Sins

April 1, 1996
Flamboyantly injecting an aristocratic family chronicle into Philippine history, Jose (Three Filipino Women) brings a novelistic authority to match the worldly authority of his lustful, patrician protagonist. Corrupt and exploitative, Don Carlos Corbello, aka C.C., is a general of international industry, the illustrious son of one of the country's canniest mestizo families, one whose members have a tradition of furthering their ambitions through expedient service to political masters--the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese and President Marcos. Reviewing his life in a deathbed confession, C.C., in the way of unreliable and morally obtuse narrators, tries to bury a sense of regret under boasts of lineage, power and amorous exploits. "Sin," he says, "is a social definition, not a moral one." In his formative youth, Carlos forces himself on a housemaid, Severina, manages his father's wartime bordello for Japanese officers (on whom he spies) and fathers a daughter, Angela, with his sister, Corito (passing on brothel-contracted syphilis to both). In adulthood, he conducts strangely bittersweet romances during his business travels in Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. But when his power seems consolidated under Marcos, he learns that Severina had a son, Delfin, who has arrived in Manila to study law and fight for reform. Avoiding any political resolution, Jose orchestrates a swift climax for Carlos, Delfin, Corito and Angela, as the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons in an ironic twist.

April 1, 1996
Though among the preeminent novelists of the Philippines, Jose has published only two books in the United States: Three Filipino Women (LJ 6/1/92) and the present work. (His five-part "Rosales" saga will be available here soon.) Sins gives us the memoirs of the dying Carlos Corbello. A wealthy and corrupt Filipino, Carlos has lived for profit and seduced countless women, even his sister. As Carlos reveals his past, Jose reveals his writing strengths, creating an unsympathetic, even despicable character whom readers will relish if only because the wicked always inspire the most interest. The reader's pleasure ultimately comes from indulging Jose's mocking of his own self-deluded character, who wants the uninitiated to believe, "I used my wealth and my power in my best moral lights." Recommended for Asian literary collections.--Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene

April 1, 1996
A leading Filipino novelist presents a sweeping, bitterly savage indictment of the Philippine ruling class. Jose's new novel introduces as calculatingly immoral and corrupt a group of characters as has been seen in recent fiction. As the narrator, Don Carlos Cobello, lies dying, he recounts his long, dissolute life. Throughout the lengthy domination of the Philippines by the Spanish, the Japanese, and finally the Americans, C.C. and his family have switched allegiances as circumstances demanded, doing whatever bootlicking was necessary to increase the family's wealth and prestige. C.C.'s sins are numerous, among them an incestuous relationship with his sister, pimping, financial chicanery, and a deep and abiding disgust for the non-Spanish population of the Philippines, whom he regards (especially the women) as something less than human. Jose's is a marvelous accomplishment. Not one truly likable character inhabits this novel. Everyone is either despicably powerful, like C.C. and his sister Corita, or pitifully powerless, like Severina, the young maid whom C.C. rapes early in the book, and his sickly "niece" Angela, who is really C.C.'s daughter by Corita. No one weeps for the dying C.C., not even the author. ((Reviewed April 1, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)