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ricatanval723's review against another edition
5.0
Always so amazed with how Apostol writes her characters, her scenes, and the whole story.
A great book on Filipino history and how so much of our history is always so muddled or forgotten or unheard of. The way she writes the novel, in glimpses of different perspectives, in an unchronological manner, making it a difficult but beautiful read nevertheless, shows just how hard it is to really tell history. History, after all, has so many perspectives, different angles, of the same scene. Her writing mirrors the way History is told, in glimpses, unclear, so many versions.
In the end she writes how the story of the Balangiga massacre was not retold because the pictures were taken by a woman, something Apostol repeats all over the book. It was only in the end did I see the purpose of the way she wrote the novel. Makes one wonder how many versions of History there are that were not told, that were silenced and forgotten.
Difficult to read but wonderfully written.
A great book on Filipino history and how so much of our history is always so muddled or forgotten or unheard of. The way she writes the novel, in glimpses of different perspectives, in an unchronological manner, making it a difficult but beautiful read nevertheless, shows just how hard it is to really tell history. History, after all, has so many perspectives, different angles, of the same scene. Her writing mirrors the way History is told, in glimpses, unclear, so many versions.
In the end she writes how the story of the Balangiga massacre was not retold because the pictures were taken by a woman, something Apostol repeats all over the book. It was only in the end did I see the purpose of the way she wrote the novel. Makes one wonder how many versions of History there are that were not told, that were silenced and forgotten.
Difficult to read but wonderfully written.
whaliensong's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Reading more Pilipino!
This book is a TRIP! Reading Insurrecto really is like the experience of peering through a kaleidoscope - the image shifts and fragments and rearranges itself in every chapter, leaping between different decades like whiplash.
But just like a kaleidoscope, no matter how much images fragment and scatter and change, you're still ultimately viewing the same subject. The structure is truly convoluted, and that's exactly why it's so beautiful and astounding to me.
I have to mention too how meta this book gets. Not only am I getting whiplash over the back and forth of time, but I'm being tugged in and out of reality by protagonists Magsalin and Chiara as they Salt Guy-sprinkle in their meta commentary and have me questioning whether the stories I'm reading are "real" or are all invented in one of these women's heads for their books and movies.
I love books that put me through a ride. This was one hell of one. This is a book that drives home (in its many meandering cliffside paths at high speed) how history repeats itself, and how I - as a Filipino-American, or merely, as a human descended from an age of imperialism and war and resistance - am made of the multitude of convoluted histories of many different clashing worlds that have left traces of themselves in me.
I can feel my brain spinning as I sit thinking about this one.
This book is a TRIP! Reading Insurrecto really is like the experience of peering through a kaleidoscope - the image shifts and fragments and rearranges itself in every chapter, leaping between different decades like whiplash.
But just like a kaleidoscope, no matter how much images fragment and scatter and change, you're still ultimately viewing the same subject. The structure is truly convoluted, and that's exactly why it's so beautiful and astounding to me.
I have to mention too how meta this book gets. Not only am I getting whiplash over the back and forth of time, but I'm being tugged in and out of reality by protagonists Magsalin and Chiara as they Salt Guy-sprinkle in their meta commentary and have me questioning whether the stories I'm reading are "real" or are all invented in one of these women's heads for their books and movies.
I love books that put me through a ride. This was one hell of one. This is a book that drives home (in its many meandering cliffside paths at high speed) how history repeats itself, and how I - as a Filipino-American, or merely, as a human descended from an age of imperialism and war and resistance - am made of the multitude of convoluted histories of many different clashing worlds that have left traces of themselves in me.
I can feel my brain spinning as I sit thinking about this one.
villagebooksmith's review against another edition
2.0
Listened to this as an audiobook and perhaps that was a bit of a disservice to it, but i found it hard to follow and to stay engaged with.
sarahanne8382's review against another edition
4.0
This is one of those books that's really hard to give a quick clear synopsis on and I feel like the official ones don't really capture it. So I'll give my version that catches the things the official synopsis misses. This is a book about grief and the challenges of telling the stories of those who are gone, especially when you're too close to the grief to be able to face the story, let alone tell it.
Our main characters are an American filmmaker trying to process the death of her father, also a filmmaker, when she was a young girl. His last movie was shot in the Philipines and so she returns to the country and with the help of a native translater, recently returned from years in New York, plans a trip to where her father shot his last movie in hopes of making her own movie to process her grief and tell the tale of a native uprising in 1901.
This book is not an easy read, although I think some of my challenges were related to listening to rather than reading. I think there may have been better guides in the printed text to clue me in to some of the quick changes in perspective. Still, once I started to see the pieces come together, I was glad I stuck with this book, which, to be fair, isn't terribly long.
Our main characters are an American filmmaker trying to process the death of her father, also a filmmaker, when she was a young girl. His last movie was shot in the Philipines and so she returns to the country and with the help of a native translater, recently returned from years in New York, plans a trip to where her father shot his last movie in hopes of making her own movie to process her grief and tell the tale of a native uprising in 1901.
This book is not an easy read, although I think some of my challenges were related to listening to rather than reading. I think there may have been better guides in the printed text to clue me in to some of the quick changes in perspective. Still, once I started to see the pieces come together, I was glad I stuck with this book, which, to be fair, isn't terribly long.
b1tchw1zard's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
5.0
mandirigma's review against another edition
3.0
I'm so torn on this.
