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When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Press, 1999, soft­cov­er, 216 pages
ISBN 0472086375 — ORDER BOOKSHOP
EBOOK — Kin­dle 

Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House, 2019, soft­cov­er (Philip­pine Edi­tion), 9879715068420 — avail­able from Laza­da and Shopee

Pub­li­ca­tion History:
Dutton/Penguin, 1994, hardcover,216 pages, ISBN 0–525-938214
Plume, 1995, soft­cov­er, 216 pages, ISBN 0452274710
Bilge Kul­tar Sanat, pub­lish­er of Turk­ish edi­tion of When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept (Gokkusa­gi Tan­ri­c­asi Aglad­igin­da), 2001

 

 

Compelling War Story, a Classic

When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept is Cecilia’s acclaimed first nov­el about a com­ing age of a young girl in the Philip­pines dur­ing World War Two. First pub­lished in the Philip­pines as Song of Yvonne, it was picked up by Dutton/Penguin in 1994. A Plume paper­back edi­tion was pub­lished in 1995. A Turk­ish Edi­tion, Gokkusa­gi Tan­ri­c­asi Aglad­i­gun­da (trans­lat­ed by Fusun Talay), was pub­lished by Bilge Kul­tur Sanat in 2001.

The US edi­tion of When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept is cur­rent­ly pub­lished by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Press, and the Philip­pine edi­tion was released by The Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House in 2019.

Reviews

Asso­ci­at­ed Press
When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept by Cecil­ia Brainard is the tear­ful, sel­dom-told sto­ry of the Japan­ese inva­sion of the Philip­pines dur­ing World War II as seen through the eyes of a young Fil­ipino girl. The many hard­ships that 9‑year-old Yvonne Macaraig and her fam­i­ly are faced with teach her the val­ue of hope and endurance.
From the begin­ning, the war deals Yvonne ter­ri­ble loss­es. In order to evade the Japan­ese, Yvon­ne’s fam­i­ly must leave their home in the city and go into hid­ing in the coun­try­side. Yvonne is sep­a­rat­ed from her aunt and cousin, and her eccen­tric grand­fa­ther, Lolo Peping, is killed in the first attack on the city. While flee­ing the Japan­ese, Yvon­ne’s baby broth­er is born and trag­i­cal­ly dies for lack of med­ical attention.

Yvon­ne’s engi­neer father joins the guerilleros, a group of Fil­ipino sol­diers who are try­ing to defeat the Japan­ese invaders. For years Yvonne is forced to live in guerillero-held vil­lages, con­stant­ly fear­ing for the safe­ty of her­self and her fam­i­ly. The war and the anguish that accom­pa­nies it forces Yvonne to group up quick­ly and to deal with the harsh prac­ti­cal­i­ties of life while still strug­gling to main­tain some of her childhood.

Lay­dan, Yvon­ne’s friend and ser­vant, tells her ancient sto­ries of gods, god­dess­es and enchant­ed mor­tals. After Lay­dan pass­es away, Yvonne is able to keep hope alive among her war-torn friends and fam­i­ly by repeat­ing the sto­ries Lay­dan had taught her. Yvon­ne’s favorite of these sto­ries is that of the Rain­bow God­dess, who always makes sure that after even the most ter­ri­ble rain­storm, a beau­ti­ful rain­bow will illu­mi­nate the sky.

Brainard’s won­der­ful nov­el shows  how war brings out the best and the worst in peo­ple as it describes both the atroc­i­ties and the hero­ics that befall her char­ac­ters. The nov­el­’s theme, the vast cost of war on the human spir­it is illus­trat­ed well by Yvon­ne’s trag­ic loss of inno­cence. In the words of her grand­fa­ther, Lolo Peping: “Before man sinned, he was inno­cent. Man’s orig­i­nal sin was­n’t eat­ing the for­bid­den fruit; it was Cain’s mur­der of his brother.”

