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Ilustrado

3.31 of 5 stars 3.31 · rating details · 922 ratings · 182 reviews

Garnering international prizes and acclaim before its publication, Ilustrado has been called “brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed . . .It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humor” (2008 Man Asian Literary Prize panel of judges).

It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulle...more

ebook, 320 pages

Published April 27th 2010 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published 2008)

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May 07, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Jzhun (his birthday gift to me last year)

Shelves: local, palanca

Reading Michael Syjuco's Ilustrado is like eating chopsuey.

Ingredients:
1 kg. Main Story Miguel Syjuco going back to Manila to find the truth about Crispin Salvador's death
1/2 kg. Biography in Progress Crispin Salvador Eight Lives Lived by Michael Syjuco
2 cups. Unfinished Manuscript The Bridge Ablaze
1/3 cup. Kaputol trilogy
5 tbs. Interview The Philippine-Gazette.com.ph
2 tps. 1988 Interview in the Paris Review
To taste: Crispin Salvador's email

For me, this is like reading patches of several para...more

41 likes · like · see review

Jul 25, 2011 Louize rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Louize by: Aldrin

SPOILERS ALERT

The Ilustrados of 19th century Philippines, the “enlightened ones”, were young men born from landowners; educated in Europe; top-hatted; monocled; and Spanish-speaking bucks; with nannies and tutors to run after them. Seemed a harsh truth, but the truth nonetheless. What’s good about these men, despite their higher social status, was that they sought reform through social equality and economic power for our country. It was through their works that injustices imposed on Filipinos...more

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Jul 14, 2010 Emir Never rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"I'm a Filipino. I'm nothing else but a Filipino. I'd like to be a writer, not just defined by race," Miguel Syjuco, 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize-winning author of Ilustrado said in an interview with TIME .

In a way, the statement characterizes Syjuco's personal journey as a writer. Born to a well-to-do family, Syjuco shunned the comforts of his lineage at home to pursue writing abroad. But while Syjuco seeks not to be boxed by his roots, Ilustrado is inescapably rhizanthous— flowering with al...more

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Jul 23, 2010 jzhunagev rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all who've lost faith in Philippine Literature, this novel will prove you wrong!

Recommended to jzhunagev by: the "Voice"

Shelves: award-winning-best-seller, booker-prize-winners, drama, fiction-contemporary, filipiniana, historical-fiction, mystery

Blurring Realities
(A Book Review of Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco)

Ilustrado is the ambitious and exceptionally complicated debut novel by Miguel Syjuco that won the Palanca Grand Prize for the Novel Category in 2008 and the prestigious Man Asian Literary Prize later that year when it was still in manuscript form.

Since news of his prodigious success came out, I can’t help but feel elated, for his triumph is as much ours; his breakthrough is a vindication of sorts on our much neglected and often bel...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Dante rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: filipiniana, imaginative-lit, novel, fiction, prose

Ilustrado is a novel by Miguel Syjuco.

Honestly, I didn't understand the story very much. It’s fragmented, and the author is very verbose. I only began to sort of grasp the whole unity of the novel when it was about to end. The twist in the ending reminded me of the twist in Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I didn't quite expect it.

From what my feeble mind was able to gather, the story is about a young writer who loses his mentor. The latter’s death is mysterious. No one knows if it's suicide o...more Ilustrado is a novel by Miguel Syjuco.

Honestly, I didn't understand the story very much. It’s fragmented, and the author is very verbose. I only began to sort of grasp the whole unity of the novel when it was about to end. The twist in the ending reminded me of the twist in Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I didn't quite expect it.

From what my feeble mind was able to gather, the story is about a young writer who loses his mentor. The latter’s death is mysterious. No one knows if it's suicide or murder. To make sense of his teacher's fate, and hopefully solve the mystery, Miguel, the protagonist, returns to the Philippines to interview people from his teacher's past -- a sister, a friend, a former friend, and a rumored daughter. At the same time, he writes down Crispin's biography.

But, as I've hinted, there's a twist near the end. (Spoiler alert: Stop reading this if you don't to know what it is.)

There's another mystery Miguel wants to solve, and that is to find Crispin's "missing" novel, The Bridges Ablaze, which is supposed to be his last great work. The novel is supposed to achieve what few literary works in the past have achieved for the country.

