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Seduction & Solitude: Essays
Tart, funny, lyrical, and sad, this collection of essays shows Remoto at his most dashing as he reminisces his childhood and his post-graduate stint at the University of Stirling as he speaks on gay issues in Philippine society.
- GenresNonfiction
201 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1995
3 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Danton Remoto
37 books47 followersDanton Remoto was born on 25 March 1963 in Basa Air Base, Pampanga. He was an ASEAN scholar at the AdMU where he obtained his AB Interdisciplinary Studies in 1983. With his Robert Southwell scholarship, Remoto obtained his MA English Lit., 1989; then, on a British Council fellowship, another MA in publishing studies, 1990, at the University of Stirling, Scotland.
He was a Local fellow for poetry at the UP Creative Writing Center, 1994. He was at Hawthornden Castle, 1993, and later, at the Cambridge Seminar. Remoto teaches at AdMU where he manages the Office of Research and Publishing. He is also studying for his Ph.D. in creative writing at UP. He was an associate of PLAC and a member of the Manila Critics Circle since 1989.
He has won various awards, among them, the ASEAN prize for the essay, 1979; the Palanca for the essay in 1987; the CCP literary award for poetry; the Stirling District Arts Council award for poetry and the short story.
Among his works: Skin , Voices , Faces , Anvil, 1991; Black Silk Pajamas / Poems in English and Filipino , Anvil, 1996. He edited Buena Vista [Alfrredo Navarro Salanga's poems and fiction], 1989 and co-ed., Gems in Philippine Literature , 1989. More importantly, he has co-edited the Ladlad series with J. Neil Garcia.
He was a Local fellow for poetry at the UP Creative Writing Center, 1994. He was at Hawthornden Castle, 1993, and later, at the Cambridge Seminar. Remoto teaches at AdMU where he manages the Office of Research and Publishing. He is also studying for his Ph.D. in creative writing at UP. He was an associate of PLAC and a member of the Manila Critics Circle since 1989.
He has won various awards, among them, the ASEAN prize for the essay, 1979; the Palanca for the essay in 1987; the CCP literary award for poetry; the Stirling District Arts Council award for poetry and the short story.
Among his works: Skin , Voices , Faces , Anvil, 1991; Black Silk Pajamas / Poems in English and Filipino , Anvil, 1996. He edited Buena Vista [Alfrredo Navarro Salanga's poems and fiction], 1989 and co-ed., Gems in Philippine Literature , 1989. More importantly, he has co-edited the Ladlad series with J. Neil Garcia.
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November 18, 2024Borrowed from Pelangi Pride Centre <3
Part of an ongoing effort to read and learn more about ongoing histories of queerness in the rest of Southeast Asia! My thoughts here are really framed around thinking of this as an archival document, and my attempt to think about and around regionalism, a kind of comparative locating of what gay and queer histories in parallel have looked like in Singapore, an attempt to connect to another experience marked by migration and movement.
Remoto holds himself at a journalistic distance in many of these essays and seldom do we get an insight into his own sense of self as a gay man. But he lovingly shows the artistic and literary craft of a growing queer movement in the alternative arts scene in the Philippines, and highlights moments of political unity and also clarity in the ways in which homophobia and imperialism crossed paths, in the struggle against a dictatorial government, militarism and police violence, poverty, and ultra-religious oppression. I was also really caught by the development of dialogues around language—how one named and claimed oneself, the matrix of Tagalog and English and other languages and how they named the otherness that was non-conforming, ungendering, queer. I do think there is much in common in gay struggle to be found in this region; so much is lost in Singapore’s own archives, so much has been silenced and it feels as if a period of true, engaged political struggle has faded and grown cold. I wish for more than the little pockets; it feels frustrating that we can ask for so little.
Part of an ongoing effort to read and learn more about ongoing histories of queerness in the rest of Southeast Asia! My thoughts here are really framed around thinking of this as an archival document, and my attempt to think about and around regionalism, a kind of comparative locating of what gay and queer histories in parallel have looked like in Singapore, an attempt to connect to another experience marked by migration and movement.
Remoto holds himself at a journalistic distance in many of these essays and seldom do we get an insight into his own sense of self as a gay man. But he lovingly shows the artistic and literary craft of a growing queer movement in the alternative arts scene in the Philippines, and highlights moments of political unity and also clarity in the ways in which homophobia and imperialism crossed paths, in the struggle against a dictatorial government, militarism and police violence, poverty, and ultra-religious oppression. I was also really caught by the development of dialogues around language—how one named and claimed oneself, the matrix of Tagalog and English and other languages and how they named the otherness that was non-conforming, ungendering, queer. I do think there is much in common in gay struggle to be found in this region; so much is lost in Singapore’s own archives, so much has been silenced and it feels as if a period of true, engaged political struggle has faded and grown cold. I wish for more than the little pockets; it feels frustrating that we can ask for so little.
December 30, 2024
Sir Danton had been my literature professor when I was in college. He bled my papers when I attempted to be pretentious and wished for writing to be, foremost, understood. His essays in this book reflect that mantra: they are limpid, sharp, and melancholic. The first two parts in particular, which made up the first half of the novel, were simply amazing. He would be teaching me 11 years after this collection was published, but his esteem for the writers he referred to in this collection remained the same: we read Garcia Marquez and Joyce's Araby and The Dead. He recommended reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and Pramoedya Ananta Toer's This Earth of Mankind.
His essays on his youth and literature made me recall of the professor exhorting us to write concisely and to be understood. He would tell similar stories to us of his experience abroad.
The final part of the book featured essays in the gay movement in the Philippines, where he remains to be one of the leaders. Outside of a wonderful essay on Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet, I could not relate to his topics. I do understand their importance in promoting equality and countering prejudice especially thirty years ago, but I couldn't relate or appreciate most of the essays here.
Ultimately, I have to laud that sir Danton was one of those professors who practiced what he preached. He opened vistas of thought in his classes and was one of those forces that led me away from pretensions of becoming Bulwer-Lytton. This is an excellent book of essays.
His essays on his youth and literature made me recall of the professor exhorting us to write concisely and to be understood. He would tell similar stories to us of his experience abroad.
The final part of the book featured essays in the gay movement in the Philippines, where he remains to be one of the leaders. Outside of a wonderful essay on Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet, I could not relate to his topics. I do understand their importance in promoting equality and countering prejudice especially thirty years ago, but I couldn't relate or appreciate most of the essays here.
Ultimately, I have to laud that sir Danton was one of those professors who practiced what he preached. He opened vistas of thought in his classes and was one of those forces that led me away from pretensions of becoming Bulwer-Lytton. This is an excellent book of essays.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews