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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
from The Book Hooligan
"I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to see, welcome it — and forget not those who have fallen during the night!" - Elias
I know of two anecdotes regarding Rizal's poem, Mi Ultimo Adios. The first anecdote is about how US Congressman Henry A. Cooper recited Rizal's final poem to the US Congress as a part of his effort to lobby for the self-government of the Philippines. This moved the US Congress to such a degree that they passed a bill known as the Cooper Act which granted, among many things, the US Bill of Rights to the Philippines; and allowed the Philippines to send two representatives to the US Congress. The second anecdote is about how Rosihan Anwar, an Indonesian journalist, translated the poem into Indonesian and subsequently read it over radio for all Indonesians to hear. Then, during the Indonesian National Revolution, Indonesian soldiers recited the poem before going into battle to serve as their inspiration. Some of them may not have known Rizal, but they recognized that the poem transcended the author and was one of their sources for bravery.
Rizal is a very monumental figure in the history of anti-colonialism not only in the Philippines but in Asia as well. He is the contemporaries of Sun Yat Sen of China and Rabindranath Tagore of India. Although he did not advocate open revolution, which he considered a shortcut to independence ("Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"), he still advocated for independence through reforms and assimilation with Spain. He believed that if, little by little, we acquire the dignity of people worthy of independence then we will become worthy of being a free nation.
His views regarding this can be found in his novel, Noli Me Tangere(Touch Me Not) which tells the story of Ibarra, a bright young man, who dreams of a Philippines that is educated and dignified and who has resolved to play a part in changing his country by building a school in his hometown. Along the way, we met numerous characters who support Ibarra wholeheartedly; support him in the open but oppose him secretly; and oppose him directly. The narrative is basically about what precipitated Ibarra's downfall.
However, there are a lot of other characters in Noli who experienced, in varying degrees, what will happen to Ibarra at the time of the book's end. There is Sisa who was robbed of her sanity because of the burden of losing her two sons; there is Elias who lost everything before he was even born due to his ancestor's unjust misfortune; there is the schoolteacher who is openly mocked even if he is doing what is best for his students; there is Don Anastasio perhaps the only enlightened man in the whole town yet he is considered as crazy; and many more. The book, then, is more about the injustices suffered by those who have done nothing to merit such misfortune and those who only seek to do good. And then there are those who live a comfortable life because either they are ignorant of the injustices in the system or because they are evil.
Noli Me Tangere is more of a social commentary than a novel. The static characters, the sometimes confusing narrative, and the overabundance of words are among its flaws. But Rizal does not need to be a master writer in writing Noli Me Tangere because the novel is a work intended for the awakening of the Filipino people against the shadows of tyranny. Noli Me Tangere, if it were written today, would not be about the Palanca Award or the Man Asia Literary Prize. It would be to affect social change and revive Filipino nationalism, pride, and dignity.
And, even if it has flaws, Noli Me Tangere is still an enjoyable read because of how it portrayed Spanish-era Philippines. From the pretentiousness of Indios who wants to become Spaniards to the love dance of Ibarra and Maria Clara; and the politics among the friars, the government, and the people. The dynamics between the characters, although most of them are static, are funny, heartbreaking, and lovely sometimes all at the same time.
For all the years that have passed since its publication, Noli Me Tangere still remains relevant. We are still beset with social injustice and inequality that Rizal must be rolling in his grave right now. The social cancer has not yet been eradicated but I know that, just like Rizal, every decent Filipino in the country right now is hoping for the day that our national hero's dream will be fully realized and such a dream will come closer within our grasp if we, even in our own small way, do our part.
"I die without seeing the dawn brighten over my native land! You, who have it to see, welcome it — and forget not those who have fallen during the night!" - Elias
I know of two anecdotes regarding Rizal's poem, Mi Ultimo Adios. The first anecdote is about how US Congressman Henry A. Cooper recited Rizal's final poem to the US Congress as a part of his effort to lobby for the self-government of the Philippines. This moved the US Congress to such a degree that they passed a bill known as the Cooper Act which granted, among many things, the US Bill of Rights to the Philippines; and allowed the Philippines to send two representatives to the US Congress. The second anecdote is about how Rosihan Anwar, an Indonesian journalist, translated the poem into Indonesian and subsequently read it over radio for all Indonesians to hear. Then, during the Indonesian National Revolution, Indonesian soldiers recited the poem before going into battle to serve as their inspiration. Some of them may not have known Rizal, but they recognized that the poem transcended the author and was one of their sources for bravery.
Rizal is a very monumental figure in the history of anti-colonialism not only in the Philippines but in Asia as well. He is the contemporaries of Sun Yat Sen of China and Rabindranath Tagore of India. Although he did not advocate open revolution, which he considered a shortcut to independence ("Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?"), he still advocated for independence through reforms and assimilation with Spain. He believed that if, little by little, we acquire the dignity of people worthy of independence then we will become worthy of being a free nation.