We find out in the epilogue that, actually, Crispin didn't die, but Miguel! He drowned in the Pasig River following a typhoon. What we are reading is actually the story Crispin is writing. In an effort to make sense of the abrupt and tragic death of his former student, he writes a story that explores what might have happened during Miguel's last days. In effect, he tries to make sense of his own life. Miguel’s death shakes Crispin up and compels him to rethink his life's trajectory. He finally decides to go home to the family and country he has alienated (he was on a self-imposed exile for many years), and hopes to be reconciled with the daughter he betrayed. The Bridges Ablaze was apparently unfinished and was eventually destroyed.

So that is roughly the structure of the story.

There are a lot of things going on in this novel. It’s a story about a young writer who goes on to make sense of the death of his old mentor, and in the end, it is revealed to us that actually, it was Miguel who died, and that the novel is actually about Crispin trying to make sense of Miguel’s death and in effect his (Crispin’s) own life. But it’s also a story that offers us a glimpse of Philippine history. Inserted between the narrative of the story are Crispin’s memoirs, and through them we are able to peek into his past: His family originated from Bacolod. They were probably Spanish mestizos, and they own vast areas of lands. They lived through the time of the Americans and the Japanese occupation, got exiled during the Martial Law, and thrives in the modern administration (his grandparents enter politics). Finally, it’s also a story that seeks to present the ugly truths in our society, from corruption in government and business to corruption in culture and families.

I’m not sure if I like the story. It’s very dark and gloomy. I can’t understand Crispin’s philosophy. What is he trying to achieve with literature? I also have the sense that Miguel, too, is a bit lost and confused. What is he searching for? Where is he going?

Miguel is also quite critical of religion, Christianity in particular. But I guess that’s not a surprise, since he is after all an atheist. He sees religion as one of the causes of the country’s problems. But I think what he is really describing is hypocrisy among some religious people. Nevertheless, he has a very negative attitude towards religion, and does not see the sacredness of religious objects. His atheism is also quite strange. He doesn’t believe that there’s such a being as God, but it seems he thinks he should thank someone transcendent for the happiness he sometimes feels. But maybe I just misread him.

And the jokes, most of them are crass. I think that simply reflects bad taste. Moreover, there’s a lot of cussing in the dialogues.

“Ilustrado” seems to refer to Crispin. But I think that label means more than his being an “enlightened” intellectual. It also means that his reflection on Miguel’s death “enlightened” him about what the important things in his life really are.(less)

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Dec 09, 2010 Leah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: wishlist, pinoy, trippy, writerly

This book can be probably best described as an encyclopedic narrative encompassing most of what that genre entails - which would mean not only the 'fun' stuff like the different voices and media, but also the sometimes frustrating stuff - like digressions, obsessive inclusive of details, etc. I feel too it may also be a ghost story, in more ways than one. Because part of it takes on the voice of a young and inexperienced writer, there are parts of this book that are ridiculously (though in my op...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Jinky rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

Talk about art reflecting life! The fictional character is named after himself (author)... exactly Miguel Syjuco. An outlandish concept to me and part of the genius this book offers ... the confusion is a foreshadow of telling you to prepare yourself for a brain workout! Yes, this book is definitely a find that challenges the brain (see my blog title description). Pull out your dictionary because Mr. Syjuco, both the author and character (haha), throws out many fancy words. After all, he has to...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Filipinos, Filipinos who can tolerate a lot of weirdness

Shelves: philippines, historical-fiction, 2013

The story begins with Crispin Salvador’s corpse and his missing manuscript of “sins”. Miguel the protégée suspects foul play, and hunts for his mentor’s unfinished work. At first blush Ilustrado is a murder mystery. Several paragraphs later, you’ve got enough inspiration to parody Jobim’s Waters of March.

Ilustrado intersperses storytelling with immense world-building: literary ‘excerpts’ (mostly Crispin’s), a glut of allusions to real political and showbiz characters, historical events and cult...more The story begins with Crispin Salvador’s corpse and his missing manuscript of “sins”. Miguel the protégée suspects foul play, and hunts for his mentor’s unfinished work. At first blush Ilustrado is a murder mystery. Several paragraphs later, you’ve got enough inspiration to parody Jobim’s Waters of March.

