably 4.5 stars, but I'm giving it 5 because it's definitely closer to 5 than 4.
- this is the most difficult book I've read this year so far.
- and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nolledo's prose is just exquisite, really.
- sexism is inescapable; Nolledo is a genius but he's also a product of his time.
- that climax!!!!!!! I want to talk about it with somebody!
- this seems like a magical realism in the language, but it's also so physical and literal.
- allegories can be too in the nose, but I'm not mad about that. the text itself already demands a lot of the reader, so it's a relief that the subtexts are so blatant
- audacious and delicious!
Is this my favourite read of the year?
Some ramble-y thoughts because I've yet to organize them:
- probably 4.5 stars, but I'm giving it 5 because it's definitely closer to 5 than 4.
- this is the most difficult book I've read this year so far.
- and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nolledo's prose is just exquisite, really.
- sexism is inescapable; Nolledo is a genius but he's also a product of his time.
- that climax!!!!!!! I want to talk about it with somebody!
- this seems like a magical realism in the language, but it's also so physical and literal.
- allegories can be too in the nose, but I'm not mad about that. the text itself already demands a lot of the reader, so it's a relief that the subtexts are so blatant
- audacious and delicious!
Is this my favourite read of the year?
Read
November 4, 2025I spend an inordinate amount of time in the cities shattered by the cruel 20th Century. I don’t know why, they give me a certain sense of contemplation, and when I stand in say, the train station of Cologne or Busan or Padua or Nagasaki, seeing what has emerged from the rubble, it gives me a strange sort of hope, alongside the melancholy. But Manila seems permanently haunted (Phnom Penh too, but that’s a story for a different day), and Nolledo captures how that process happened. It’s a remarkable war novel – for the love of god ignore that comparison to Catch-22 – that’s all over the place in terms of style, and that makes it stronger – there is absolute poignancy, vicious humor, borderline dream sequence, and plenty of grisly detail. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. It’s a damn shame Nolledo never wrote another.
Read
May 29, 2015The postcolonial is perverse*, according to the Filipino critic J. Neil C. Garcia. But why stop there? The postcolonial is grotesque, is disgusting, is radical, is transgressive. The postcolonial is a product of colonial wars, of wars inglorious. It is blasphemous; it is bestial.
Just like But for the Lovers, the only full length novel published by Wilfrido D. Nolledo (1933-2004) in his lifetime. This novel blatantly wears the sleeve of postcoloniality and postmodernity. It is a (diffi)cult book. In Philippine novel writing, it is a milestone, deserving of the top spot in any list of the best Philippine novels in English published in the last hundred years.
Full review at: http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2015/09/...
Just like But for the Lovers, the only full length novel published by Wilfrido D. Nolledo (1933-2004) in his lifetime. This novel blatantly wears the sleeve of postcoloniality and postmodernity. It is a (diffi)cult book. In Philippine novel writing, it is a milestone, deserving of the top spot in any list of the best Philippine novels in English published in the last hundred years.
Full review at: http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2015/09/...
June 12, 2023
"Lei the lovers. Petal all passion. Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable."
Exploding Galaxies' pioneer publication is an under-appreciated masterpiece, by any measure, that sets such a high expectation for their succeeding titles. Where do we sign up to pre-order Book 2?
The multi-sensory pleasure begins when one picks up the book. Exploding Galaxies is a new and local publisher that has somehow printed a book at an affordable price, but surpasses most local books in physical beauty, in every way. The thick paper, the smell of it, the font... they look and feel PREMIUM. And if I didn't know it was published locally I would have thought it was published abroad.
The heft of its some 450 pages was somehow at that perfect weight that feels substantial yet never tired the hands of its reader.
No doubt about it: this is a GORGEOUS tome.
And its insides matched its outside.
This book was a painful pleasure to read, bringing to mind my reaction when I first read Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. It was evident from the first page in both books that I was reading the work of a wordsmith, rare writers in the upper 1% of their published brethren who display such a dazzling mastery of the language, capable of telling the most brutal, evil tales clothed in the finest literary raiment prose/poetry can make. Nolledo does so with love, for each sentence is a miniature masterpiece unto itself.
But in the case of Nolledo versus McCarthy, the Filipino's achievement is all the more amazing because this is English-as-a-second-language, English weaponized as a literary middle finger to the oppressor who has decimated not just the most beautiful city in Asia, but also its people.
Let us not forget that it was the Americans who bombed Manila in 1945, causing it to be the second most destroyed city in World War II.
Nolledo writes of the war as only one who has lived through the actual hell can. But he does so with such beauty, and yes, such idealism despite the pages of melancholy. On one level the characters are all symbols, and yet these symbols are given such individuality, such unique voices, that they become real, that we care deeply whether they live or die.
Nolledo cast the Philippines as a beautiful lost girl-child that brings out the best in the men who seek to conquer her soul. The decrepit Spaniard who seeks to ennoble her, the brutish barbarian peasant who becomes human enough to serenade her with his guitar, the Japanese officer who gives her food and protects her day and night, the American POW who falls in love with one look ... all these join a dozen other characters living in a boarding house too close to a military facility, too near Manila Bay for safety.
Nolledo writes intimate details of how folks survived those days... the scenes about sisid rice (soaked in the waters of the bay that children and women nearly drowned to get) that caused manas (swollen body parts) will haunt my imagination for days. The tortures in UST, the private hells that ordinary citizens went through fill the pages.
"One revolution has failed, with more to come, more to fail. Hence the Filipino ... must be judged according to the malleability that informs his failures... But pray, how does one score the spirit?"
This book was written with love, for the ordinary man and woman who experiences love. Nolledo seems to say, forget the idealism, the propaganda behind warfare that makes no sense. The only thing that saves us, that is worth fighting for, is love. The love of a man for a girl he respects and wishes to save, transmuted into love for the Motherland. The burning passion to repopulate, re-educate a starving population, starved for purpose, for the light of civilization.
Is it too trite to say I loved the book? I loved the experience of reading it. I did not expect to enjoy myself that much, what with all the hype heaped on it in the foreword by Gina Apostol and the introduction by Audrey Carpio.
It's a beautiful thing when critics and the ordinary reader can agree: Behold, a masterpiece.
And can we please get Exploding Galaxies' second title out ASAP?
Exploding Galaxies' pioneer publication is an under-appreciated masterpiece, by any measure, that sets such a high expectation for their succeeding titles. Where do we sign up to pre-order Book 2?
The multi-sensory pleasure begins when one picks up the book. Exploding Galaxies is a new and local publisher that has somehow printed a book at an affordable price, but surpasses most local books in physical beauty, in every way. The thick paper, the smell of it, the font... they look and feel PREMIUM. And if I didn't know it was published locally I would have thought it was published abroad.
The heft of its some 450 pages was somehow at that perfect weight that feels substantial yet never tired the hands of its reader.
No doubt about it: this is a GORGEOUS tome.
And its insides matched its outside.
This book was a painful pleasure to read, bringing to mind my reaction when I first read Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN. It was evident from the first page in both books that I was reading the work of a wordsmith, rare writers in the upper 1% of their published brethren who display such a dazzling mastery of the language, capable of telling the most brutal, evil tales clothed in the finest literary raiment prose/poetry can make. Nolledo does so with love, for each sentence is a miniature masterpiece unto itself.
But in the case of Nolledo versus McCarthy, the Filipino's achievement is all the more amazing because this is English-as-a-second-language, English weaponized as a literary middle finger to the oppressor who has decimated not just the most beautiful city in Asia, but also its people.
Let us not forget that it was the Americans who bombed Manila in 1945, causing it to be the second most destroyed city in World War II.
Nolledo writes of the war as only one who has lived through the actual hell can. But he does so with such beauty, and yes, such idealism despite the pages of melancholy. On one level the characters are all symbols, and yet these symbols are given such individuality, such unique voices, that they become real, that we care deeply whether they live or die.
Nolledo cast the Philippines as a beautiful lost girl-child that brings out the best in the men who seek to conquer her soul. The decrepit Spaniard who seeks to ennoble her, the brutish barbarian peasant who becomes human enough to serenade her with his guitar, the Japanese officer who gives her food and protects her day and night, the American POW who falls in love with one look ... all these join a dozen other characters living in a boarding house too close to a military facility, too near Manila Bay for safety.
Nolledo writes intimate details of how folks survived those days... the scenes about sisid rice (soaked in the waters of the bay that children and women nearly drowned to get) that caused manas (swollen body parts) will haunt my imagination for days. The tortures in UST, the private hells that ordinary citizens went through fill the pages.
