The rise of the improbable in Philippine contemporary literature: Anti-realist manifestations in six selected Philippine speculative fiction

• Main Author: Carag, Beatrice Cassandra A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2012
• Subjects: Fiction
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/2580
• Institution: De La Salle University

The growing body of Speculative Fiction in Philippine Contemporary Literature indicates a shift in a literary history deeply rooted in a Realist tradition. In this connection, this paper generally seeks to explore manifestations of an Anti-Realist mode in Philippine Literature through studying six Speculative Fiction texts from Philippine Speculative Fiction volumes one to six. One short story is taken from each volume. This is done by drawing out the Anti-Realist narrative mode in the stories, according to Cristopher Nash's framework. The text selection is classified, and accordingly analyzed, under the two types of Anti-Realist fiction, Neocosmic and Anticosmic. Neocosmic texts create systematic worlds which accept disorderliness because they include improbable or uncustomary elements in their histories while Anticosmic texts, despite remaining in Realistic language, purposely destroy any form of systematicity through executing improbable or uncustomary language/form. Both can be seen as part of the Anti-Realist mode of writing which consequently product Postmodern intentions of reading as they focus on viewing the text as a non-referential unit, free of binding references that produce singular views, or meaning. The texts to be studied are: Neocosmic: (1) The Life and Death of Hermes Yu by Douglas L. Candano (Vol. 1, 2005) (2) The Child Abandoned by Yvette Tan (Vol 2, 2006) (3) The Music Child by Alfred Yuson (Vol. 3, 2007) Anticosmic: (4) From ABCEDIYARIYA by Adam David (Vol. 4, 2009) (5) A Yellow Brickroad Valentine by Charles Tan (Vol. 5, 2010) (6) Alternative histories : really short stories for the Twitter generation vy Ian Rosales Casocot (Vol. 6, 2011)"