The Food Spoke

It is embarrassing to admit that most of the time I am too lazy to read books but it is true, I prefer to watch movies and cartoons for hours than read a thick book. But, I am not the worst person you will ever meet because in certain times books also interest me. Books that are mysterious and that keep me asking “what happened next?” is what I love to read. But there is another revelation that I am bashful to confess - Filipino books did not give an appeal to me at all. I have never read any novel or novella done by a Filipino writer until now. And I regret that fact because the novel and novella that were written by Filipino writers were good as the books I have read before. Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis was the novel that extremely affected me because this novel taught me things in relationships and truth about life.

The first scene that stands out in my mind is when Nening went home late after working for Miss VV. She brought home a bowl of adobo and P3.90 but she received a hard palm that landed on her cheek from her father and serious beatings from her mother: slapping, kicking and hitting. I like this scene because for me this is a very disturbing happening in the story that perpetually happened to Nening, her mother Maring and her father Gable. Child abuse is continuously happening in their household which is not ordinary. The characters in this scene: Nening, Maring and Gable is notable because we can see their unusual relationship in their house. We can see that Nening does everything to appease her mother though her mother cannot seem to notice all her efforts at all. It is also apparent that Maring has an intense dislike to Nening that leads her to beating Nening while Gable cannot do anything but just look at what is happening without the authority in doing anything to stop Maring.

I reacted that way on that scene because in our household my father is also the one who takes control of the house, not my mother. My mom is just the one who follows the orders of my dad. Child abuse also is not an incidence that happens in our house. My mother loves me without any appeasement because I am her daughter. She beats me when I do something wrong but she does not kick me or drag me to the wall which will make me unable to breathe or cry. That’s why the passage that caused my response is on Chapter 13 - Adobo: the novena of the pork stew on page 61 that stated,

“Two slaps, one on each cheek, sent me reeling. I hit the table, fell to the floor. Lab-yu, Fat & Thin and pili nuts scattered around the room...I heard the shattering and my chest hitting the floor, then the rain of shards. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t cry.”

The second scene that stands out in my mind is when troublesome Miss VV admitted to the nervous Mr. Alano about the Concepcion Immaculada but Mr. Alano said that they can’t have that even if he loves her. I liked this scene