"One revolution has failed, with more to come, more to fail. Hence the Filipino ... must be judged according to the malleability that informs his failures... But pray, how does one score the spirit?"
This book was written with love, for the ordinary man and woman who experiences love. Nolledo seems to say, forget the idealism, the propaganda behind warfare that makes no sense. The only thing that saves us, that is worth fighting for, is love. The love of a man for a girl he respects and wishes to save, transmuted into love for the Motherland. The burning passion to repopulate, re-educate a starving population, starved for purpose, for the light of civilization.
Is it too trite to say I loved the book? I loved the experience of reading it. I did not expect to enjoy myself that much, what with all the hype heaped on it in the foreword by Gina Apostol and the introduction by Audrey Carpio.
It's a beautiful thing when critics and the ordinary reader can agree: Behold, a masterpiece.
And can we please get Exploding Galaxies' second title out ASAP?
August 3, 2023
read this with more ease after watching oppenheimer tsk tsk tsk lav diaz get that bag
July 21, 2024
3.5
"Why did man have to sublimate it? Write poems about it? Bury it with flowers? When it left, there was nothing. No chronicle for the dead ... would not remember. History was for the living."; this was taken from a chapter dedicated to the Japanese soldiers that roam around the jungles of Manila and is probably the antithesis of the metafictive play Nolledo tries to imbue with such a congested plot—such metafictive play can be seen in this practice of the familiar discursive element that also lingers in the text, but none quite jarring as this line as a point of contention to play with the reader in questioning the necessity of, after hundreds of pages of alliterative paragraphic edifice, reading But for the Lovers... sadly not even the text can answer this metaficitive play as we've already moved on to the next puzzling musing. Such contemplation is what one could experience in taking in the challenge of reading this novel, mediations to confusions that are so inexplainable it makes sense, and one is wary to the idea of playing with the (non)allegorical aspect of the novel, per the Foreword warns and I get its a bit reductive to look at post-colonial Filipino lit like that anymore but it cannot be the case with such identity driven characters, that ironically lets the novel speak for itself while it speaking in riddles one itches to answer.
Gravitating towards this novel is not much of a surprise to me, as I have had the weirdest obsession towards art that focuses on the ruins of the walled city and of the battle of manila—such obsessions include: Joaquin's Portrait of an Artist, Gallaga's Oro Plata Mata, and the guiltiest of pleasures: Valera's re-telling of Cyrano, but none were at par to the level of tragedy that is But for the Lovers. What structures Nolledo's lyrical language is the psycho/physiological horrors found in the streets and mountains of the country that is contained in the liminal hellscape of the "sex and the city-esque fifth" character of the novel: 1940s Manila, being the backbone of the transience found in the trio's escapades, the parallels of the two battles of manila, Nolledo's own lyrical mastery in picking apart the labyrinthian architecture of old Manila (which was already given a great article of its own by glenn diaz worth reading after your hazy read). Nolledo presents these with such eloquence that is ironically somewhat masochistic to the reader through the sadistic omniscience he parses through the countless abject bodies he creates—within the vignettes of varying new characters that, in a Ulyssesian fashion, are equip enough to flower your reading, thoroughly enjoyed the in-between sections of the varying tenants of the dorms and other filipinos with play on language names, but borders on unproductive—but that's wars for you. What pushed me is the virgin biblioleptic urgency on reading this for the first time that the novel inquires to the reader, the post-modernist's ruse of historical fiction that answers itself at the end, but, forgetting the tragic character, it only relayed layers of ambivalences garbed in grace towards the post-colonial perverse that can only be seen through appreciating first the beauty of the novel by the profane act of breaking it down: Macho in spirit yet owns a Feminine soul (wahhah, also debatable with how he presents the women in these stories—are incredibly fleshed out in terms of crafting characters ngl but some bits irresponsible re: macho in spirit), Fictive to its Historic, and Poetry to its Prose.
Take it as you will it: a novel of transgression to radicalize one's spirit towards the anguish of the cyclical Filipino post-colonial body and soul, a text that subverts dominant historical claims that reflects the subjective collective experience per the Foreword or poetry, period—that first paragraph of the prologue haunts me in my sleep. Either way, this was such a great read especially for someone taking up fil lit in english, made it through extra curricularly that the novel can become a great means of discussion and poetry one could make out of with the first time the novel has its homecoming—I now regret going in blind to talks of this novel...
Hay Maria Alma... im sorry girl...
"Why did man have to sublimate it? Write poems about it? Bury it with flowers? When it left, there was nothing. No chronicle for the dead ... would not remember. History was for the living."; this was taken from a chapter dedicated to the Japanese soldiers that roam around the jungles of Manila and is probably the antithesis of the metafictive play Nolledo tries to imbue with such a congested plot—such metafictive play can be seen in this practice of the familiar discursive element that also lingers in the text, but none quite jarring as this line as a point of contention to play with the reader in questioning the necessity of, after hundreds of pages of alliterative paragraphic edifice, reading But for the Lovers... sadly not even the text can answer this metaficitive play as we've already moved on to the next puzzling musing. Such contemplation is what one could experience in taking in the challenge of reading this novel, mediations to confusions that are so inexplainable it makes sense, and one is wary to the idea of playing with the (non)allegorical aspect of the novel, per the Foreword warns and I get its a bit reductive to look at post-colonial Filipino lit like that anymore but it cannot be the case with such identity driven characters, that ironically lets the novel speak for itself while it speaking in riddles one itches to answer.
Gravitating towards this novel is not much of a surprise to me, as I have had the weirdest obsession towards art that focuses on the ruins of the walled city and of the battle of manila—such obsessions include: Joaquin's Portrait of an Artist, Gallaga's Oro Plata Mata, and the guiltiest of pleasures: Valera's re-telling of Cyrano, but none were at par to the level of tragedy that is But for the Lovers. What structures Nolledo's lyrical language is the psycho/physiological horrors found in the streets and mountains of the country that is contained in the liminal hellscape of the "sex and the city-esque fifth" character of the novel: 1940s Manila, being the backbone of the transience found in the trio's escapades, the parallels of the two battles of manila, Nolledo's own lyrical mastery in picking apart the labyrinthian architecture of old Manila (which was already given a great article of its own by glenn diaz worth reading after your hazy read). Nolledo presents these with such eloquence that is ironically somewhat masochistic to the reader through the sadistic omniscience he parses through the countless abject bodies he creates—within the vignettes of varying new characters that, in a Ulyssesian fashion, are equip enough to flower your reading, thoroughly enjoyed the in-between sections of the varying tenants of the dorms and other filipinos with play on language names, but borders on unproductive—but that's wars for you. What pushed me is the virgin biblioleptic urgency on reading this for the first time that the novel inquires to the reader, the post-modernist's ruse of historical fiction that answers itself at the end, but, forgetting the tragic character, it only relayed layers of ambivalences garbed in grace towards the post-colonial perverse that can only be seen through appreciating first the beauty of the novel by the profane act of breaking it down: Macho in spirit yet owns a Feminine soul (wahhah, also debatable with how he presents the women in these stories—are incredibly fleshed out in terms of crafting characters ngl but some bits irresponsible re: macho in spirit), Fictive to its Historic, and Poetry to its Prose.
Take it as you will it: a novel of transgression to radicalize one's spirit towards the anguish of the cyclical Filipino post-colonial body and soul, a text that subverts dominant historical claims that reflects the subjective collective experience per the Foreword or poetry, period—that first paragraph of the prologue haunts me in my sleep. Either way, this was such a great read especially for someone taking up fil lit in english, made it through extra curricularly that the novel can become a great means of discussion and poetry one could make out of with the first time the novel has its homecoming—I now regret going in blind to talks of this novel...
Hay Maria Alma... im sorry girl...
August 26, 2024
1 star for Chapter 35
1 star for Chapter 36
1 star for Chapter 36
October 10, 2025
Lei the lovers.
Petal all passion.
Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable.
beautifully rich in its textures and so palpably filipino it hurts. an ode to a manila as it once was and as it stands now, at its core the same despite the major differences in adornment before and after the war. both a love letter and a harsh rebuke, reeking of sentimentality but still suffers no fools, leaving behind a deep impression of clear-eyed lucidity mediated with a ton of kanal humor. it revolves around the inhabitants of a decrepit boarding house in the capital, a satisfactory venue to highlight the very specific interplay of the banal (english) and banal (tagalog).
and what a cast! there is no one specific main character here, but some might call the nameless girl it, she a clear analogy for the philippines. in the dramaturgy of this heady tropical vaudeville we also have a spanish clown, a scavenger boy, a one-armed prophet, a japanese officer on a white horse, a lustful landlady, an american pilot as the resurrected christ, a locksmith called zerrado susi (how funny!), and more.
everyone is on survival mode and that means different things to this crew, who together show humanity at its most hungry and naked. nolledo navigates these overlapping individual fates with mastery and fluidity - you never know what's going to happen to any one of them but that's just the nature of war in a country stuck at the imperial crossroads.
nolledo isn't afraid to experiment with language and chronology, which feels bold and refreshing. this playfulness can be a double-edged sword, but these gimmicks don't feel gratuitous for they reveal so much about our history and culture. my jaw dropped at that scene at the start of the bombings. that contrast of danger and urgency alongside resilience and survival drives me insane. it has been such a long time since literature felt so novel to me. what an experience.
don't be fooled by this rave review, this is an unbelievably demanding read - and this is from someone who by profession works in heritage and history! would i have gotten it if i weren't presently obsessed with roman catholicism? if i didn't speak english, tagalog, spanish? if i don't interview old people about their lived ww2 experiences? maybe not tbh. it took me months to get through the book and even i'm not sure i understand everything nolledo was getting at.
this year has been marked by commemorative events of the 80th anniversary of the devastating battle/liberation of manila. my friends in the ww2 circles say 2025 is a big deal, as it's likely the last big anniversary with living veterans. this gem should have a major spot in the ww2 canon, alongside joaquin's A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three Scenes, and the national canon moreover. props to exploding galaxies for bringing it the attention it deserves.
ultimately the book shows we filipinos are no stranger to conflicts and disasters (fun fact: we are presently the country most affected by disasters and by a very long shot). but what do we learn from these? do we learn anything, even? what does that say about us as a people/peoples? further, it asks us to confront the problem of a national identity (or the lack thereof).
liberation from whom? by whom? towards what?
it is both comforting and chilling that nolledo intimately and lucidly understood these complex issues of nationhood. decades later they continue to plague this vast collection of islands and islets, a country that often feels like it is united by little more than a shared colonial experience (and the resistance to it)
Petal all passion.
Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable.
beautifully rich in its textures and so palpably filipino it hurts. an ode to a manila as it once was and as it stands now, at its core the same despite the major differences in adornment before and after the war. both a love letter and a harsh rebuke, reeking of sentimentality but still suffers no fools, leaving behind a deep impression of clear-eyed lucidity mediated with a ton of kanal humor. it revolves around the inhabitants of a decrepit boarding house in the capital, a satisfactory venue to highlight the very specific interplay of the banal (english) and banal (tagalog).
and what a cast! there is no one specific main character here, but some might call the nameless girl it, she a clear analogy for the philippines. in the dramaturgy of this heady tropical vaudeville we also have a spanish clown, a scavenger boy, a one-armed prophet, a japanese officer on a white horse, a lustful landlady, an american pilot as the resurrected christ, a locksmith called zerrado susi (how funny!), and more.
everyone is on survival mode and that means different things to this crew, who together show humanity at its most hungry and naked. nolledo navigates these overlapping individual fates with mastery and fluidity - you never know what's going to happen to any one of them but that's just the nature of war in a country stuck at the imperial crossroads.
nolledo isn't afraid to experiment with language and chronology, which feels bold and refreshing. this playfulness can be a double-edged sword, but these gimmicks don't feel gratuitous for they reveal so much about our history and culture. my jaw dropped at that scene at the start of the bombings. that contrast of danger and urgency alongside resilience and survival drives me insane. it has been such a long time since literature felt so novel to me. what an experience.
don't be fooled by this rave review, this is an unbelievably demanding read - and this is from someone who by profession works in heritage and history! would i have gotten it if i weren't presently obsessed with roman catholicism? if i didn't speak english, tagalog, spanish? if i don't interview old people about their lived ww2 experiences? maybe not tbh. it took me months to get through the book and even i'm not sure i understand everything nolledo was getting at.
this year has been marked by commemorative events of the 80th anniversary of the devastating battle/liberation of manila. my friends in the ww2 circles say 2025 is a big deal, as it's likely the last big anniversary with living veterans. this gem should have a major spot in the ww2 canon, alongside joaquin's A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino: An Elegy in Three Scenes, and the national canon moreover. props to exploding galaxies for bringing it the attention it deserves.
ultimately the book shows we filipinos are no stranger to conflicts and disasters (fun fact: we are presently the country most affected by disasters and by a very long shot). but what do we learn from these? do we learn anything, even? what does that say about us as a people/peoples? further, it asks us to confront the problem of a national identity (or the lack thereof).
liberation from whom? by whom? towards what?
it is both comforting and chilling that nolledo intimately and lucidly understood these complex issues of nationhood. decades later they continue to plague this vast collection of islands and islets, a country that often feels like it is united by little more than a shared colonial experience (and the resistance to it)
July 30, 2007
After three attempts at reading this book, I finally finished it this time, and I was motivated to finish it because I taught it in my Filipino American Literature class at SFSU. I told my students this was a challenging book, and asked them to share with us what their strategies were for reading it. Some of them had to keep separate notes, trying to track which characters' stories needed to be tracked, and how people were related to one another.
We also read Jaime An Lim's chapter on Nolledo in Literature and Politics: The Colonial Experience in Nine Philippine Novels, in order to help them with the allegorical and metaphorical reading; i.e. what each character represents/embodies, which is a perfectly good starting point. The cast of thousands in this book are not only international, but also from many walks of Philippine life, and in the chaos and destruction of war, have all found themselves flung together in the highly symbolic Ojos Verdes boarding house. I also had my students read Gilda Cordero-Fernando's short story, "The People in the War," to see if this much more accessible WWII in the Philippines narrative could help frame the difficult Nolledo novel. It did help some people.
Now, as far as the extremely dense, pun and wordplay rich, untranslated polyglot, and poetic text, which confused, intimidated, and turned off many of my students, I asked them to consider the "great" works of Western literature which are also extremely dense, pun and wordplay rich, untranslated polyglot, and poetic, and think about why those works are great, when this work is largely obscure. Speaking of this obscurity, I asked them also to think about the politics of our own ethnic canon formation, and how Nolledo's literary sophistication worked against him, when it came to Asian American and Filipino American participants in canon formation.
To compound the above literary techniques which Nolledo employs are the novel's apparent surrealism, its hallucinatory, dream-like prose, and delusional streams of consciousness of its characters, effective in conveying the psychologically damaging effects of the war on all the people, soldiers and civilians alike.
For me, the most satisfying part of my finally having finished reading this book has to do with what I think of as the climactic scenes almost at the very end, in which Nolledo has "mashed up" two historical American comings to the Philippines, in both of which America casts itself as our liberators. As my students pointed out, whether or not the Americans were indeed our liberators is contestable, and so we "get" why the mash up must be, however incomprehensible the read. Then immediately following the mash up, there's the rape of Hidalgo de Anuncio by the libidinous landlady of Ojos Verdes, Tira Colombo. In another essay on But for the Lovers, Quijano de Manila (Nick Joaquin), casts Colombo as an Earth Goddess, a feminine force of fecundity. That she comes to seduce the old Spanish payaso, at the height of the destruction which eventually claims both of their lives and the lives of the remaining tenants of the boarding house, and the house itself, seems significant to me. After these two important scenes, the prose clarifies, and reveals the ambiguous fate of the girl (Alma). All of this together, while exhausting, is ultimately effective.
We also read Jaime An Lim's chapter on Nolledo in Literature and Politics: The Colonial Experience in Nine Philippine Novels, in order to help them with the allegorical and metaphorical reading; i.e. what each character represents/embodies, which is a perfectly good starting point. The cast of thousands in this book are not only international, but also from many walks of Philippine life, and in the chaos and destruction of war, have all found themselves flung together in the highly symbolic Ojos Verdes boarding house. I also had my students read Gilda Cordero-Fernando's short story, "The People in the War," to see if this much more accessible WWII in the Philippines narrative could help frame the difficult Nolledo novel. It did help some people.
Now, as far as the extremely dense, pun and wordplay rich, untranslated polyglot, and poetic text, which confused, intimidated, and turned off many of my students, I asked them to consider the "great" works of Western literature which are also extremely dense, pun and wordplay rich, untranslated polyglot, and poetic, and think about why those works are great, when this work is largely obscure. Speaking of this obscurity, I asked them also to think about the politics of our own ethnic canon formation, and how Nolledo's literary sophistication worked against him, when it came to Asian American and Filipino American participants in canon formation.
To compound the above literary techniques which Nolledo employs are the novel's apparent surrealism, its hallucinatory, dream-like prose, and delusional streams of consciousness of its characters, effective in conveying the psychologically damaging effects of the war on all the people, soldiers and civilians alike.