***

Kirkus Review
A fast-paced, sen­si­tive­ly writ­ten first nov­el about the psy­cho­log­i­cal dam­age war wreaks, seen through the eyes of an intel­li­gent, resilient young girl. Dur­ing WW II, as Japan­ese forces invade her native city of Ubec in the Philip­pines, nine-year-old Yvonne Macaraig escapes with her father and moth­er into the moun­tains, where they stay in vil­lages whose inhab­i­tants are fight­ing the Japan­ese. Yvon­ne’s father, an engi­neer, joins a guer­ril­la reg­i­ment. In wartime, Yvonne learns, peo­ple change. Her moth­er bears a still­born baby in the jun­gle while Japan­ese sol­diers lurk near­by, pre­vents an ene­my sol­dier from steal­ing their chick­ens, then asks Yvon­ne’s father to kill the pris­on­er of war he takes. Her father refus­es, but con­fess­es after he shoots the man for try­ing to escape that he enjoyed killing him, as revenge for the dead baby. When Yvon­ne’s father dis­ap­pears on a mis­sion, the girl devel­ops the “prac­ti­cal­i­ty” war requires. “I won­dered what we would do if Papa were real­ly dead. Would the guer­rilleros cast us aside…?” She refus­es to give up hope and “learns how to will [her] father to live…centering [her] ener­gy on keep­ing Papa alive.” The author, her­self born in the Philip­pines, skill­ful­ly inter­weaves real­is­tic events with myths of women fight­ers and god­dess­es, as well as fan­tas­tic dreams. She relates dra­mat­ic events in an under­stat­ed way, such as the fam­i­ly’s ride up into the moun­tains on horse­back with a spare horse car­ry­ing dyna­mite, and she enhances our under­stand­ing of Yvon­ne’s pre-war world through the use of iron­ic details: In the Ubec cin­e­ma “the roof leaked.…From the loge, one could see the movie reflect­ed upside down on the wet floor.” Brainard’s appeal­ing char­ac­ters are larg­er-than-life peo­ple who change before our eyes, yet remain utter­ly convincing.

***

Pub­lish­ers’ Weekly
Yvonne Macaraig is an exu­ber­ant and mis­chie­vous nine-year-old when the Japan­ese invade her Philip­pine home­land in 1941, and so she begins her grim sto­ry of endurance and sur­vival with a spir­it of adven­ture and opti­mism. Her father, Nan­do, an Amer­i­can-trained engi­neer who’s invalu­able to the guer­ril­la move­ment, is often called away as Yvonne, her moth­er and a small fam­i­ly entourage flee toward pre­sumed safe­ty ever deep­er in the jun­gle. Yvonne wit­ness­es scenes of incred­i­ble car­nage and silent­ly notes the slow decline in her moth­er’s health, but her spir­its are buoyed by the Philip­pine folk­tales nar­rat­ed to her by the fam­i­ly cook. These myths and leg­ends, vio­lent and col­or­ful, extol the gal­lantry of ancient war­rior kings or show the tri­umph of love and val­or over sub­ju­ga­tion. In sim­ple yet deeply mov­ing prose, Brainard’s first nov­el presents sim­i­lar acts of mon­u­men­tal courage: a doc­tor’s sac­ri­fice in the jun­gle; qui­et defi­ance against ter­ror­ist threats. Grad­u­al­ly, Nan­do and his com­pan­ions become aware that the U.S. is capa­ble of betray­ing them-and that Philip­pine inde­pen­dence is a neces­si­ty. The strength­en­ing of the nation­al spir­it; the loss of inno­cence in two gen­er­a­tions-these themes are explored by the author, who was born in the Philip­pines, with per­sua­sive con­vic­tion and stark realism. 

