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Affect and History in Ninotchka Rosca’s
State of War
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“Rosca introduces a cyclical and detrimental view of history
through metaphors of time looping in and out and by lyrical
description of characters hurled into a sort of time warp of the
past . . . The characters, their ancestors and descendants are
destined to meet again and again in a series of extraordinary
coincidence” (1999: 68).
In place of the official historical record, music, songs and
children’s folk tales capture residual historical memories, invoking
sentimental reminiscences of, and magical connections with
ancestral histories that were either disrupted by colonization, or so
produced that no record can be found. The narrative is sprinkled
with fragmented memories of the past in songs played with harp,
saxophone, and nursery rhymes chanted by children in the streets.
In the absence of historical records, the response of a bygone
generation to their times and lives are preserved and passed down
through repetitive performances of songs. The song “Lovely
Stranger,” composed by Luis Carlos and played by Mayang on her
harp, records their nostalgia for bygone eras. It functions to offer
an ambience for one’s immersion in the female lineage and a past
cut off from public memories. The title “Lovely Stranger” portrays
a woman in black with blue-black hair
—
a common feature of
Maya and Mayang, suggesting an ancestor both estranged and
intimate to the offspring, calling for recollection and reconnection.
Mayang falls into a sensational connection with the past when she
plays the song on her harp: “In a few minutes, she lost herself in
the tune and could almost believe that boats were once more
plying the canal and that the failing light outside was a dawning,
that instead of easing into night, the world was moving into
morning, a morning as fragile as a dream” (Rosca, 1988:
276). The
song carries the lingering memories of female ancestors and, as it is
continuously played by the public, becomes a cultural artifact that
exerts imprint on the consciousness of the offspring, reminding
them both of the shame of their female ancestors and the existence
of a world inhabited by their ancestors prior to colonization. For