His views regarding this can be found in his novel, Noli Me Tangere(Touch Me Not) which tells the story of Ibarra, a bright young man, who dreams of a Philippines that is educated and dignified and who has resolved to play a part in changing his country by building a school in his hometown. Along the way, we met numerous characters who support Ibarra wholeheartedly; support him in the open but oppose him secretly; and oppose him directly. The narrative is basically about what precipitated Ibarra's downfall.
However, there are a lot of other characters in Noli who experienced, in varying degrees, what will happen to Ibarra at the time of the book's end. There is Sisa who was robbed of her sanity because of the burden of losing her two sons; there is Elias who lost everything before he was even born due to his ancestor's unjust misfortune; there is the schoolteacher who is openly mocked even if he is doing what is best for his students; there is Don Anastasio perhaps the only enlightened man in the whole town yet he is considered as crazy; and many more. The book, then, is more about the injustices suffered by those who have done nothing to merit such misfortune and those who only seek to do good. And then there are those who live a comfortable life because either they are ignorant of the injustices in the system or because they are evil.
Noli Me Tangere is more of a social commentary than a novel. The static characters, the sometimes confusing narrative, and the overabundance of words are among its flaws. But Rizal does not need to be a master writer in writing Noli Me Tangere because the novel is a work intended for the awakening of the Filipino people against the shadows of tyranny. Noli Me Tangere, if it were written today, would not be about the Palanca Award or the Man Asia Literary Prize. It would be to affect social change and revive Filipino nationalism, pride, and dignity.
And, even if it has flaws, Noli Me Tangere is still an enjoyable read because of how it portrayed Spanish-era Philippines. From the pretentiousness of Indios who wants to become Spaniards to the love dance of Ibarra and Maria Clara; and the politics among the friars, the government, and the people. The dynamics between the characters, although most of them are static, are funny, heartbreaking, and lovely sometimes all at the same time.
For all the years that have passed since its publication, Noli Me Tangere still remains relevant. We are still beset with social injustice and inequality that Rizal must be rolling in his grave right now. The social cancer has not yet been eradicated but I know that, just like Rizal, every decent Filipino in the country right now is hoping for the day that our national hero's dream will be fully realized and such a dream will come closer within our grasp if we, even in our own small way, do our part.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“‘You are master of your own will, señor, and your future,’ he said to Crisóstomo, who was silent. ‘But if you allow me an observation, I will give it to you. Look well to what you are going to do. You are going to set off a war” (402).
What does it take for a novel to spark a revolution?
Must it adopt the digressions and diatribes of its nonfiction brethren, the Communist Manifestos and Common Senses of the world? Should it contain a revolution, successful or unsuccessful, within its pages? How broad must its scope be?
Does it even have to be good?
Maybe not. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the most famous novel of 19th-century American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, is credited with sparking the Civil War, but modern writers from James Baldwin to John Green regard it merely as “terrible but very important.” I don’t have to read it for English or APUSH, and I suspect that’s a blessing. But in the Philippines, it’s another story.
José Rizal’s novel Noli me Tangere, partially inspired by Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is a staple in Phillipine classrooms. In fact, the 1956 “Rizal Law” made it required reading for its role in “shap[ing] the national character,” and the back of my Penguin Classics edition calls it “the novel that sparked the Philippine revolution.” This impressive pedigree, a result of posthumous idolization by Filipino and American politicians, initially made the novel a little intimidating. What was so revolutionary about it? Would it be better than Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Would it even be good?
“Combat begins in the sphere of ideas, to descend into the arena, which will be covered with blood. I hear the voice of God, woe to those who resist it! For them, history has not been written” (333)
Noli me Tangere’s most stirring, revolutionary content is espoused by two characters: Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra y Magsalin (henceforth “Ibarra”) and Elías. Ibarra is the protagonist, a European-educated aristocrat of mixed ancestry who sets the novel in motion by returning to his hometown of San Diego and seeking to improve the lives of his fellow Filipinos. After failing to open a school and being excommunicated by the corrupt clergymen Father Dámaso, he grows closer to Elías. The mysterious laborer introduces Ibarra, and by extension the novel-reading Phillipine pubic, to a growing peasant movement.
The interactions between the two men are the best parts of Noli me Tangere: even after more than a century, obscured by the film of academic translation, the passion they feel for their homeland and their countrymen is palpable. I loved watching Ibarra and Elías, who from different walks of life and espouse different philosophies, reach an understanding surrounded by the gorgeous wildlife that “had not yet been given their Latin names” (50). I shuddered when the Civil Guard burned Ibarra’s ambitions, and cheered when Elías helped him escape. By the end of the novel, I understood why Spanish authorities had banned this book: even with 21st-century hindsight, I was rooting for the Philippine Revolution.
