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Dream Jungle

by Jessica Hagedorn

Viking $190

Dream Jungle - like Jessica Hagedorn's first novel, Dogeaters - hits the reader as Manila hits first-time visitors: hot and baffling in its 'gaudy spectacles and contradictions'. But those who stick with the book - or Manila  - will be taken up with it.

Hagedorn, who immigrated to the US when she was 14, offers an exile's insight into the Filipino psyche. Her observations are razor-sharp yet fond.

The book begins with Antonio Pigafetta's description of the Filipinos. Pigafetta was the log-keeper on Ferdinand Magellan's expedition which discovered the Philippine islands in 1521. This sets the themes of discovery, conquest, corruption and exile.

Hagedorn also uses a modern conquistador, Manuel Elizalde, who discovered a lost tribe in the rainforest of Mindanao in 1971. Elizalde was the adviser on national minorities to president Ferdinand Marcos. National Geographic magazine claimed that the Tasadays 'as stone age cave dwellers are unique: their like has not been found before in our time'. After Marcos fled to Hawaii in 1986, Swiss journalist Oswald Iten and two reporters from the German magazine Stern claimed that the Tasadays were a hoax.

In Dream Jungle, Elizalde is thinly disguised as Zamora Lopez de Legaspi, the playboy mestizo (mixed race) member of the ruling elite. He sees the lost tribe, here called Taobo, as noble savages to be educated.  He also assumes this benefactor role with Rizalina, the cook's  daughter and his next conquest. Paz Marlowe is a journalist in self-imposed exile in the US. She returns to Manila for her mother's funeral and is given the task of interviewing Zamora about the hoax allegations.

Part one of the book is titled Discovery And Conquest. Hagedorn explores how a dominant culture imposes a state of colonial inferiority on another. Describing a painting by Fernando Amorsolo in Zamora's house, Hagedorn writes: 'On a beach, Spanish soldiers decked out in medieval armour were gathered next to a group of wary-looking natives ... A balding Spanish priest offered up a chalice to the sky. The smell of blood and betrayal was in the air.' And young Rizalina, when told of the lost tribe, asks Zamora: 'How did the tribe lose its way?' Zamora laughs and replies: 'What I mean is, they were unknown to us until my recent ... uh discovery. And therefore - they are lost.'

Part two of the book, Napalm Sunset, is the title of a Vietnam war movie being filmed in the Philippines. This part chronicles the complete corruption of Rizalina. Here, the narrative is  fragmented as dozens of new characters are introduced, many of whom offer insights on the enigmatic Zamora and his reasons for concocting the supposed hoax. .

The book is an engaging tale. Filipino readers might squirm, but the discomfort is recognition. Dream Jungle is an insight to a people slowly finding their own way after being colonised, not once, but three times.



Dream Jungle