Professor trades romance for politics

The library in Dr. Paulino Lim's small office is filled with romantic literature. The poems of John Keats and William Blake, and books about English and American Romanticism line the shelves of his crowded bookcase.

It seems unlikely that Lim, whose UCLA dissertation was on the English poet Lord Byron, would be an author of politically charged novels.

Yet for the past 10 years, politics have consumed Lim's creative energy. In that time span, the Cal State Long Beach English professor of 30 years, has written and published a political trilogy about the Philippines, his native country.

The last of the three novels, "Requiem for a Rebel Priest," was just published in December.

"The requiem [musical mass] is like a soundtrack for the novel," said Lim, who actually orchestrated the momentum of the novel's events after a requiem by the romantic French composer Berlioz.

"It represents the death of an unfulfilled aspiration." That unfulfilled aspiration Lim explained, is the attempt by rebellious clergy to alleviate the conditions of the poor during the turbulent years in the Philippines after the Marcos dictatorship.

As a professor, Lim specializes in the genre of romantic literature. Taking on political subject matter for the trilogy was a leap from the norm for Lim, whose previously published works were mainly short stories dealing with personal and philosophical questions.

"I had to engage myself in real-life problems of many people, rather than philosophical problems. Because it [the trilogy] is political," Lim said, "ideas are pertinent more than characters."

The last two novels of the trilogy,"Sparrows Don't Sing in the Philippines" and "Requiem," required vigorous research to assure accuracy.

Lim ransacked through periodicals and newspapers to use actual incidents and personal accounts of the political conditions of Philippines in his novels.

However, the first novel, "Tiger Orchids on Mount Mayon" began with no research whatsoever. Lim wrote the first novel when he was a Fulbright lecturer in 1986 -1987 academic year. The university he was assigned to, National Central University, had no research facilities. Lim was isolated at the university because of the weather. " It was a terrible winter in Taiwan," recalls Lim. "The wall would bleed with moisture from the cold." The most comfortable place he said was the computer room of the math department, where he wrote "Tiger Orchids."

For Lim, who believes that writing is the best therapy for life's unpleasantness, the trilogy is a personal triumph that grew from a test of the romantic philosophy he teaches in his literature classes.

"Creativity is the only way to rid yourself of anxiety. The worst despair would be to collapse into yourself and do nothing." said Lim. "Percy Shelley said that if you hope, the possibility for achievement is open."

Lim said he is glad he was exiled in a small town university with no research facilities. Lim overcame the hopelessness of isolation through his creative powers, an achievement that Shelley would be most impressed with.

"Writing is the most satisfying way to fulfill myself," said Lim, "but teaching is my first passion." Lim says he'll do both until he can do them no longer.