For me, the most satisfying part of my finally having finished reading this book has to do with what I think of as the climactic scenes almost at the very end, in which Nolledo has "mashed up" two historical American comings to the Philippines, in both of which America casts itself as our liberators. As my students pointed out, whether or not the Americans were indeed our liberators is contestable, and so we "get" why the mash up must be, however incomprehensible the read. Then immediately following the mash up, there's the rape of Hidalgo de Anuncio by the libidinous landlady of Ojos Verdes, Tira Colombo. In another essay on But for the Lovers, Quijano de Manila (Nick Joaquin), casts Colombo as an Earth Goddess, a feminine force of fecundity. That she comes to seduce the old Spanish payaso, at the height of the destruction which eventually claims both of their lives and the lives of the remaining tenants of the boarding house, and the house itself, seems significant to me. After these two important scenes, the prose clarifies, and reveals the ambiguous fate of the girl (Alma). All of this together, while exhausting, is ultimately effective.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2007
Brilliant, brilliant novel by the late Fil Am writer Wilfrido Nolledo. Thank you, Dalkey Archive, for recovering this lost book. A big influence on my work, my life. Share in the love, and pick up this book.
September 1, 2024
3.5 ⭐
In her foreword for this edition of But for the Lovers, Gina Apostol writes that this book “...was about words—the play with words, the chutzpah with words, the sheer romance with words,” and now that I’ve finally finished reading But for the Lovers, I understand what she meant.
Wilfrido Nolledo has a way with words, of that there is no doubt. In But for the Lovers, Nolledo takes you on a journey to Japanese-occupied Manila. We mainly follow Hiladgo de Anuncio, a semi-retired Spanish vaudevillian, Molave Amoran, a thief and his roommate, and a young girl whose past is unknown. But Nolledo doesn’t make it easy for us. Aside from these three, the book features many more characters, each one with pasts, stories, and motivations of their own. And the story is never really presented in a straightforward way either. Nolledo plays around with words, pushing us along a meandering path, showing us all these sights in rich detail, but I find that I’m never completely sure if any of it is real, if they are in the past or in the present.
You have an old man’s fevered ramblings, his nostalgia of Spanish grandeur and elegance, and how he is dying along with it. You have a revolutionary’s preaching, heard by everyone but seemingly directed at one person in particular. You have a landlady housing misfits, and hungry for payment in whatever form. A thief that provides. A Japanese Major, cruel and kind, violent and generous. And the girl. The mysterious girl that everyone wants but no one can figure out. We follow these characters in the final days of the Japanese occupation, leading up to the Battle of Manila and the arrival of the Americans, our so-called “liberators”.
Nolledo also has a way with names, a tongue-in-cheek way to describe the characters, but also as a way of making them an archetype or a composite character, although they do still stand on their own. It’s a delicate balance really, one that is artfully achieved. Hidalgo de Anuncio, hidalgo or gentleman, the Spaniard longing for the glory days of Spanish Manila. Molave Amoran, named after a tree that is a symbol of strength and resilience, qualities he must possess in his role of thief/provider of food and protector to the girl. Zerrado Susi (sarado: closed, susi: key), a locksmith who is locked out of his wife’s heart (and body). And the girl, Alma, soul. There might have been more that I missed, I don’t think I am clever enough (yet) to find all the (other) Easter eggs in this book.
This reading experience felt so different compared to all others I have had before. This book. This author. The writing is beautiful. Strange. Vivid. Playful. Serious. Tongue-in-cheek. Dense. Decadent. Singular. I enjoyed But for the Lovers, despite finding it difficult and confusing at times (most of the time?) Continuous discovery is the name of the game. I would read one long seemingly convoluted passage, only to realize its full significance later in the chapter or in the next one. Or maybe I remain confused, but I power through anyway.
This book will demand your undivided attention, and make you work hard to fully grasp what it’s trying to say. And if you’re up for that kind of commitment, then give this book a go.
In her foreword for this edition of But for the Lovers, Gina Apostol writes that this book “...was about words—the play with words, the chutzpah with words, the sheer romance with words,” and now that I’ve finally finished reading But for the Lovers, I understand what she meant.
Wilfrido Nolledo has a way with words, of that there is no doubt. In But for the Lovers, Nolledo takes you on a journey to Japanese-occupied Manila. We mainly follow Hiladgo de Anuncio, a semi-retired Spanish vaudevillian, Molave Amoran, a thief and his roommate, and a young girl whose past is unknown. But Nolledo doesn’t make it easy for us. Aside from these three, the book features many more characters, each one with pasts, stories, and motivations of their own. And the story is never really presented in a straightforward way either. Nolledo plays around with words, pushing us along a meandering path, showing us all these sights in rich detail, but I find that I’m never completely sure if any of it is real, if they are in the past or in the present.
You have an old man’s fevered ramblings, his nostalgia of Spanish grandeur and elegance, and how he is dying along with it. You have a revolutionary’s preaching, heard by everyone but seemingly directed at one person in particular. You have a landlady housing misfits, and hungry for payment in whatever form. A thief that provides. A Japanese Major, cruel and kind, violent and generous. And the girl. The mysterious girl that everyone wants but no one can figure out. We follow these characters in the final days of the Japanese occupation, leading up to the Battle of Manila and the arrival of the Americans, our so-called “liberators”.
Nolledo also has a way with names, a tongue-in-cheek way to describe the characters, but also as a way of making them an archetype or a composite character, although they do still stand on their own. It’s a delicate balance really, one that is artfully achieved. Hidalgo de Anuncio, hidalgo or gentleman, the Spaniard longing for the glory days of Spanish Manila. Molave Amoran, named after a tree that is a symbol of strength and resilience, qualities he must possess in his role of thief/provider of food and protector to the girl. Zerrado Susi (sarado: closed, susi: key), a locksmith who is locked out of his wife’s heart (and body). And the girl, Alma, soul. There might have been more that I missed, I don’t think I am clever enough (yet) to find all the (other) Easter eggs in this book.
This reading experience felt so different compared to all others I have had before. This book. This author. The writing is beautiful. Strange. Vivid. Playful. Serious. Tongue-in-cheek. Dense. Decadent. Singular. I enjoyed But for the Lovers, despite finding it difficult and confusing at times (most of the time?) Continuous discovery is the name of the game. I would read one long seemingly convoluted passage, only to realize its full significance later in the chapter or in the next one. Or maybe I remain confused, but I power through anyway.
This book will demand your undivided attention, and make you work hard to fully grasp what it’s trying to say. And if you’re up for that kind of commitment, then give this book a go.
June 13, 2025
"But for the Lovers" by Wilfrido D. Nolledo is, without question, one of the greatest works of 20th-century literature. Despite its brilliance, it remains criminally overlooked and is perhaps one of the most underrated novels of all time.
Set amid the shattered landscape of Japanese occupied Manila, Nolledo’s novel is a fever dream of survival, love, and loss. It is also, a linguistic tour de force of neologisms, puns, magical realism, poetry, symbolism, genre, surrealism and haunting violence.
The narrative follows a cast of characters, but primarily orbits around three: Hidalgo, an aging Spanish clown; Amoran, a dynamic, "dark-skinned" street hustler/thief who is constantly misunderstood, "put upon" or belittled by those around him; and a nameless Girl whose "coming-of-age story" forms the backdrop of the novel. Together, they navigate a militarized city reduced to ruins, haunted by ghosts both literal and metaphorical. Where history and hallucination blur.
Nolledo’s style is effortlessly experimental. He weaves together Tagalog, Spanish, and English, creating a thick stratum of various sounds and meanings that evokes Joyce’s "Ulysses" and Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" yet is completely original in its vision and voice. The novel’s structure is fragmented, looping through time and memory, capturing the chaos and trauma of war while also offering moments of unexpected beauty and dark humor. Characters drift in and out of dreams, and the city becomes a living, breathing entity, both a graveyard and a cradle for hope.
What makes "But for the Lovers" truly remarkable is its ability to balance the grotesquely violent with the lyrically poetic. Nolledo’s Manila is a city of horrors, yet also a place where love persists, where language and memory offer fragile forms of resistance. The book’s density and ambition may challenge readers, but its rewards are immense: every page is packed with startling imagery, historical resonance, and emotional depth.
If you allow it the novel will suck you in, shred you to pieces and spit the husks of your understanding out. You'll be left contemplating the colonization of language, and how whomever owns the language literally shapes the reality. But the lovers themselves are full of words (we are full of words too), their(our) existence and bodies are poetry, their(our) consciousness conflicts colonization, they(we) are sedimentary rocks of histories and dreams.