There is a great story in here about the Balangiga Massacre, a moment in Philippine history that I had no idea occurred until reading this book. Each time a chapter focused on this part of the story, I couldn't put the book down.
But that story is buried under two(-ish?) other separate stories. One about a Filipino woman who is returning to her homeland for the first time after a long period of grief, and another about a white woman coming to the Philippines to shoot a film but also try to better understand the death of her famous father and the relationship he had with her mother. Insurrecto is really a combination of three different novels, but unfortunately, none of them feel finished.
There are a million references here to pop culture and Filipino history throughout the entire 20th century. If you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge about that stuff, there's a lot you will want to look up. Also the language feels like you're drifting into and out of each character's stream of consciousness, and it's often hard to follow where one character shifts to another. I tried to listen to the audiobook as well, but that was even more difficult to follow.
A lot of people have used the word "kaleidoscopic" to describe the book, but for me it felt like trying to navigate through a tangle of threads to find the one that led to something bigger. The best parts of the book were the ones dedicated to a single character -- for example, the ones that took a deep dive into Virginie's past, but even Virginie's story felt a little unfinished to me. The story about the Balangiga Massacre was supposed to be Chiara's film and Magsalin's rewrites -- a detail I'd forgotten about by the end of the book because it was impossible to tell which parts of the story were Chiara's and which parts were Magsalin's.
I wish I hadn't chosen this as the first book of the year to read, because I needed to spend more time on it than I was willing. For the first half of the book, I really tried to just go with the flow and ignored my own confusion, but by the second half I felt like I was just trying to make it to the finish. I might come back to this later in the year to give it another shot, but as of now it wasn't the book I was looking for, I guess.
There is a great story in here about the Balangiga Massacre, a moment in Philippine history that I had no idea occurred until reading this book. Each time a chapter focused on this part of the story, I couldn't put the book down.
But that story is buried under two(-ish?) other separate stories. One about a Filipino woman who is returning to her homeland for the first time after a long period of grief, and another about a white woman coming to the Philippines to shoot a film but also try to better understand the death of her famous father and the relationship he had with her mother. Insurrecto is really a combination of three different novels, but unfortunately, none of them feel finished.
There are a million references here to pop culture and Filipino history throughout the entire 20th century. If you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge about that stuff, there's a lot you will want to look up. Also the language feels like you're drifting into and out of each character's stream of consciousness, and it's often hard to follow where one character shifts to another. I tried to listen to the audiobook as well, but that was even more difficult to follow.
A lot of people have used the word "kaleidoscopic" to describe the book, but for me it felt like trying to navigate through a tangle of threads to find the one that led to something bigger. The best parts of the book were the ones dedicated to a single character -- for example, the ones that took a deep dive into Virginie's past, but even Virginie's story felt a little unfinished to me. The story about the Balangiga Massacre was supposed to be Chiara's film and Magsalin's rewrites -- a detail I'd forgotten about by the end of the book because it was impossible to tell which parts of the story were Chiara's and which parts were Magsalin's.
I wish I hadn't chosen this as the first book of the year to read, because I needed to spend more time on it than I was willing. For the first half of the book, I really tried to just go with the flow and ignored my own confusion, but by the second half I felt like I was just trying to make it to the finish. I might come back to this later in the year to give it another shot, but as of now it wasn't the book I was looking for, I guess.
thebobsphere's review
4.0
If I could summarise Insurrecto in one word it would be meta. This novel’s plot just self references itself constantly,
A film makers daughter enlists the help of a translator to help her find her father, who was missing after he shot a film about American soldiers slaughtering thousands of Philippine residents on the island of Samar. The daughter, also decides to write a film script about this event while the translator writes her own version of the slaughtering. The end result is a novel which encompasses many topics: media distortion of reality, PTSD, materialism and many more.
Consisting of irregularly numbered chapters, mashed up and intersecting timelines and a lot of diversions, Insurrecto sometimes feels like a game of sorts but the message comes out clear and it’s not too difficult to join the dots, after all if fiction was easy going would it be a satisfying read?
Before reading Insurrecto, I have never heard of the massacre on Samar, I’ve always maintained that fiction should help create awareness and open the reader’s eyes. Insurrecto definitely does that and at the same time, is a unique read.
A film makers daughter enlists the help of a translator to help her find her father, who was missing after he shot a film about American soldiers slaughtering thousands of Philippine residents on the island of Samar. The daughter, also decides to write a film script about this event while the translator writes her own version of the slaughtering. The end result is a novel which encompasses many topics: media distortion of reality, PTSD, materialism and many more.
Consisting of irregularly numbered chapters, mashed up and intersecting timelines and a lot of diversions, Insurrecto sometimes feels like a game of sorts but the message comes out clear and it’s not too difficult to join the dots, after all if fiction was easy going would it be a satisfying read?
Before reading Insurrecto, I have never heard of the massacre on Samar, I’ve always maintained that fiction should help create awareness and open the reader’s eyes. Insurrecto definitely does that and at the same time, is a unique read.
reianb's review against another edition
Check out my post on IG: https://www.instagram.com/p/CObB32VrQEm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
This book was confusing but good
This book was confusing but good
squidjum's review against another edition
3.0
I strongly feel my experience of this book would benefit from a reread.