“Wedded in the Association”: Heteroglossic Form and Fragmentary Historiography in Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

Vincenz  Serrano

doi:http://doi.org/

Abstract

Almanac for Manileños (1979) by Nick Joaquin (1917-2004) is “a calendar, a weather chart, a sanctoral, a zodiac guide, and a mini encyclopedia on the world of the Manileño.” Undergirded by Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, Walter Benjamin’s montage method in writing history, and Reynaldo Ileto’s notion of non-linear emplotment, the essay engages with the Almanac’s calendars and essays and offers four claims. Firstly, although multiple genres embedded in the Almanac—which include, apart from the abovementioned, horoscopes, recipes and light verse— stratify the text, temporal associativeness offers a sense of cohesion. Secondly, the formal strategy of the calendars— typified by correspondence and compression of the categories of nation and religion—allows for both past and future temporal orientations. Thirdly, Joaquin’s fragmentary historiography results in temporal discontinuity as well as conjunction and resemblance: dualities in the essays—the aesthetics and politics of disjuncture and coherence— offer the possibility of recognition and actualization. Finally, the Almanac—which takes its cue from modernist techniques—interrogates linear and developmentalist ways in which Philippine history is depicted and the nation is represented.

Keywords

genre, narrative, pastiche

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Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University

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International Board of Editors

Jan Baetens
Professor
Faculty of Arts
Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven (Belgium)

Joel David
Professor of Cultural Studies
Inha University (South Korea)

Michael Denning
Professor of American Studies and English
Department of English
Yale University (US)

Faruk
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia)

Regenia Gagnier
Professor of English
University of Exeter (UK)

Leela Gandhi
John Hawkes Professor of the Humanities and English
Brown University (US)

Inderpal Grewal
Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Professor of South Asian Studies, Ethnicity, Race and Migration Studies
Yale University (US)

Peter Horn
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Lifetime Fellow
University of Cape Town (South Africa)
Honorary Professor and Research Associate in German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Anette Horn
Professor of German Studies
University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
University of California, Riverside (US)

Bienvenido Lumbera
National Artist for Literature
Professor Emeritus
University of the Philippines

Rajeev S. Patke
Director of the Division of Humanities
Professor of Humanities
Yale NUS College (Singapore)

Vicente L. Rafael
Giovanni and Amne Costigan Endowed Professor of History
University of Washington (US)

Vaidehi Ramanathan
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Davis (US)

Temario Rivera
Professorial Lecturer
Department of Political Science
University of the Philippines

E. San Juan, Jr.
Philippines Studies Center (US)

Neferti X.M. Tadiar
Professor of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Barnard College (US)
Director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race
Columbia University (US)

Antony Tatlow
Honorary Professor of Drama
Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)

“Wedded in the Association”: Heteroglossic Form and Fragmentary Historiography in Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

Vincenz Serrano: Ateneo de Manila University

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