The question that I am left with is: Can the slurry of language (poetry) confuse, resist, rebel against, or even usurp the cyclical, violence of colonialized reality?
Set amid the shattered landscape of Japanese occupied Manila, Nolledo’s novel is a fever dream of survival, love, and loss. It is also, a linguistic tour de force of neologisms, puns, magical realism, poetry, symbolism, genre, surrealism and haunting violence.
The narrative follows a cast of characters, but primarily orbits around three: Hidalgo, an aging Spanish clown; Amoran, a dynamic, "dark-skinned" street hustler/thief who is constantly misunderstood, "put upon" or belittled by those around him; and a nameless Girl whose "coming-of-age story" forms the backdrop of the novel. Together, they navigate a militarized city reduced to ruins, haunted by ghosts both literal and metaphorical. Where history and hallucination blur.
Nolledo’s style is effortlessly experimental. He weaves together Tagalog, Spanish, and English, creating a thick stratum of various sounds and meanings that evokes Joyce’s "Ulysses" and Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" yet is completely original in its vision and voice. The novel’s structure is fragmented, looping through time and memory, capturing the chaos and trauma of war while also offering moments of unexpected beauty and dark humor. Characters drift in and out of dreams, and the city becomes a living, breathing entity, both a graveyard and a cradle for hope.
What makes "But for the Lovers" truly remarkable is its ability to balance the grotesquely violent with the lyrically poetic. Nolledo’s Manila is a city of horrors, yet also a place where love persists, where language and memory offer fragile forms of resistance. The book’s density and ambition may challenge readers, but its rewards are immense: every page is packed with startling imagery, historical resonance, and emotional depth.
If you allow it the novel will suck you in, shred you to pieces and spit the husks of your understanding out. You'll be left contemplating the colonization of language, and how whomever owns the language literally shapes the reality. But the lovers themselves are full of words (we are full of words too), their(our) existence and bodies are poetry, their(our) consciousness conflicts colonization, they(we) are sedimentary rocks of histories and dreams.
The question that I am left with is: Can the slurry of language (poetry) confuse, resist, rebel against, or even usurp the cyclical, violence of colonialized reality?
February 5, 2024
"so jump, jump, hearty lads, to the banjo on the knee, to the cannons of Dewey, to the national anthem."
"so skip, skip, little brown brother, to the ukulele, to the blitz of the Nimitz, to "Don't Fence Me In" while GIs squandered the parity,"
this book has the most intense and flowery language ive ever read, every paragraph is dense with adjectives and it got me slowing down to appreciate the word choices or whatever because if i dont, i wont get it. sometimes u just have to reread a whole paragraph again because you dont really realize what he's saying sometimes with all those silly (but cool) words. he could be talking about manila being brutally flattened and finely ground by the liberator's bombs and it would sound ten times less horrific than it actually is
nolledo is a genius and that's probably an easy opinion to make. i wish we got to read more about what happens to alma after the war...
"so skip, skip, little brown brother, to the ukulele, to the blitz of the Nimitz, to "Don't Fence Me In" while GIs squandered the parity,"
this book has the most intense and flowery language ive ever read, every paragraph is dense with adjectives and it got me slowing down to appreciate the word choices or whatever because if i dont, i wont get it. sometimes u just have to reread a whole paragraph again because you dont really realize what he's saying sometimes with all those silly (but cool) words. he could be talking about manila being brutally flattened and finely ground by the liberator's bombs and it would sound ten times less horrific than it actually is
nolledo is a genius and that's probably an easy opinion to make. i wish we got to read more about what happens to alma after the war...
Did Not Finish
June 21, 2026It gets to a point. I appreciate the author's background and his technical skill in English but it gets to a point that the wordiness is completely excessive and nigh unreadable. Some lovely, lush parts here, and I appreciate the rich decay of Manila—but in the end, I just struggled to keep enjoying it. Gave up around halfway in.
April 13, 2024
What a feat to have written and what a greater feat to read. I enjoyed Apostol's introduction and as she was discussing the woman-as-nation trope that Nolledo utilizes, I wondered: how bad could it be?
Pretty bad, as it turns out. There is so much gratuitous sex (and sexual assault) and gore (Vanoye's torture...) that I did not enjoy, as I do not feel they deepened the women-as-nation trope. I also did not enjoy the novel's postmodern structure and writing style, though he writes some beautiful lines that I truly appreciate. I give Nolledo credit for the consistently explorative and mostly wonderful language, but the non-linearity, lack of structure, lack of plot, and lack of characterization make the 440 pages so tedious to read, once the novelty of his writing wears off. This is a difficult text, and it is easy to dismiss just for that, perhaps I am not intellectual enough for it. So I still tried to persevere through it, but at some point I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore. Must good storytelling be sacrificed for experimentation with form? That's Nolledo's business but as a reader, it did not make for a good reading experience. I cannot justify these flaws for the sake of it being postmodern, especially when I cannot help comparing it to The Poisonwood Bible, which utilizes similar elements such as having multiple narrators all with distinct voices, non-linearity, historical fiction, and warped family dynamics. Except it does it so well and with an engaging plot.
This is not something I enjoyed and would read again, but it does disturb me, and I can't settle on a feeling. Like always, I'm grateful to have read it still, if only for the gorgeous lines I saved (enough to make it 3 stars). The Exploding Galaxies book is also so, so beautiful--from the thick pages to the binding that doesn't crease to the typesetting and cover material. Lovely, lovely object.
Pretty bad, as it turns out. There is so much gratuitous sex (and sexual assault) and gore (Vanoye's torture...) that I did not enjoy, as I do not feel they deepened the women-as-nation trope. I also did not enjoy the novel's postmodern structure and writing style, though he writes some beautiful lines that I truly appreciate. I give Nolledo credit for the consistently explorative and mostly wonderful language, but the non-linearity, lack of structure, lack of plot, and lack of characterization make the 440 pages so tedious to read, once the novelty of his writing wears off. This is a difficult text, and it is easy to dismiss just for that, perhaps I am not intellectual enough for it. So I still tried to persevere through it, but at some point I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore. Must good storytelling be sacrificed for experimentation with form? That's Nolledo's business but as a reader, it did not make for a good reading experience. I cannot justify these flaws for the sake of it being postmodern, especially when I cannot help comparing it to The Poisonwood Bible, which utilizes similar elements such as having multiple narrators all with distinct voices, non-linearity, historical fiction, and warped family dynamics. Except it does it so well and with an engaging plot.
This is not something I enjoyed and would read again, but it does disturb me, and I can't settle on a feeling. Like always, I'm grateful to have read it still, if only for the gorgeous lines I saved (enough to make it 3 stars). The Exploding Galaxies book is also so, so beautiful--from the thick pages to the binding that doesn't crease to the typesetting and cover material. Lovely, lovely object.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2016
But For the Lovers has a large sprawling cast of characters; sexual obsession; brutality; religion; beauty; the horror of war; low comedy and high seriousness. The language is enlivened by the use of slang, tagalog and Spanish. Indeed, it has much to say on the politics and evolving history of identity. This is a novel that deserves wider recognition and more readers. Published in 1970 to some high praise (Robert Coover writes a fanboy's foreword in the Dalkey Archive edition I have) but general silence. I would not be surprised to hear that Thomas Pynchon read it and that it influenced the WW2 novel he was writing at the time. There is an ecstatic yearning for the bombs to fall that will be echoed in the later, much garlanded novel.
More here - http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/20...
More here - http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/20...
September 28, 2021
Phenomenal. Surrealist poetry meets James Joyce meets Hemingway. A literary tour de force that has largely remained undiscovered. Loved the play of words, images, and characters, all exposing deep, poignant, brutal truths about the Philippines’ colonial history. Not an easy read at times, but Nolledo built a universe you can truly get lost in and marvel at.
January 28, 2024
"Necrophiliacs, all of you. You love a corpse, make love to a corpse, and hope is dead. Bible-dead. Hell-dead. You were born dead in the image of God, who was always dead, you were loved dead by the dead, all of us are ghouls sucking hope from each other; therefore is death our destiny. But hope is Lazarus everlasting and therein lies the folly."
——
In Wilfredo Nolledo's BUT FOR THE LOVERS, a widely diverse set of characters navigate the chaos of World War II in Manila while dealing with their own internal struggles, reflecting the conflicted identities of Filipinos stuck in the dreary space between occupation and liberation.
