Dead Stars

The Filipino short story, “Dead Stars” by Paz Marquez Benitez, was published in 1925 and is considered the first modern Filipino short story.

Earlier today the story was trending on Twitter. People were celebrating the story and I suppose with good reason. But what I don’t understand is, why are many of them feeling sad? A professor was saying how sad a story it is, a different professor from a different college I went to, said it’s a tragic story. Some people agreed that it’s a very sad story.

And I’m just… why?

I guess it’s because of my angry college professor, under the unofficial name, Big Mac, and how she described the story.

For context, here is the most basic rundown of the story:

Some dude in his 30s named Alfredo is engaged with a woman named Esperanza. Then, a pretty woman, a visitor named Julia, arrives in town. Alfredo is smitten, and begins flirting with her despite being engaged to Esperanza. Julia likes him back, cause, evidently, he’s quite charming. He’s been described as “hot blood” and yes, I’m sure that means he’s very thirsty.

Eventually, Julia finds out, congratulates Alfredo on his wedding—saying that news travel slow if you’re a visitor, very clearly saying, “God damn, if I knew you were such a scumbag I’d never let you graze your fingers on my hand”—cause people in the 1920s have very different sensual standards!

Julia then is basically pointing “I don’t want to have anything to do with you” when she said weddings are good if with friends—which she’s pointing out that Alfredo is definitely not a friend.

And you know what sucks in that particular scene? Alfredo was inviting Julia to his own wedding.

So, bottom line, Julia leaves Alfredo. Esperanza cancels the wedding. And all Alfredo could think about, “Holy shit, what will people say about me?”

Story ends with Alfredo, running into Julia, unconsciously leads her on, but she doesn’t reciprocate.

End of context.

So, people are saying that it’s a story about passion, losing its light.

My college professor said, in almost exact words and something I find very fucking idiotic, “Alfredo cannot choose between two loves of his life. I know you can’t understand the ending, and that is the beauty of it.”

… The fuck?

For my other professor, Big Mac, to paraphrase what she said, Dead Stars is about Julia and Esperanza, being dead on the inside, their lives ruined by Alfredo. You gaze up in the night sky and see the light of stars, but some of them have already gone into supernova and no longer exists.

With that context, for me, Dead Stars is all about surface emotions. All flair and no substance. Alfredo liked to show affection but deep inside him, there was no love to begin with. He’s just a horny dick.

You can read Dead Stars by Paz Marquez Benitez here.