But what about the non-revolutionary parts of Noli me Tangere—the social satire, the love story, the criticism of clerical bigotry which an English-speaking audience might associate with Dickens or Austen?
Well, it’s not great. The translation by Harold Augenbraum is perfectly competent and mimics the style of Noli me Tangere’s English contemporaries. Maria Clara, Ibarra’s love interest, is noble and pretty but hardly as deep as her male counterparts (this was a problem in Les Miserables too). Sisa, the mother of two Dickensian waifs, suffers from typical Victorian hysteria. Women don’t seem to have a place in Ibarra’s revolution at all. Other female characters embody the cultural ills of the colonial period, but while it might have been funny to watch a catfight in 1887 it’s uncomfortable today. The bureaucrats are indistinguishable, the priests are ridiculously evil, and the children exist mostly to suffer.
Admittedly, I haven’t read enough 19th-century fiction to determine whether these features are competently-executed or not; I merely observed them and don’t enjoy them. I suffered through similar situations in Les Miserables and A Tale of Two Cities, which had stronger characters, but I suspect Rizal’s era just isn’t for me. Comedy doesn’t age well anyway, and the genteel parts of the book aren’t what made it famous.
Noli me Tangere’s political discussions made it famous. Its tangents about cockfighting and indulgences (hello again, Hugo) made it famous. Its thrilling and poignant final chapters made it famous and infamous too.
I guess a book doesn’t have to be a great novel to be an important one. But Noli me Tangere wasn’t even bad. If I were a student in the Philippines assigned to read this, I wouldn’t mind it.
Then again, I wouldn’t have a choice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, Torture, Violence, Religious bigotry
Moderate: Child death, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness
Minor: Body shaming, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide
Empece a leer el libro sin esperar demasiado. Sabia que era de lectura obligada en Filipinas, pero pensaba que era por su valor historico, no literario.
Estaba equivocado, el libro es magnifico en todos los sentidos.
Es una critica muy muy dura a la sociedad y en especial al poder clerical de Filipinas en sus ultimos años antes de obtener la independencia de España.
Como un ejemplo, aqui unas analogias que se marca unos de los personajes del libro, absolutamente perfectas:
"Así terminará usted, planta trasplantada de Europa á este suelo pedregoso, si no busca apoyo y se empequeñece. Usted está en malas condiciones, solo, elevado: el terreno vacila, el cielo anuncia tempestad y la copa de los árboles de su familia se ha probado que atrae el rayo. No es valor, sino temeridad combatir solo contra todo lo existente; nadie tacha al piloto que se acoge á un puerto á la primera ráfaga de tormenta. Bajarse cuando pasa la bala no es cobardía; lo malo es desafiarla para caer y no volverse á levantar."
Estaba equivocado, el libro es magnifico en todos los sentidos.
Es una critica muy muy dura a la sociedad y en especial al poder clerical de Filipinas en sus ultimos años antes de obtener la independencia de España.
Como un ejemplo, aqui unas analogias que se marca unos de los personajes del libro, absolutamente perfectas:
"Así terminará usted, planta trasplantada de Europa á este suelo pedregoso, si no busca apoyo y se empequeñece. Usted está en malas condiciones, solo, elevado: el terreno vacila, el cielo anuncia tempestad y la copa de los árboles de su familia se ha probado que atrae el rayo. No es valor, sino temeridad combatir solo contra todo lo existente; nadie tacha al piloto que se acoge á un puerto á la primera ráfaga de tormenta. Bajarse cuando pasa la bala no es cobardía; lo malo es desafiarla para caer y no volverse á levantar."
Noli Me Tangere is described on the back cover as ‘The novel that sparked the Philippine revolution’. Which sounds a bit hyperbolic, but apparently the publication of the novel in 1887 was an important moment; even more so, Rizal’s subsequent execution for rebellion, sedition and conspiracy.
So it’s a political novel, an unusually early example of a colonial novel written from the perspective of the colonised. In this case, the main representatives of colonial power are from the church rather than the civil authorities. That’s not unique; religion has often been an important tool of empire and post-colonial novels are full of priests and nuns and, above all, church schools. But the Philippines does seem to have been an extreme case, where the religious institutions were more powerful than the civil authorities.
Which means that the book is peopled with villainous friars — cruel, vindictive, scheming, manipulative, hypocritical, lustful, oleaginous — and it reminded me of those early gothic novels which always seemed to have sinister, black-hearted monks in them. Especially since it’s never shy of a bit of melodrama.