The novel starts in some sort of a fever dream. The reader is treated to a bit of magical realism that somehow sets the tone of the entire book. And then Nolledo brings us to the streets of Manila through the eyes of Spanish has-been performer Hidalgo de Anuncio with his ward, prolific thief Molave Amoran, as they care for a frail lost girl. They hold court in one of the rooms of the decrepit Ojos Verdes apartments, overseen by the kinky landlady Tina Colombo who, like her property, has seen better days.
The novel reads like an allegory to the different imperialist powers trying to dominate and control the Philippines. It symbolizes also the internal conflict felt – or still being felt – by Filipinos in the face of pressure and abuse under the guise of being saved.
But For The Lovers is clearly not out to glorify war, nor it also seeks to hold high the American liberation. Nolledo's work presents reality as it is, but in a way that is so beautiful. This is the novel's strongest feature: The use of language.
I think I'm a language person. One who is often drawn to how a writer strings words into wonderful sentences that make up a universe that is either within or beyond our own. I appreciate a good theme or plot, yes, but there is something about how a masterful way of using words make any literary work stand out for me. It could be the words the writer chooses to use, reflecting his or her deliberate framing. Or the decision when to expound a thought, or to hold back. Writing beautiful sentences requires an entirely different skillset from actually coming up with a good plot. One can think of a beautiful story, but not be able to translate it into paper very well. But amazing writing can at least salvage a basic, or generic, plot.
This is not to say that But For The Lovers is basic. But it's a masterclass on the use of language in literature. The way Nolledo writes about the places in Manila torn by war or the characters besieged by elements beyond their control reminds us the power of words in not just placing us on the scene but actually making us feel everything. I know the places mentioned in the novel, I know the historical events that these places bore witness to, but to see them in the way Nolledo intended them to be seen is something else. He balances being generous and thrifty when it comes to descriptions, but in a way that does not feel the reader is being teased. It feels like you're actually in this labyrinth without even knowing it, because you enjoy looking at the art on the walls.
One thing I also enjoyed about this work is how Nolledo uses both Filipino, Spanish, a d English seamlessly. Sentences in this structure roll nicely on the tongue, and don't feel too forced just to depict the multiculturalism of the Philippines. I think this also reflects other works during that period, perhaps one of the reasons why I am a fan of many of the authors in Nolledo's generation.
Also, it is ridiculous that my copy of But For The Lovers is just the first Philippine edition (published by Exploding Galaxies). It's wild to think that such a classic was first published in the US in 1970, kept away from many Filipinos who have no access to the also labyrinth-like style of Western publications. Nolledo's work needs to be read by everyone in the Philippines. I would pay good money to rid myself of some memory so I could read this book for the first time again.
4/5
——
In Wilfredo Nolledo's BUT FOR THE LOVERS, a widely diverse set of characters navigate the chaos of World War II in Manila while dealing with their own internal struggles, reflecting the conflicted identities of Filipinos stuck in the dreary space between occupation and liberation.
The novel starts in some sort of a fever dream. The reader is treated to a bit of magical realism that somehow sets the tone of the entire book. And then Nolledo brings us to the streets of Manila through the eyes of Spanish has-been performer Hidalgo de Anuncio with his ward, prolific thief Molave Amoran, as they care for a frail lost girl. They hold court in one of the rooms of the decrepit Ojos Verdes apartments, overseen by the kinky landlady Tina Colombo who, like her property, has seen better days.
The novel reads like an allegory to the different imperialist powers trying to dominate and control the Philippines. It symbolizes also the internal conflict felt – or still being felt – by Filipinos in the face of pressure and abuse under the guise of being saved.
But For The Lovers is clearly not out to glorify war, nor it also seeks to hold high the American liberation. Nolledo's work presents reality as it is, but in a way that is so beautiful. This is the novel's strongest feature: The use of language.
I think I'm a language person. One who is often drawn to how a writer strings words into wonderful sentences that make up a universe that is either within or beyond our own. I appreciate a good theme or plot, yes, but there is something about how a masterful way of using words make any literary work stand out for me. It could be the words the writer chooses to use, reflecting his or her deliberate framing. Or the decision when to expound a thought, or to hold back. Writing beautiful sentences requires an entirely different skillset from actually coming up with a good plot. One can think of a beautiful story, but not be able to translate it into paper very well. But amazing writing can at least salvage a basic, or generic, plot.
This is not to say that But For The Lovers is basic. But it's a masterclass on the use of language in literature. The way Nolledo writes about the places in Manila torn by war or the characters besieged by elements beyond their control reminds us the power of words in not just placing us on the scene but actually making us feel everything. I know the places mentioned in the novel, I know the historical events that these places bore witness to, but to see them in the way Nolledo intended them to be seen is something else. He balances being generous and thrifty when it comes to descriptions, but in a way that does not feel the reader is being teased. It feels like you're actually in this labyrinth without even knowing it, because you enjoy looking at the art on the walls.
One thing I also enjoyed about this work is how Nolledo uses both Filipino, Spanish, a d English seamlessly. Sentences in this structure roll nicely on the tongue, and don't feel too forced just to depict the multiculturalism of the Philippines. I think this also reflects other works during that period, perhaps one of the reasons why I am a fan of many of the authors in Nolledo's generation.
Also, it is ridiculous that my copy of But For The Lovers is just the first Philippine edition (published by Exploding Galaxies). It's wild to think that such a classic was first published in the US in 1970, kept away from many Filipinos who have no access to the also labyrinth-like style of Western publications. Nolledo's work needs to be read by everyone in the Philippines. I would pay good money to rid myself of some memory so I could read this book for the first time again.
4/5
June 5, 2024
finally put my leg down and finished this book! it wasn't long by any means—around 440 pages in the new exploding galaxies edition—but the writing is bedrock: i tried reading nolledo's book last year, reached up until the prisoners started raping the corpse, then put it hastily down when I couldn t parse what was happening in the next chapter.
the grovel of nolledo's writing is arduous, but often very enjoyable, to dig through. i say i enjoy it because he writes, sometimes, in beautiful alliteration, in exciting fractured units ("he was a featureless child who in secret was polarized to the mirror", nolledo coos of the major shigura), giving the stones of his text a prismatic sheen. but often they are concretes of incoherence: somewhere between poetically rendering hidalgo's unmasking of his old clown makeup and the possible metaphor for the demarcation of old spanish colonial power to the currently looming threat of japanese imperial and american allied powers are vines of illegibility ("this was the first chapter!"). i was hooked by the writing enough to read the first half in two days, but then around midway nolledo launches (ha!) even more torrents of characters: captain jones and his felled lockweed plane, mang isagani (i encircled his name in large red circles to illustrate my frustration), and a handful of more others. often they are accompanied with just walls of more text.
i applaud, though, the way nolledo bounces between the heads of character: he doesn t quite tell you who speaks in the beginning of a chapter, but once someone brings up Hershey bars or baseball you know it's the injured american pilot, when it's suddenly the voice grieving the ruin of spain it s definitely Hidalgo (who i think is the most uninteresting character, frustratingly stagnant, and i am aware it is probably by design). the grime and abject episodes of the book is wonderful, a little comedic, even (the rape of the corpse who, in her last assailant, bites his penis off with her rigor mortis-inflicted vagina was awesome, and the short spiff of zerrado susi's six boys jerking off together—masturbation a skill they learned from their flagrant practicing father—rocks!), and from the beginning, you get to root for the characters who live and survive in the murky slums of manila poverty. amoran, who many of the adults, especially the americans, labeled ugly and unkindly to look at, was my favorite (and the reader's empathy towards him is also i think was the intended strategy), and he survived the events of the book, only to find himself in the american-doctrinated education system.
i don t think anyone has to be at a high level of astuteness to know the book ends in tragedy; perhaps i shouldn t speak more of it. but despite the plot's (really short, by the way, now that i come to think of it) path to carnage, nolledo writes the possibility of hope persevering. "ay, maria alma", says the epilogue's last line, prohibiting the story of devastation from ever snapping the book closed, at least never entirely.
the grovel of nolledo's writing is arduous, but often very enjoyable, to dig through. i say i enjoy it because he writes, sometimes, in beautiful alliteration, in exciting fractured units ("he was a featureless child who in secret was polarized to the mirror", nolledo coos of the major shigura), giving the stones of his text a prismatic sheen. but often they are concretes of incoherence: somewhere between poetically rendering hidalgo's unmasking of his old clown makeup and the possible metaphor for the demarcation of old spanish colonial power to the currently looming threat of japanese imperial and american allied powers are vines of illegibility ("this was the first chapter!"). i was hooked by the writing enough to read the first half in two days, but then around midway nolledo launches (ha!) even more torrents of characters: captain jones and his felled lockweed plane, mang isagani (i encircled his name in large red circles to illustrate my frustration), and a handful of more others. often they are accompanied with just walls of more text.
