The Silent Lives of Manila’s Inhabitants: The Quiet Ones by Glenn Diaz

My Personal Rating:

Some novels are just a hit, a miss, or one that you were way too ahead or too late to read. This review on The Quiet Ones by Glenn Diaz doesn’t necessarily agree with many of the acclaims and high praises it has received through the years. But this isn’t a negative book review either, just a lukewarm one.

“The Quiet Ones” was Diaz’s first novel published in 2017 and won several awards such as the 2017 Palanca Grand Prize, Philippine National Book Award, and the Madrigal Gonzales First Book Award. I got a copy of this book as I perused it through the Filipiniana books on Ateneo de Manila University Press‘s online catalog during the pandemic.

It’s about a team of call center agents stealing money from the American telecom company and clients they work for. The operation sailed smoothly undetected for months, only stopping it after having enough of their fill. They followed it with their gradual and carefully timed resignations, but with that big of a money heist as theirs, the whole jig was flagged just a few weeks later, and now they’re on the run.

But all of that is just a backdrop, a pretense. You would think that this novel was some crime suspense thriller, but it’s so far from that. It doesn’t delve too much into the details of what happened after the crime was flagged. It’s a non-chronological reflection of their pasts, a mirror of the effects of global capitalism, and an intimate telling of realizations upon acquiring the life of leisure and suppliable want that one has always fancied. And that’s just talking about the main subjects of the book.

There are also the stories and lives of the seemingly insignificant side characters whose presence makes sense as they come full circle with the protagonists. Together, they piece a mature story of experiences at different stages of adulthood.

The Quiet Ones is a vivid portrayal of the urban side’s constant hustle, of postcolonial Philippines in the throes of capitalism, and the silent lives that the inhabitants of the noisy Metro Manila live.

But here are three things that didn’t appeal to me (yet).

First off, the characterization. The book was quartered to focus on different pairings, but it was still difficult to distinguish them individually just through words. Its redemption was in the diversity among them, including members of the LGBTQIA+ community, foreigners, and varying age groups.

The second, the writing style. The writing cannot hold my attention long enough until I get to the anecdotes and quotes that resonate with me. Even as a fluent speaker of English, the tone and semantics didn’t click with me. I do think that some pages were just fillers with the present verbosity blocking me from seeing the bigger picture Diaz was trying to portray. But is that a “me” problem? I admit that it could be.

Lastly, I live in the province and am unemployed. Since this novel touches on the lives of working adults in the city and the writing style already being a personal obstacle, the prose’s intended nostalgia and impact decelerated for me. I probably just wasn’t the target audience for this novel, to which I concede.

Is this book forgettable? Not really, since it does have its memorable moments. These, in particular being the cultural, societal, philosophical, and popular references present in it. But I think the amount of it depends on what perspective you’re coming from, and that could make or break this book for you as a reader.

Although, I wouldn’t remove The Quiet Ones from my shelves just yet. I hope that rereading it sometime in the future will enable me to hold it in higher value than others when I’m older and seasoned.