BOOK OF THE WEEK #2: Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco

in #books6 years ago (edited)

The second issue of our Book Review: One-Book-A-Week is a very interesting book to discuss with. This novel won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in Literature that receives high acclaim in the country and abroad. Before it's international recognition, it garnered the top spot for Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature (Novel Category). This novel is Miguel Syjuco's ILUSTRADO.


Photo from Goodreads.com

There's something weird that I felt while reading this beautifully crafted novel. It's like words being woven into wonderful patterns that is not the usual in the market. With the feeling of oddity, is also the feeling of you being familiar of the narrative. Illustrado won Palanca last 2008 but it seems it was able to somehow predict the course of the country. I don't know it "predict" is the right word or maybe the dynamics of the country's politics hasn't change since then. There's also a time while reading that I thought Syjuco is talking about President Duterte. Silly me.

In the novel, you have the fiction and real events being weaved into one "dish". AS you go along with the novel, you slowly feel how reality and fiction starts to merge, starts to intertwine like two separate entities coming together as if they have been separated from one source. Even the author starts to find it's way into the novel itself. At this point, you can now get the impression that this book is not your usual "for-feel-good" reading pleasures. This is the same novels that makes you think about how a story is written and question the potentials of the medium, which is the novel.

I really thought Miguel Syjuco tries to play with Jose Rizal's novel. In the first chapter, it is as if Syjuco wanted to bring out an"aternative universe" to Jose Rizal's novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. But it was more than that. The novels tries to explore and to present the narrative of the Philippine politics. Why we are living in this kind of political atmosphere and the role of the Ilustrados or the rich, "educated" class in shaping the Philippines we know to day.

Illustrado is quite a liberating read. You may feel disturbed and confused but those are the feelings that you need to make sure that you are in the right track.

DID YOU MISSED A BOOK THAT WE'VE DISCUSSED?

FOLLOW | UPVOTE | RESTEEM
About GIL
@gilnambatac

RELATED POSTS

Sort:  

Nice review sir @gilnambatac ! Gonna be next in my book reading checklist. Thanks.

Thanks! I will still work/read hard for more quality reviews in the near future.

Now I need to read this book. =)

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.29
TRX 0.12
JST 0.035
BTC 65090.19
ETH 3379.11
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.55