i applaud, though, the way nolledo bounces between the heads of character: he doesn t quite tell you who speaks in the beginning of a chapter, but once someone brings up Hershey bars or baseball you know it's the injured american pilot, when it's suddenly the voice grieving the ruin of spain it s definitely Hidalgo (who i think is the most uninteresting character, frustratingly stagnant, and i am aware it is probably by design). the grime and abject episodes of the book is wonderful, a little comedic, even (the rape of the corpse who, in her last assailant, bites his penis off with her rigor mortis-inflicted vagina was awesome, and the short spiff of zerrado susi's six boys jerking off together—masturbation a skill they learned from their flagrant practicing father—rocks!), and from the beginning, you get to root for the characters who live and survive in the murky slums of manila poverty. amoran, who many of the adults, especially the americans, labeled ugly and unkindly to look at, was my favorite (and the reader's empathy towards him is also i think was the intended strategy), and he survived the events of the book, only to find himself in the american-doctrinated education system.
i don t think anyone has to be at a high level of astuteness to know the book ends in tragedy; perhaps i shouldn t speak more of it. but despite the plot's (really short, by the way, now that i come to think of it) path to carnage, nolledo writes the possibility of hope persevering. "ay, maria alma", says the epilogue's last line, prohibiting the story of devastation from ever snapping the book closed, at least never entirely.
August 22, 2024
Primarily written in English, But for the Lovers also makes use of Tagalog and Spanish in dialogue in a book that feels like a kaleidoscope, an intimate look into the lives of the residents of a boarding house trying to survive in Japanese occupied Manila. I got to know about this book because of a recently released tv series about the said time period and this book was recommended. But while that show is set at the start of the war (at least at the time of this review), this book is set during its dying days.
This book is dense, heavy, and rich with allusion and allegory. It is a demanding and rewarding book, beautifully written but sometimes opaque and full of references. This, I did not mind. I think it makes it rereadable. At times, I also felt like the book relies on the reader knowing what happens. The boarders in this book are trying to survive, waiting for liberation, but the readers know the steep cost of that liberation. The book is dark, at times comic, but also somewhat hopeful. It is a book that like many classics of Philippine literature, deals with the question of the Filipino identity. Of course, there is a war and such questions always arise in fraught times.
The Manila of this book is a ruined city, destined to be even more ruined and devastated. In the memories of those inhabit it, it is a beautiful pearl, a city of culture, of churches and theatres. A lot of art and literature set in this time period before and during World War II have a certain tendency to romanticize the city in a way that makes one wonder how beautiful it must have been, how different from the city today. In this novel, the city is in despair, but it is alive. The citizens do not thrive, but they keep living and surviving in Manila until the bitter battle that concluded the occupation.
It's no exaggeration for me to say that I have never read anything like this book. I've read some novels that experiment with style but nothing like But for the Lovers. It is genuinely one of the best books I've read and I feel no shame in admitting that I don't fully understand everything but I do know what it stood for. It is a postcolonial masterpiece and anti-imperialist. The soul of the Filipino people is downtrodden in this novel and in that time period, but alive and will continue to live on. It's a book I'll continue to think about and will someday re-read.
This book is dense, heavy, and rich with allusion and allegory. It is a demanding and rewarding book, beautifully written but sometimes opaque and full of references. This, I did not mind. I think it makes it rereadable. At times, I also felt like the book relies on the reader knowing what happens. The boarders in this book are trying to survive, waiting for liberation, but the readers know the steep cost of that liberation. The book is dark, at times comic, but also somewhat hopeful. It is a book that like many classics of Philippine literature, deals with the question of the Filipino identity. Of course, there is a war and such questions always arise in fraught times.
The Manila of this book is a ruined city, destined to be even more ruined and devastated. In the memories of those inhabit it, it is a beautiful pearl, a city of culture, of churches and theatres. A lot of art and literature set in this time period before and during World War II have a certain tendency to romanticize the city in a way that makes one wonder how beautiful it must have been, how different from the city today. In this novel, the city is in despair, but it is alive. The citizens do not thrive, but they keep living and surviving in Manila until the bitter battle that concluded the occupation.
It's no exaggeration for me to say that I have never read anything like this book. I've read some novels that experiment with style but nothing like But for the Lovers. It is genuinely one of the best books I've read and I feel no shame in admitting that I don't fully understand everything but I do know what it stood for. It is a postcolonial masterpiece and anti-imperialist. The soul of the Filipino people is downtrodden in this novel and in that time period, but alive and will continue to live on. It's a book I'll continue to think about and will someday re-read.
January 13, 2025
Ground Zero | A Review on But for the Lovers (#BFTL) by Wilfrido Nolledo
Manila under the second world war, Japanese soldiers marching, Americans promising an invasion, they are the savior, in their narrative, but Deogracias, the rebels, the Huk, those in the mountains, are saviors too. The novel writes like this, fragmented. A jigsaw in its own right. Yet, purposeful.
BFTL is a tome of ramblings, drafts, and ideas, broken yet interconnected. Magical realism? I suppose not, it’s literal. Nolledo wastes no space for understanding, for the audience, for empathy to the reader, you are forced to take it in. You have no option, no choice, but to cower and be thrown straight into action, to experience the same chaos that the characters are put through. Blam-blam-blam!
I have reached for the pistol and have gunned down this book with holes. It’s a headache, yes, Hidalgo agrees, an old-clown he is, while I’m a young fool for reading this. It’s an achievement, a violent and flamboyant middle finger to the English language, to the Americans. No sane person, not even Shakespeare, nor Hemingway was this absurd. Nolledo mastered his act, like a performer in Tomodachi Toni’s place. Subversion. Protest. Encryption. There is no password, pure randomness, this is.
Woosh! I suppose an aluminum angel has already razed this town of mine to the ground. Here on Earth, Manila was hell, raped thrice by the West, and still a slave to this day. Women, of course, women! How can we forget. No feminism here. It’s outright disgusting. Man, Nolledo is one, you connect the dots. Murakami? He’s Japanese, he hates women as well. This is worse than Dostoevsky, no Russians here. Just Filipino violence and the dark recesses of the wartime male.
Tira Colombo’s boarding house was always chaotic. Maximalist, Filipinos are, this novel is too, allusion, allegories, West, East, no flowers here though. Amid the cacophony, Nolledo’s prose, post-modern, experimental, lyrical, poetic, I-N-I-M-I-T-A-B-L-E like water in esteros one moment ago. Nolledo has given us a comic marvel that transgresses the English language, with all its “puki mo” and “bayag mo” between Amoran and Tira, with all love, pain, and sorrow of Maria Alma. Ay! Quasimodo! But for the lovers, passion could never be bombed even on a warzone’s ground zero.
Manila under the second world war, Japanese soldiers marching, Americans promising an invasion, they are the savior, in their narrative, but Deogracias, the rebels, the Huk, those in the mountains, are saviors too. The novel writes like this, fragmented. A jigsaw in its own right. Yet, purposeful.
BFTL is a tome of ramblings, drafts, and ideas, broken yet interconnected. Magical realism? I suppose not, it’s literal. Nolledo wastes no space for understanding, for the audience, for empathy to the reader, you are forced to take it in. You have no option, no choice, but to cower and be thrown straight into action, to experience the same chaos that the characters are put through. Blam-blam-blam!
I have reached for the pistol and have gunned down this book with holes. It’s a headache, yes, Hidalgo agrees, an old-clown he is, while I’m a young fool for reading this. It’s an achievement, a violent and flamboyant middle finger to the English language, to the Americans. No sane person, not even Shakespeare, nor Hemingway was this absurd. Nolledo mastered his act, like a performer in Tomodachi Toni’s place. Subversion. Protest. Encryption. There is no password, pure randomness, this is.
Woosh! I suppose an aluminum angel has already razed this town of mine to the ground. Here on Earth, Manila was hell, raped thrice by the West, and still a slave to this day. Women, of course, women! How can we forget. No feminism here. It’s outright disgusting. Man, Nolledo is one, you connect the dots. Murakami? He’s Japanese, he hates women as well. This is worse than Dostoevsky, no Russians here. Just Filipino violence and the dark recesses of the wartime male.
Tira Colombo’s boarding house was always chaotic. Maximalist, Filipinos are, this novel is too, allusion, allegories, West, East, no flowers here though. Amid the cacophony, Nolledo’s prose, post-modern, experimental, lyrical, poetic, I-N-I-M-I-T-A-B-L-E like water in esteros one moment ago. Nolledo has given us a comic marvel that transgresses the English language, with all its “puki mo” and “bayag mo” between Amoran and Tira, with all love, pain, and sorrow of Maria Alma. Ay! Quasimodo! But for the lovers, passion could never be bombed even on a warzone’s ground zero.
