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A review by bent
Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) by José Rizal
2.0
I'd like to preface this review by saying that I realize that this is an important and historic novel in the history of the Philippines. The introduction to the edition I have gave some context for the book and its influence, but I don't have a connection to the country or have any more knowledge of its history than is included in this edition, so my rating is based solely on my opinion of its literary merit.
The book functions as a polemic against the then-political situation of the country, where a group of corrupt friars ruled the country unopposed. The book describes the fear and control that these corrupt men held over the country's citizens, the savage mistreatment of the poor, and the casual racism directed towards the indigenous people, those who couldn't trace their bloodlines to Spain. It paints a vivid picture of all that was wrong with the way the Philippines was governed.
However, it is a very uneven book. There are some quite humorous scenes, but there are also some very heavy-handed tragedies. The two seem a little incompatible. There are a lot of scenes that I found hard to get through - when Ibarra and Maria Clara first profess their love, most of Tacio's speeches, many of the political exchanges. The love story wasn't really interesting, it was just there seemingly to add an extra layer of tragedy.
None of the characters are really fully-realized - they tend to either be caricatures or 2-dimensional. Ibarra is brave and noble, Maria Clara is beautiful and loyal, Elias is courageous and mysterious, etc. It's hard to really care for any of the characters as Rizal doesn't give you enough depth to feel much for them in his broad strokes.
I had one other quibble, and that is how interconnected each character is. This one, who denounced that one's father, is secretly the father of that one's love interest ; this one's grandfather turns out to be the cause of all the troubles for that one's father. But it occurs to me that I have no idea how large the Spanish ruling class is in the Philippines at the time, so it's possible that this isn't as far-fetched, assuming a small enough population. So I'll take a pass on that complaint at this time.
And that's it. It's not a bad book, but without the emotional attachment to its history, it's not great either.
The book functions as a polemic against the then-political situation of the country, where a group of corrupt friars ruled the country unopposed. The book describes the fear and control that these corrupt men held over the country's citizens, the savage mistreatment of the poor, and the casual racism directed towards the indigenous people, those who couldn't trace their bloodlines to Spain. It paints a vivid picture of all that was wrong with the way the Philippines was governed.
However, it is a very uneven book. There are some quite humorous scenes, but there are also some very heavy-handed tragedies. The two seem a little incompatible. There are a lot of scenes that I found hard to get through - when Ibarra and Maria Clara first profess their love, most of Tacio's speeches, many of the political exchanges. The love story wasn't really interesting, it was just there seemingly to add an extra layer of tragedy.
None of the characters are really fully-realized - they tend to either be caricatures or 2-dimensional. Ibarra is brave and noble, Maria Clara is beautiful and loyal, Elias is courageous and mysterious, etc. It's hard to really care for any of the characters as Rizal doesn't give you enough depth to feel much for them in his broad strokes.
I had one other quibble, and that is how interconnected each character is. This one, who denounced that one's father, is secretly the father of that one's love interest ; this one's grandfather turns out to be the cause of all the troubles for that one's father. But it occurs to me that I have no idea how large the Spanish ruling class is in the Philippines at the time, so it's possible that this isn't as far-fetched, assuming a small enough population. So I'll take a pass on that complaint at this time.
And that's it. It's not a bad book, but without the emotional attachment to its history, it's not great either.