Literary musings

I finally finished one of the great novels I have always wanted to read: Noli Me Tangere by the Father of Filipino nationalism, Jose Rizal. Rizal is simply an awe-inspiring person, and to list all his brilliant qualities here will not do him any justice at all. Suffice it to say he is the quintessential Renaissance man: a polyglot and a polymath. He was executed by the firing squad on December 30, 1896 at the age of 35 years old. He wrote two famous books that mercilessly satirized the hypocrisy of the Spanish Philippines colonial life: Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not in Latin) and El Filibusterismo (Subversion). In NMT, Rizal narrates the lives of various colonial characters--Spanish peninsulares, Spanish insulares, Spanish mestizos, Chinese mestizos (of which Rizal is one), indios, the friars, local elites, the notorious Guardia Civil, among others--with sharp eyes and even sharper wit. An epic is not complete without the requisite tragic heroine, which in this case is represented by Maria Clara, the daughter of the inept gobernadorcillo (Mayor), Capitan Santiago. The beauty of NMT lies in Rizal's ability to weave strands of humanity into each of his characters, no matter how despicable they are. The characters are composed in various shades of gray that defy quick judgment; each is wrapped in a patina of complexity that even the worse of them all seemingly to cry out for sympathy. There is indeed a method to the madness.

The book is part of the required reading for my Island Southeast Asian literature class. The first half of the course covers Indonesian literature and the second half Filipino. There is one novel assigned for each half, along with numerous short stories: Pramoedya Ananta Toer's This Earth of Mankind (which I've read three times!) and Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. The ONLY reason I'm taking this course is to read NMT. Actually, my getting into this class is to finally being forced to read the novel, which has been on my reading list since forever. This is a "light" class for me since my other class is a very demanding Political Science seminar, and in addition, I also have to finish my thesis this semester. Since the university rules for assistantship don't allow me to take less than 6 credits in a semester, I have to register for one other course beside my seminar, and I couldn't think of an "easy" course to take than this Literature class (gamelan class doesn't count). All I have to do is read novels and short stories, talk about them in class, and write short analytical papers.

The downside of this class is that it's an undergraduate course. Most of the time I feel like I'm talking to myself or to a bunch of zombies during class discussions. As a more knowledgeable (and senior) student, I do help them out and guide them during discussions, but sometimes it gets to be a bit much. This is a university, not high school, and one has to be more independent, and for Pete's sake, develop some critical thinking. To make matters worse, only a handful of students know quite a bit about Southeast Asia. Besides me, Natalie (a 3rd year PhD student in Anthropology, whose research is on Vietnam), Jessica (who has been to Malaysia several times because her sister is married to a Malaysian Indian and is living there now), and Sarah (who is now taking 2nd year Bahasa Indonesia), the rest of the class has virtually no clue whatsoever about Southeast Asia.

For instance, during a group discussion a couple days ago, one girl said, while rolling her eyes, that the novel (NMT) sucked, and she's only read the first twenty pages or so (out of 426 pages). She didn't understand what was going on in the book, why the characters are described in certain ways, and how they are related to each other. Of course it is boring and nonsensical if you read it one-dimensionally, without the slightest knowledge and understanding of the broader socio-political context in the which the writer writes. To understand the characters and the plots in the book one has to have at least a cursory knowledge of the colonial history of the Philippines. Otherwise, one is left clueless and frustrated. The extra effort in understanding the socio-political history of the particular country is even more pertinent when one considers that NMT is, in a sense, a historical novel, albeit a fictional one.

The same with reading Pram's This Earth of Mankind, which historical themes are even more pronounced. I remember one of the group discussions of the book when several students complained of Annelies being so weak, sheltered, dependent, fragile, etc. The discussion then unexpectedly turned into Annelies-bashing session. I then asked them what did they think the author's intention was in portraying Annelies in a certain light, and none was able to answer my question. One has to read beyond the superficial nature of the characters and try to grasp the symbolism that they embody. There are reasons why the author, Pram in this case, wants the readers to form certain opinions of the characters. In This Earth of Mankind, Pram WANTS his readers to be profoundly affected of Annelies's fragility, but why? What does Annelies in all her innocence symbolize? What's the relation between this symbol or metaphor and the other characters in the novel? These are some basic questions readers must ask themselves when they're doing literary analysis. But in order to draw symbolism from the characters, the readers then need to have a bit of knowledge about the socio-political setting of the novel. Writers don't write in vacuum; characters don't just emerge out of thin air.

Okay, enough venting! It's pouring out there and seems to be a good time for me to hit the sack. I'd like to end this post with a hauntingly beautiful poem by Jose Rizal, called Ultimo Adios (Last Farewell), which he wrote moments before his tragic execution. The original is in Spanish but I retrieved this English-translation from Ben Anderson's Imagined Communities, pp. 142-143.

Farewell, dear Land, beloved of the sun,
Pearl of the Orient seas, lost Paradise!
Gladly, I will to you this life undone;
Were it a fairer, fresher, fuller one,
I'd cede it still, your weal to realize...

What matters then that you forget me, when
I might explore your ev'ry dear retreat?
Be as a note, pulsing and pure; and then,
Be scent, light, tone; be song or sign, again;
And through it all, my theme of faith, repeat.

Land I enshrine, list to my last farewell!
Philippines, Love, of pains my pain extreme,
I leave you all, all whom I love so well,
To go where neither slaves nor tyrants dwell,
Where Faith kills not, and where God reigns supreme.

Farewell to all my soul does comprehend -
O kith and kin in my home dispossessed;
Give thanks my day oppressive is at end;
Farewell, sweet stranger, my delight and friend;
Farewell, dear ones. To die is but to rest.