Miguel Syjuco: Ilustrado

[Anton]

I was wondering if anyone has a reaction to Ilustrado? It won the Man Asian Literary Prize about a year or two years ago.

Personally I was a little disappointed by it. It's a common complaint that the special effects in movies today are extraneous, explosions and computer graphics inserted into a narrative simply because the director/studio can. Filipino writers in English (IMHO) have the tendency to be the Jerry Bruckheimers or George Lucases (I still love Star Wars though) of literature. They are skilled and they can write and they are hell bent on proving these facts by using every special effect in their writing arsenal.

This penchant for writing FX is on full display in Ilustrado - multiple texts, multiple authors/readers, multiple timelines (via multiple texts), multiple obscure dreams; all topped off with drugs, sex and rock and roll. It sounds kind of cool at first, just like all the gee whiz special effects are fun to watch at first. But ultimately getting through it all is kind of tiring.

Ironically, Ilustrado itself is aware of the tendencies of Filipino writing, which it describes as "Living on the margins, a bygone era, loss, exile, poor-me angst, postcolonial identity theft. Tagalog words intermittently scattered around for local color, exotically italicized. Run-on sentences and facsimiles of Magical Realism, hiding behind the disclaimer that we Pinoys were doing it years before the South Americans."

There are fulfilling moments in Ilustrado, quiet moments when the writing FX ebbs slightly, when the language shines. Particular highlights for me were Crispin's description of the doomed Philippine cavalry marching to war as well as the occasional wry observations of Miguel, "Cliches remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that others have trod this ground long ago."

It's hard to appreciate these quiet moments though as they are constantly drowned out by the literary fireworks and explosions which Ilustrado revels in.

 

[Bubba]

I haven't read Ilustrado, Anton, but your description of it and your disappointment don't surprise me. The very title of the novel--a trendily foreign word--makes me skeptical. As a rule, for a writer with roots anywhere in Latin America or the Caribbean (except maybe for the Southern Cone or Mexico), in sub-Saharan Africa, and, so it seems, in southeast Asia to get published and promoted in North America, it is necessary that he stress local color, that he highlight the exotic, that he show the world that, though he is from what those at the very center of the known and unknown universe (the Manhattan editorial offices of Farrar, Straus & Giroux) consider the periphery, he is no less capable of onanistic displays of narrative pyrotechnics than is the hippest young New Yorker. One can hardly fault these writers for conforming to these expectations, as they will otherwise not get published, but one need not read or discuss them.

Is there something else from the Philippines that you would recommend then? Something that doesn't try too hard to impress? I doubt many of the regular posters here have read anything from the Philippines (or from Filipino immigrants to the US), and I imagine they'd be grateful for suggestions.

 

[mesnalty]

Indeed, I would welcome suggestions of good Filipino literature. I have pretty much only read Noli Mi Tangere, whose prose style I was not impressed with.

 

[Anton]

My personal suggestion for a highly readable Philippine novel is Gamalinda's Empire of Memory. The plot is reasonably entertaining while the language is exceptional without being overly wrought. Gamalinda is also a poet (now based in New York I believe) and the reader can feel this sensibility come out in his prose. The problem though would be getting a copy, even here in the Philippines one is hard to come by.

For an introduction to writings by a Filipino immigrant to the US, the suggested "canonical" work is Bulosan's America is in the Heart. My personal reaction to this one though was that it was ok but it really didn't do anything for me.

Mesnalty, if it's any consolation, I think most Filipino students (Rizal's novels are required readings in high school) would share your appraisal of Noli. Rizal was, in a word- wordy, even for the more florid standards of his age.

 

[Mary LA]

I wonder if there is a local book publishing industry in the Philippines? Out here many writers do write for the very small local market and that helps counter the pressure of international expectations. And local publishers publish in Afrikaans, English, isiXhosa, isiZulu, SeTswana and SeSotho.

But such writing and publishing is very much a minority interest, no profit.

