Thelma Sioson San Juan
MANILA, Philippines—Great American novelist John Irving is in the Philippines—that may well have been Ilocos’ best kept secret last week.
Irving, called the best storyteller of his time, has been in the country since the Christmas holidays, spending part of his time at the Filipino heritage resort Sitio Remedios in Currimao, Ilocos Norte. He also visited Palawan.
He’s here on a private visit and leaves on Tuesday.
Irving is best known to today’s readers—and moviegoers—for his novel “The Cider House Rules,” which won the 1999 Academy Awards for Best Adopted Screenplay, and for Michael Caine the Best Supporting Actor.
Other Irving novels which have become popular movies are “The Hotel New Hampshire” and “The World According to Garp.”
But beyond these, Irving is loved by readers the world over for his enthralling stories and their rich characters who stay with you long after you have put down his book.
A favorite of many are “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” “A Son of the Circus,” “A Widow For One Year,” and more recently, “Until I Find You.”
Released last year was his latest, his 12th novel, “Last Night in Twisted River.”
Anonymity, privacy
At Sitio Remedios, the Philippine Daily Inquirer learned, Irving spent the days writing, skipping the town tours. He was writing about nine hours a day.
It is also said that he enjoys a few glasses of beer before and during dinner. The Sitio Remedios folk found him simple, unassuming. But he could be quite funny once he got to talking with them.
They said he enjoyed the privacy and anonymity at Sitio Remedios.
He came with his wife Janet.
How did he get to know of Ilocos?
Circuitous route
His teenage son Everett is a close friend of the daughter of a Filipino doctor in Boston. It was the Filipino doctor who suggested Sitio Remedios to Irving. The doctor was a student of neurologist Joven Cuanang, the medical director of St. Luke’s Medical Center.
Cuanang created Sitio Remedios, envisioning it as a showcase of the Ilocano way of life.
Sitio Remedios recreates the Ilocos town of old—with a chapel and houses built from discarded parts of old Ilocos homes.
It was Ilocos researcher and Inquirer contributor Rene Guatlo who told his Boston-based Filipino friend about Sitio Remedios, and that friend happened to be the cousin of the Filipino doctor.
That’s the circuitous route (and 10 months of planning) that Irving’s visit to the Philippines, his first, took. Long, but not nearly as engrossing as a John Irving novel.
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
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