Ilustrado intersperses storytelling with immense world-building: literary ‘excerpts’ (mostly Crispin’s), a glut of allusions to real political and showbiz characters, historical events and cultural jokes. The prose tends to slip from satirical/surreal to—as one of the characters puts it, “very writerly and pretentious”. To make Ilustrado more challenging, our narrator becomes increasingly unreliable.

Once you get the rhythm of the $10 words and postmodern oddities, Ilustrado can be clever. I thought the worst offender wasn’t Miguel’s angst or the hodgepodge narration, but the paragraphs with cursive font. Who the fornication thought long paragraphs of this was a good idea?

Some reviewers opine the stylized prose is too glaring for Philippine literature or at least, Filipino readers. Syjuco has anticipated this and lets Crispin be his mouthpiece:

“Listen, you—we shouldn’t foster a tradition of nostalgia, as we have. A retrospective of all the past frustrations. Forget it—it’s gone, it’s history. Pun intended. Haha! We have to change our country by changing its representation. What is Filipino writing? 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... Our heartache for home is so profound we can’t get over it, even when we’re home and never left. So every Filipino novel has a scene about the glory of cooking rice, or the sensuality of tropical fruit. And every short story seems to end with misery or redemptive epiphanies. And variations thereof. An underlying cultural faith in deus ex machine. God coming from the sky to make things right or more wrong.”

The prose is an attempt at a remake, or at least a dissent from the notions of Phil lit.

Crispin and Miguel are the modern ilustrados, the intelligentsia hailing from the class of affluent landlords, folks who stereotypically graduate to political tyrants. With Crispin & Miguel's patriotism, filial piety is a challenge.

The Philippines of Ilustrado is much more recognizable than Miguel and his articulate angsting; Miguel is too much a caricature. Themes of class struggle are muted, nevertheless, Ilustrado’s landscape feels all too real— the confusion over what a Filipino identity is, political upheavals viewed as if they're apocalyptic struggles of good and evil which turn out to be usual cases of a self-serving fella displacing a self-serving honcho.

This book belongs to writers, but Syjuco neglects to wrestle with the Philippines' abysmal reading culture. Compelling literary exposés like this hardly make a peep unless the media giants sell it. Even Rizal's novels might not enjoy the same popularity had it not been mandated by the government to be part of school curriculum.

Just like our identities are the culmination of stories we tell ourselves, the story of Ilustrado is what you cobble together. This kooky book is not every Filipino’s cuppa, but it’s so Filipino Filipinos should check it out. (less)

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Oct 08, 2010 Monique rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, filipino, award-winners

Five things about this book:

(1) A good dictionary should be a good companion/reference material. I'm a wide reader, and I think my vocabulary is fair because of the nature of my work, but I thought this book had one flowery word too many. Lots of big words, in my opinion meant more to impress than to express.

(2) I didn't want to read more about the sorry state of my country ~ its politics, economy, poverty, and people. When I picked this book, I thought I had a mystery to read about. Instead, w...more

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Sep 19, 2011 Don Jaucian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is no arguing that Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado is a well-written, amazing piece of work. Amazing in the sense that it boldy delves into post-modernism; a dizzying pastiche of Philippine History as seen through an outsider’s eyes. Because no matter how you position it, Syjuco’s Philippines is the Philippines as seen by balikbayans, OFWs and expats. There’s nothing really new. And what is there to tell anyway? Corruption, sleazy politicians, wayward youth and lost heritages. Is that all there...more There is no arguing that Miguel Syjuco’s Ilustrado is a well-written, amazing piece of work. Amazing in the sense that it boldy delves into post-modernism; a dizzying pastiche of Philippine History as seen through an outsider’s eyes. Because no matter how you position it, Syjuco’s Philippines is the Philippines as seen by balikbayans, OFWs and expats. There’s nothing really new. And what is there to tell anyway? Corruption, sleazy politicians, wayward youth and lost heritages. Is that all there is? Is that the underbelly of our slowly decaying country?

Ilustrado’s Crispin Salvador aspires to write the new Noli Me Tangere, a brilliant piece of literature that will set the country ablaze. The book opens with his death and his student Miguel narrates the rise and fall of the “Panther of Philippine Letters”. Crispin Salvador seems to be a mix of the country’s great writers. His works hint influences of Nick Joaquin and F Sionil Jose. Miguel returns to the country to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of his mentor and the missing manuscript of Crispin’s last book. What follows is an exploration of Philippine Culture from colonial times, American and Japanese invasion to the current shit-infested city scapes of Metro Manila.