In fact, it’s a rather lumpy mixture of melodrama, satire and long, wordy political discussions, and I can’t say all of it held my attention equally. I liked it most when it was at its most exaggerated — ferociously satirical or floridly gothic — and I found it fell a bit flat when it aimed for genuine sentiment.
A mixed bag for me, then. Bits of it are genuinely brilliant, though. There’s a scene with gravediggers at work in a badly over-crowded cemetery which is wonderfully morbid, for example; and a grotesque portrayal of an ageing Filipina who is so determined to marry a Spaniard and be ‘Spanish’ herself that she marries a useless, feckless man whose only quality is that in the Philippines his nationality gives him an ersatz respectability, then insists on only speaking broken Spanish.
Noli Me Tangere is my book from the Philippines for the Read the World challenge.
So it’s a political novel, an unusually early example of a colonial novel written from the perspective of the colonised. In this case, the main representatives of colonial power are from the church rather than the civil authorities. That’s not unique; religion has often been an important tool of empire and post-colonial novels are full of priests and nuns and, above all, church schools. But the Philippines does seem to have been an extreme case, where the religious institutions were more powerful than the civil authorities.
Which means that the book is peopled with villainous friars — cruel, vindictive, scheming, manipulative, hypocritical, lustful, oleaginous — and it reminded me of those early gothic novels which always seemed to have sinister, black-hearted monks in them. Especially since it’s never shy of a bit of melodrama.
In fact, it’s a rather lumpy mixture of melodrama, satire and long, wordy political discussions, and I can’t say all of it held my attention equally. I liked it most when it was at its most exaggerated — ferociously satirical or floridly gothic — and I found it fell a bit flat when it aimed for genuine sentiment.
A mixed bag for me, then. Bits of it are genuinely brilliant, though. There’s a scene with gravediggers at work in a badly over-crowded cemetery which is wonderfully morbid, for example; and a grotesque portrayal of an ageing Filipina who is so determined to marry a Spaniard and be ‘Spanish’ herself that she marries a useless, feckless man whose only quality is that in the Philippines his nationality gives him an ersatz respectability, then insists on only speaking broken Spanish.
Noli Me Tangere is my book from the Philippines for the Read the World challenge.
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
quite a remarkable story. an inspiration to us all, especially to those Filipinos who were oppressed by the Spanish way back when. this book was a catalyst. a great catalyst indeed. it has done its job well.
Not only is an important literary work for the Philippines, it's a timeless one that I think transcends its cultural context. It grapples with corruption and colonialism and it tries to recommend the best paths in rising above this. There are no easy answers, however, as seen by how much the "good" characters are beaten down. The book delves into religion and culture and privilege. It's topics that still resonate now and how, even though sometimes people are responsible for their own doom, that only the very powerful can actually pull the strings and the rest of us are beaten down to inaction.
I want to talk a bit about Maria Clara because to me, she is very interesting and complicated. She's a known figure in the country, and she's become an archetype for the ideal pure and submissive woman. But her last actions were acts of reclaiming her agency. She is a tragic figure amidst tragic times so her end was obviously not going to idyllic. But her finally asserting her will against Padre Damaso is, I think, quite an underrated part of the book and the one that stuck with me. There are so many implications when it comes to her character; one can argue that Rizal wasn't exactly the most feminist of people given the way he wrote her. But much like the rest of the book, there's a lot more simmering under the surface than what was taught to us in high school. And I guess that was the point. She was a slave to her time, a slave to the system. She didn't ever criticize her position or her place. She was admittedly quite passive most of the time, a pretty figure, love interest to the protagonist. She wasn't a radical by any means, but her small act of defiance was, in my eye, one of the actions that symbolized that maybe a change in things wasn't so far off after all.
I want to talk a bit about Maria Clara because to me, she is very interesting and complicated. She's a known figure in the country, and she's become an archetype for the ideal pure and submissive woman. But her last actions were acts of reclaiming her agency. She is a tragic figure amidst tragic times so her end was obviously not going to idyllic. But her finally asserting her will against Padre Damaso is, I think, quite an underrated part of the book and the one that stuck with me. There are so many implications when it comes to her character; one can argue that Rizal wasn't exactly the most feminist of people given the way he wrote her. But much like the rest of the book, there's a lot more simmering under the surface than what was taught to us in high school. And I guess that was the point. She was a slave to her time, a slave to the system. She didn't ever criticize her position or her place. She was admittedly quite passive most of the time, a pretty figure, love interest to the protagonist. She wasn't a radical by any means, but her small act of defiance was, in my eye, one of the actions that symbolized that maybe a change in things wasn't so far off after all.
I WANT A COPY OF THIS. English version. But right now I`m only using our textbook...
On the end:
It`s...a tragedy. D:
On the end:
It`s...a tragedy. D: