José Rizal (1861–1896)

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 show more 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." show less

Noli Me Tangere, along with the sequel El Filibusterismo, are the national books of the Philippines; required reading in high schools across the country. Written by martyred revolutionary Joze Rizal and published in Europe, Noli Me Tangere is a cutting anti-clerical satire, a rich depiction of life in the colonial Philippines, and a clarion call to action and reform. It's also flawed as a novel, and while this may be the fault of my 1922 translation, I think the issues are structural, in the show more characters and plot rather than the language.

The plot, for all its circumlocutions, is simple. Ibarra is a good and ambitious young man, recently returned from seven years in Europe, to find that his father has died alone and disgraced in jail due to his independent mind and feud with the Catholic church. Ibarra continues his engagement with his childhood love, and embarks on a peaceful plan of reform through education, which runs afoul of the Church and the cabal of wealthy and corrupt landowners who control his home town of San Diego. He narrowly evades an assassination attempt, but is unable to stop his enemies from tying his name to an attempted revolution. Ibarra is exiled, his fiance Maria Clara enters a nunnery, and even his enemies wind up destroying their reputations and lives. In the end, it all comes to naught, and Ibarra is a mostly reactive protagonist, who only lets his ideals and passions drive the plot in a few instances.

The major questions that Rizal opens and does not adequately disclose, and "who pays for the sins of our ancestors?", and the relationship between the Philippines and the modern world. Ibarra and his young friends are pawns in a game played by their fathers and grandfathers, seemingly all the way back to Magellan. The question is-what separates these young nationalist revolutionaries from the sins of their fathers? How might their ideals be better from the Catholic ideals that made the nation? Rizal is relentless is criticizing Catholicism as the source of all evils in the Philippines, the greed and the hypocrisy of the priests, and the indolence and arrogance of the colonial authorities, the hopeless lives of the peasants. And while I will not defend the Church, modernity is no better master.

Noli Me Tangere is a novel obsessed with patrimony, giving fathers due respect, with finding the necessary independence from your own father, with correcting the sins and errors of the past. As with all such matters of the soul, and answers that it provides are partial and obscured. And at the distance of 130 years, a history of colonization by Spain, America, and Japan, of exploitation by the Marcos family, and now with Duarte, it seems that the issue of national fatherhood is still unresolved. show less

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 show more 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." show less

We often hear about books banned by a certain government. The reverse situation is much less common, yet there are books which in some countries are required reading by law. This is a case in point here. If you are a law-abiding citizen of the Philippines, you must have read this book.

The novel is undoubtfully important in the way it affected the life of the author and the history of the country. José Rizal was executed by Spanish colonial authorities and the Philippines became independent show more from Spain soon after.

Despite its importance from historical, political and social perspectives, the book is hardly a masterpiece of literature. It presents an example of the 19-th century novel of a most annoying kind. It is unnecessarily long, melodramatic, includes heated political discussions and a scene or two of the hero's combat with wild animals. Most crucially, its characters are either villains or martyrs, the book is completely devoid of nuance. My apologies to the author, at a certain point I simply could not continue... show less