Mary

 

[rng888]

For those interested in Philippine Literature, try the author F.Sionil Jose
Manila Through the Eyes of F. Sionil Jose - TIME

Start with Dusk
F. Sionil Jose - Authors - Random House

 

[Daniel del Real]

For those interested in Philippine Literature, try the author F.Sionil Jose
Manila Through the Eyes of F. Sionil Jose - TIME

Start with Dusk
F. Sionil Jose - Authors - Random House

Of course Sionil Jos? is the most known Philippine writer worldwide; after all his name is always rounding the Nobel Prize betting list. I'm pretty sure this has to be, partially because he writes in English and thus his ouvre can be easily distributed all over the world. I'm not saying he is bad writer or anything (I've never read him) but I'd be more interesting to check Philippine writers in Spanish or Tagalog. As far as I know, Spanish stopped being official language back in 1986 but I don't know if that has kept off writers from expressing themselves in that language.
Of course there many other languages spoken through all the territory, however I don't know how many speakers have each one and if they're still representant an important cultural world or they are aimed to dissappear.

I found this info on wiki that seems interesting: This 4 languages have enough speakers to create a strong litereature. Does that actually happen?

Native Languages (2000)
Tagalog 22 million
Cebuano 20 million
Ilokano 7.7 million
Hiligaynon 7 million
Waray-Waray 3.1 million​

 

[npspider]

I recommend Merlie Alunan's writings for poetry. Here's a few of her works poetry and other works

For fiction I'm a great fan of How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife by Manuel E. Arguilla. If he didn't die at such an early age, he would have been one of the prominent writers here in the Philippines.

 

[Anton]

Mary LA - There is a local publishing industry in the Philippines but, similar to how you described the industry where you are, it is relatively small.

As for what languages most Filipinos write in, its usually either English or Tagalog. Very few Filipinos speak Spanish anymore and most of these belong to the generation born before WWII (eg. the only one I know outside the academe who can speak fluent Spanish is my grandmother).

What I'd really like to read is a work by a Filipino that's meant to be enjoyed without any literary pretension. That a work is fun doesn't preclude it from being literary.

 

[Mary LA]

No Spanish, that is interesting.

The local publishing industry here also has problems with marketing and distribution, so many writers submit to international publishers in the hope that the book sells well enough to be exported back home for local readers. Depressing, because many local writers would prefer to be read in their home country and manuscripts sent overseas are edited or shaped for an international readership, glossaries added for tsotsi taal slang and explanatory additions inserted that wouldn't be necessary if the readership was home-based.

Mary

 

[Daniel del Real]

No Spanish, that is interesting.

The local publishing industry here also has problems with marketing and distribution, so many writers submit to international publishers in the hope that the book sells well enough to be exported back home for local readers. Depressing, because many local writers would prefer to be read in their home country and manuscripts sent overseas are edited or shaped for an international readership, glossaries added for tsotsi taal slang and explanatory additions inserted that wouldn't be necessary if the readership was home-based.

Mary

Same thing happens for young Latin American writers, that have to be published by Spanish publishers and it is hard and expensive to get their books here in Latin America.

Yesterday I was checking the new releases for Tusquets editores and I noticed Ilustrado is going to be released in Spanish language in December.
Here's the book's cover.

Ilustrado de Miguel Syjuco - Tusquets Editores

 

[Anton]

As the Philippines was under the Americans for about half of the 20th century, English supplanted Spanish as the medium of instruction in schools as well as the structures of government. The prominence of English slipped somewhat after independence but it is still the language associated with education and the upper classes.

While I didn't particularly care for the book I'm happy to see it's doing well enough to rate a Spanish translation and a wider audience.

 

[Daniel del Real]

This novel was rounding my mind since I heard about its existence. It appeared as the kind of novel that really appeals to you but for some reasons you never find the right time to tackle. After some time I decided to buy it because Syjuco was present at FIL 2011; I went to his conference and I found him a very nice guy to the point that at the end of the presentation I spoke to him a few minutes.