June 5, 2025
seeing as gina apostol wrote the foreword for this, i unsurprisingly absolutely adored this. started reading it a while back but stopped after a while because i realized it was way too dense reading for what i was ready for at the time. i picked it up again now since i'm on break and WOW! this really is a poem disguised as a novel. like many of my favorite books, every paragraph is just such a delight to read because of the author having so much fun with the language. many of the paragraphs read a bit like the V monologue from vendetta. its quite long and dense but i finished it pretty quickly because i was just having so much fun reading it. which is a weird thing to say about a novel so deeply about the horrors of war, but there it is.
another great result of the way the book is written is how the diverse the cast of characters becomes as a result. every single one (of which there are many) feels so tangible, likely thanks to the many tangential characterizations that nolledo does--none of which bored me, i might add. i could so readily visualize all of them, even without very many visual descriptions present. the allegorical reading for these characters is omnipresent, but i found myself more drawn to them as individuals. nowhere is this more apparent in our main duo, amoran and alma. the way both of them somehow resist characterization while everyone else is relegated to some clearly defined attitude and role signifies to me what nolledo wants to affect in his readers. what that is, i don't know how to articulate; i'll confess that i think analysis of this novel is beyond me at this point in time. it's just so rich in meaning.
anyway, i'm really glad this is being printed in the philippines at last. it feels like such a crime that the 2023 edition is the first time it has come here, a whole half century after its publication. this truly should be a classic for this point in our history (cf. me going "omg we talked about this in class" when the story mentioned the sisid fiasco and the makapili), the way rizal is for the spanish era or dekada '70 is for martial law. it's really unfortunate that american imperialism is so lacking from our history / literature curricula, but i hope this publication + gina apostol's insurrecto + books like those combats that.
another great result of the way the book is written is how the diverse the cast of characters becomes as a result. every single one (of which there are many) feels so tangible, likely thanks to the many tangential characterizations that nolledo does--none of which bored me, i might add. i could so readily visualize all of them, even without very many visual descriptions present. the allegorical reading for these characters is omnipresent, but i found myself more drawn to them as individuals. nowhere is this more apparent in our main duo, amoran and alma. the way both of them somehow resist characterization while everyone else is relegated to some clearly defined attitude and role signifies to me what nolledo wants to affect in his readers. what that is, i don't know how to articulate; i'll confess that i think analysis of this novel is beyond me at this point in time. it's just so rich in meaning.
anyway, i'm really glad this is being printed in the philippines at last. it feels like such a crime that the 2023 edition is the first time it has come here, a whole half century after its publication. this truly should be a classic for this point in our history (cf. me going "omg we talked about this in class" when the story mentioned the sisid fiasco and the makapili), the way rizal is for the spanish era or dekada '70 is for martial law. it's really unfortunate that american imperialism is so lacking from our history / literature curricula, but i hope this publication + gina apostol's insurrecto + books like those combats that.
February 1, 2025
finally finished reading but for the lovers by nolledo.
This book should have been a dnf because of how just dense and its intense difficulty to read (for me)
But I didn’t. May it be because of stubbornness—because I do lack the habit of dnfing the books I read.
Pero it is also just the language, the writing, the words that Nolledo used to construct his scenes. A language so vast and so brutal yet so beautiful and poetic. It keeps reminding me of Ocean Vuong’s intensity in beauty and honesty. Manila, intramuros, ust, and fort santiago was constructed into this infallible brutality of war.
I have a similar Juvenile understanding on what Gina Apostol had mentioned in her foreword for this book. I completely recognize how much this novel had flown over my head—that’s why it should have been a dnf lol—but I am still glad I still decided to finish this despite understanding so little, because it was truly a book worthy of experiencing.
Traversing through Nolledo’s words, the joy of understanding some, the breathtaking paragraphs about war, manila, and just musings about them was a joy to read enough to finish it.
This book should have been a dnf because of how just dense and its intense difficulty to read (for me)
But I didn’t. May it be because of stubbornness—because I do lack the habit of dnfing the books I read.
Pero it is also just the language, the writing, the words that Nolledo used to construct his scenes. A language so vast and so brutal yet so beautiful and poetic. It keeps reminding me of Ocean Vuong’s intensity in beauty and honesty. Manila, intramuros, ust, and fort santiago was constructed into this infallible brutality of war.
I have a similar Juvenile understanding on what Gina Apostol had mentioned in her foreword for this book. I completely recognize how much this novel had flown over my head—that’s why it should have been a dnf lol—but I am still glad I still decided to finish this despite understanding so little, because it was truly a book worthy of experiencing.
Traversing through Nolledo’s words, the joy of understanding some, the breathtaking paragraphs about war, manila, and just musings about them was a joy to read enough to finish it.
October 18, 2020
A flamboyant, colorful rendering of the waning months of World War II in Manila, where a rich assortment of local characters—many residents of a particular boarding house (one an aging descendant of the corrupt and nearly vanished Spanish colonial heritage, another a street urchin named Amoran for whom the boarding house is the base of his scavenging operations)—negotiate a chaotic existence under the brutal Japanese occupation as American planes bomb the city and the US ground invasion approaches. A challenging read, some of which I did not rise to meet, though parts are rewarding, some as comedy and others in their far-reaching historical and cultural observations and reflections. As a “bombed city” novel, I was often put in mind of Grass’ The Tin Drum, especially in the street life of the scavenger Amoran. In a 1994 foreword (the novel was first published in 1970), Robert Coover compared it to the Latin American masterpieces of magical realism of that time, similar in its setting “in an island nation with an exotic indigenous culture, cruelly overrun by successive waves of marauding conquerors, evangelists, and merchants ….”
January 7, 2024
"to read this book is to fall in love with it" —gina apostol
as a lover of words often frustratingly cursed with difficulty in comprehension but a lover, nonetheless, i understood what the kid in ms. gina meant by this.
the beauty in nolledo's fluid and flowery words did a great service masking the very real horrors of a tortured philippines, manila in limbo almost at the margin of hell.
the result is a dream-like state exploring the soul "alma" of each wonderfully-written character—the tenants of ojos verdes, the pow at fort santiago, the foreigners trapped and stationed in Manila, the mysterious stranger caught in the middle of it all.
by the end, nolledo's magnum opus left me breathless and mystified and yearning for more of his works. a writer of his own time but certainly one of philippine literature's greats
as a lover of words often frustratingly cursed with difficulty in comprehension but a lover, nonetheless, i understood what the kid in ms. gina meant by this.
the beauty in nolledo's fluid and flowery words did a great service masking the very real horrors of a tortured philippines, manila in limbo almost at the margin of hell.
the result is a dream-like state exploring the soul "alma" of each wonderfully-written character—the tenants of ojos verdes, the pow at fort santiago, the foreigners trapped and stationed in Manila, the mysterious stranger caught in the middle of it all.
by the end, nolledo's magnum opus left me breathless and mystified and yearning for more of his works. a writer of his own time but certainly one of philippine literature's greats
November 13, 2025
Uniquely humorous writing brimming with wise and poetic vocabulary. Nolledo painted a clear and honest picture of the atrocities of colonialism, not looking away from the digusting, grotesque reality that is Manila during and post WWII. I didn’t expect this book to be this funny. I loved it and its comical characters and caricatures. Thank you, Nolledo. This is one to be remembered for a lifetime.
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February 3, 2026I'm not sure whether I liked this or not, but it was fun to read aloud. There were many times when I couldn't tell whether the author means things, or is merely poking fun. But then, why should poking fun be "mere"? How else to talk about the horrors of war?
I didn't care for the thinly veiled misogyny; the virgin-whore thing is so tired, please (yes even in the 60s).
I didn't care for the thinly veiled misogyny; the virgin-whore thing is so tired, please (yes even in the 60s).
May 31, 2026
most unique book I’ve ever read! such magical, flowery prose - made me really think about how beautiful the construction of a sentence can be !!!
nolledo is able to describe passing out underneath a tree in such a surrealist way. im not too sure I understood what was occurring, but I really enjoyed it😁
nolledo is able to describe passing out underneath a tree in such a surrealist way. im not too sure I understood what was occurring, but I really enjoyed it😁
November 25, 2023
Unforgiving, and rightly so
March 29, 2024
finicky about giving this a perfect score, but this work was so radical in tackling the Filipino I can’t help but get my mind blown.
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