***

Amer­i­can Library Association
Yvonne Macairag is a nine-year-old liv­ing in the Philip­pines dur­ing World War II. She plays con­tent­ed­ly with her cousin, Esper­an­za, and spends qui­et evenings on the veran­da with her grand­fa­ther. Her fam­i­ly life is idyl­lic. All of this is lost when the Japan­ese invade the Philip­pines. Yvonne flees to the jun­gle, where her father joins the resis­tance move­ment, the guerilleros. Life is hard in the jun­gle, and Yvonne is often exposed to the atroc­i­ties per­pe­trat­ed by the Japan­ese sol­diers. As the child encoun­ters scenes of wartime hor­ror, she remem­bers and recites the epic sto­ries of her ances­tors. She uses the ancient fables to bol­ster her courage and to help her­self cope with the hor­rors of the war. Over­whelmed by the supe­ri­or Japan­ese fire­pow­er, the guerilleros hope the Amer­i­can sol­diers will arrive and assist in expelling the Japan­ese. The Amer­i­can sol­diers even­tu­al­ly do, but not before the guerilleros real­ize that ulti­mate­ly Fil­ipinos are respon­si­ble for the des­tiny of the Philip­pines. Like the epic leg­ends, this sto­ry tells the tale of the essen­tial courage and wis­dom of the Fil­ipinos. A beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten nov­el in which the words flow smooth­ly across the pages, weav­ing a sto­ry that is half lyri­cal myth and half bru­tal real­i­ty. Enchant­i­ng through­out, this nov­el will mes­mer­ize the read­er right up until its vic­to­ri­ous ending.

***

Book­list
Yvonne Macairag is a nine-year-old liv­ing in the Philip­pines dur­ing World War II. She plays con­tent­ed­ly with her cousin, Esper­an­za, and spends qui­et evenings on the veran­da with her grand­fa­ther. Her fam­i­ly life is idyl­lic. All of this is lost when the Japan­ese invade the Philip­pines. Yvonne flees to the jun­gle, where her father joins the resis­tance move­ment, the guerilleros. Life is hard in the jun­gle, and Yvonne is often exposed to the atroc­i­ties per­pe­trat­ed by the Japan­ese sol­diers. As the child encoun­ters scenes of wartime hor­ror, she remem­bers and recites the epic sto­ries of her ances­tors. She uses the ancient fables to bol­ster her courage and to help her­self cope with the hor­rors of the war. Over­whelmed by the supe­ri­or Japan­ese fire­pow­er, the guerilleros hope the Amer­i­can sol­diers will arrive and assist in expelling the Japan­ese. The Amer­i­can sol­diers even­tu­al­ly do, but not before the guerilleros real­ize that ulti­mate­ly Fil­ipinos are respon­si­ble for the des­tiny of the Philip­pines. Like the epic leg­ends, this sto­ry tells the tale of the essen­tial courage and wis­dom of the Fil­ipinos. A beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten nov­el in which the words flow smooth­ly across the pages, weav­ing a sto­ry that is half lyri­cal myth and half bru­tal real­i­ty. Enchant­i­ng through­out, this nov­el will mes­mer­ize the read­er right up until its vic­to­ri­ous ending.

***

Los Ange­les Times
A CHILD’S VISION OF LIFE DURING WARTIME
by Erin J. Aubry
Spe­cial to the Times

Sto­ries of war are per­haps most com­pelling when told through the eyes of chil­dren, whose inno­cence is always so trag­i­cal­ly incon­gru­ous to the adult mad­ness that rages around them. “When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept,” a first nov­el by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard that chron­i­cles the Japan­ese inva­sion of the Philip­pines dur­ing World War II, is no exception.

Told by nine-year-old Fil­ip­ina Yvonne Macaraig, the nar­ra­tive is ren­dered in a touch­ing­ly plain style that man­ages to be both won­drous­ly child­like and chill­ing in its realism.

Brainard slips almost effort­less­ly from Yvon­ne’s fairy-tale mus­ings to unsen­ti­men­tal descrip­tions of peo­ple who have lost limbs, eyes and fin­ger­nails, of bloat­ed corpses that she and her friends dis­cov­er bob­bing in a riv­er, of chil­dren who have been bay­o­net­ed to death in their homes.