The novel is definitely for lovers of post-modernism. If you don’t like po-mo, please stay away from it. That’s the first warning. It is a novel loaded with so many different ways of telling a story, creating a collage, a vivid mosaic of the history of the Philippines in the last century since they conquered their independence from the Spaniards. Having explained this, the book is built in short excerpts formed by: newspapers chronicles, magazine articles, e-mails, interviews, blogs with people response, jokes, excerpts from the works of a writer named Crispin Salvador, excerpts from the author who is writing a biography of Crispin Salvador and of course the main plot. Now, It is a great effort to structure a novel with so many different types of narratives and although this is something to applaud here lays one of the largest faults of the book: language and main plot doesn’t flow as it should be, making it dull to read as the narrative streamline is interrupted many times at the moment it is finally reaching a good momentum. Language is very plain and it never reaches the literary enchantment a novel should have. On contrary it seems like you’re reading a 400+ chronicle, whether it’s historical, cultural or any other kind.

However, what it is remarkable is the meta-literary games that Syjuco plays through the entire novel. First of all, he creates the figure of this patriarch of Philippine literature named Crispin Salvador, a man who is auto-exiled but represents the peak of their literature establishment. He is hated by many people in his own country because he is always criticizing whatever happens there so he is seen as a persona non-grata by the establishment. This reminded me a lot of Bolaño’s Archimboldi, going farther because not only does Syjuco creates Salvador’s whole bibliography but he also creates excerpts from his works and he delivers it throughout the whole novel. At the same time he creates a character of his own person named Miguel Syjuco of course, who is a disciple of Salvador who is trying to find out about his death and rescue a book in which he had been working for the last two years of his life and it’s supposed to be a breakthrough in the Philippines history. The books follows Syjucos step in his research to find the lost final work of Salvador, taking you to a whole century of the country’s history, starting with the Ilustrados, the young men educated in Europe who returned to their home land with fresh and brilliant ideas to dethrone the Spanish dominance at the end of the XIX century. Salvador is a modern Ilustrado, someone who despite his Naipaulesque attitudes (it reminded me so much of Sir Vidiadhar) is conscience of the issues of the Philippines but at the same time his richness; a country he hates in many aspects but that cannot avoid to love deep down in his heart.

This is the first novel of a young author who is a very promissory name for future times. If he’s able to fix all of his writing style sins he is a pure talent able to create new spheres in modern literature.

 

[kpjayan]

Daniel,

What we can see is the use of modern ways of communication in the 21st century writers. Use of Blog entries, e-mails, chat room transcripts. Syjuco , used these pretty interestingly in this book, even though some tracks had no real connection to the story. I found the occassional 'philipino in New york' jokes also annoying at times.

This trend is now seen in lot more of the modern literature. I remember Soldan deploying some of them, 'Girls in Riyadh' had similar blog entry, Victor Pelevin's ' Helmet of Horror' is entirely in a 'chat room' drama.

I thought he attempted to bring in so many angles into a single book and some of them were not convincing enough. That also caused the book to degrade to an extend towards the end. While I agree with you on his talent as a writer, like many new comers, I guess, he also need some restraint in his writing.

 

[Daniel del Real]

Daniel,

What we can see is the use of modern ways of communication in the 21st century writers. Use of Blog entries, e-mails, chat room transcripts. Syjuco , used these pretty interestingly in this book, even though some tracks had no real connection to the story. I found the occassional 'philipino in New york' jokes also annoying at times.

This trend is now seen in lot more of the modern literature. I remember Soldan deploying some of them, 'Girls in Riyadh' had similar blog entry, Victor Pelevin's ' Helmet of Horror' is entirely in a 'chat room' drama.

I thought he attempted to bring in so many angles into a single book and some of them were not convincing enough. That also caused the book to degrade to an extend towards the end. While I agree with you on his talent as a writer, like many new comers, I guess, he also need some restraint in his writing.

I know Paz Soldán uses this technique also, but he doesn't abuse from it just like Syjuco does. For Paz Soldán it is more a tool than a feature in his writing. Can't tell about other writers, but I'm sure that it starts to be common between young writers.
As you say, some of these entries had nothing to do with the plot, so it rested continuity to it. Also the ones related to the story did bring something to the chronicle, but again, sacrificing narrative.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the novel, it is a good starting point for Syjuco, but I think he can polish his narrative skills and bring a much more solid fiction piece in next years.