The pro­lif­er­at­ing hor­rors con­stant­ly threat­en to over­take Yvon­ne’s spir­it, but time and again, her qui­et, resilient opti­mism finds full expres­sion in the native epic tales passed on to her by the house­hold cook Lay­dan, and in her fam­i­ly’s unfal­ter­ing love.

The books opens in 1941 on the island of Ubec in the Philip­pines, to idyl­lic scenes of Yvonne cavort­ing with her cousin Esper­an­za and shar­ing inti­mate moments with her father, moth­er, grand­fa­ther and aunt. They all live in a sprawl­ing house in a peace­ful village.

But as the Japan­ese encroach and Amer­i­can forces fail to save the day, things quick­ly change.

Yvon­ne’s fam­i­ly decides to flee Ubec to the coun­try­side, which is con­trolled by Fil­ipino guer­ri­las and is nom­i­nal­ly safer. Her kind-heart­ed engi­neer father, a staunch Amer­i­can sup­port­er, wants to enlist his skills in the resistance.

The next three years test not only Yvonne but every­one else around her who lose heart: her wor­ri­some moth­er, who gives birth to a still­born dur­ing the exo­dus from Ubec; Nida, the sexy, blus­tery bar own­er who accom­pa­nies Yvon­ne’s fam­i­ly and at one point offers her body to a Japan­ese sol­dier in order to save them all; and Doc Menez, whose seem­ing­ly lim­it­less capac­i­ty to give is near­ly twist­ed into mad­ness after find­ing his fam­i­ly mur­dered in their beds.

Graph­ic though all of this sounds, Brainard’s book is also quick to depict the good things just as vivid­ly; even in the midst of war, she says, life is all of a sin­gu­lar, com­plex piece that demands embrac­ing. So Yvonne still delights at the lush­ness of plants, the sound of birds and crick­ets, the mar­velous tales of gods and maid­ens in the ancient “sky­world” that Lay­dan spins.

Nor does Brainard ever lose a sense of droll humor, keen­ly obser­vant as she is of the many peo­ple around her who are big­ger char­ac­ters than those that peo­ple Lay­dan’s epics. In one chap­ter, long-griev­ing Doc Menez decides to re-enact the cru­ci­fix­ion on Good Fri­day to do penance for the death of his fam­i­ly. After shoul­der­ing a heavy wood­en cross and col­laps­ing at his des­ti­na­tion, he stops breath­ing and his audi­ence sad­ly declares him dead.

But as sev­er­al townswomen attend to his prone body, Yvonne relates an extra­or­di­nary turn of events: “I looked at Doc’s naked body and saw that he was devel­op­ing an enor­mous erec­tion. As they (the women) stared at Doc’s organ that had mirac­u­lous­ly stirred to life, the women con­tin­ued scream­ing , but they recov­ered them­selves and quick­ly threw a sheet over him before the men arrived. Doc heaved a big sigh, then he sat up calm­ly and said, “I’m so hun­gry. Could I have some bit­ter mel­on and rice?” Doc was alive! Sud­den­ly the air turned light and clean…My soul with­in me expanded.”

“When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept” is full of moments like these. Despite the enor­mous polit­i­cal pres­ence of the war, it is human and fam­i­ly his­to­ry that Brainad real­ly illuminates.

It is telling that the day the war ends, Yvonne men­stru­ates for the first time and stud­ies her changed body in the mir­ror. It is then, too, that she under­stands what Lay­dan meant when she advised her to “become the epic”: it is being writ­ten on hearts and minds every day.

Excerpt

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2015/12/world-war-ii-fiction-excerpt-cecilia.html

Book Reviews

Book­list, Sep­tem­ber 1, 1994

Kirkus Review, July 1, 1994

Los Ange­les Times, Novem­ber 15, 1994

Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, August 16, 1994

Asso­ci­at­ed Press, Decem­ber 18, 1994


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