Scattered throughout the book are passages from Crispin’s works, snippets from interviews, text messages and a running gag about Ateneo-La Salle-AMA that were just so bad for my taste. It’s a novel about the Philippines for foreigners. That’s what Ilustrado is, a brave work that mostly burns as ‘burgis angst’ that we see in countless blogs of rich kids everywhere. Parts of the book rife with this ‘angst’ is exhausting.

What Ilustrado mines brilliantly is the position of literature in our country. Is it still relevant? Can it ignite a revolution? These are the questions that I think are forgotten by young writers these days. Most of them harbor westernized ideals, heavily influenced by writers abroad. “Nobody cares,” one character in the book says. Syjuco places his hope in modern day Ilustrados, those who long for the warmth of their country while embellished in winter and cold dinners just to save their families from the suffocating air of poverty. (less)

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Jun 28, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-literature

A competent piece of work but not really more than this.

The book had a few problems

~ Stylistically flat. In literary fiction there is an expectation of eloquence...this book approaches this but does not quite make it.
~ Characters are not compelling and/or believable.
~ The variety of source materials should sound like they're from different personalities and they don't really do this. All seems to be the same flat character.
~ Too many pop culture references. The problem with this is that it giv...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Biljana Skataric rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Knjiga mozaik. Prepliću se biografija imaginarnog filipinskog pisca Krispina Salvadora, fragmenti njegovih knjiga, doživljaji njegovog prijatelja i istorijati njihovih porodica. Ko ima vremena, može knjigu pročitati i drugi put, ja nemam.

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Jan 04, 2013 Elliot Ratzman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

My book club did not like this book, yet it won the Asian Man prize two years before it was published and there was talk of a Nobel nomination for this young author’s first novel. It is a difficult, fragmented pomo book, consisting of seemingly random arrangement of the fiction, essays, autobiography, jokes and biography of a made-up Filipino author living in NYC, teaching at Columbia. His biography is being researched by another Filipino writer-in-exile, also from a well-connected Manila family...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Bryan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though at times the pastiche style of writing, when particularly not paying attention, complicates, Ilustrado, save the occasional "have-to-look-up-the-dictionary" odd word and countless proper nouns (most of which could only cater to a very select few, unsurprisingly), is actually quite an easy read, for its prose allows it as such. It is like listening to a repetitive melody of a summer pop song.

Ilustrado interweaves the story of two writers, born but living out of the country, in their quest...more Though at times the pastiche style of writing, when particularly not paying attention, complicates, Ilustrado, save the occasional "have-to-look-up-the-dictionary" odd word and countless proper nouns (most of which could only cater to a very select few, unsurprisingly), is actually quite an easy read, for its prose allows it as such. It is like listening to a repetitive melody of a summer pop song.

Ilustrado interweaves the story of two writers, born but living out of the country, in their quest to write an all encompassing and truthful Philippine contextualization, albeit including their own social and, as such, familial roots. As the nature of the work suggests, Dianne Marie Sayaman states it also "problematizes literature, and its potency as a tool for social change".

While the work succeeds in mirroring a rotten social system of the Philippines, it has failed to elevate the supposed rejection of the ruling class into an "enlightening" (sorry for the pun) tool for social revolution (as the author himself said on an interview). Not within the book. Not even, when you think about it, in the real world.

The indecision and confusion of the author's alter ego is prevalent, and this literally proves to be the case among the modern day ilustrados. However, this narrative presents a finality of hopelessness in the struggle for social change.

As the work suggests, is there no hope for the modern day ilustrados to realize the social revolution, of which, they are currently afraid of as it will compromise there lofty position as part of the elite? As seemingly good as it is as a literary diagnostic, it becomes our duty to ask, what can be the cure?

All along, intact with his bourgeois consciousness, this seems to have eluded Syjuco.

References:

Sayaman, D. (2010, July 5). Caught in the Middle. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://www.philippinecollegian.org/?p...
Monumento, M. (2011, April 18). Bravo, Miguel!. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://pinoyweekly.org/new/?p=12986
Garcellano, E. (2010, July 28). The Ilustrado Revolution. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://theworksofedelgarcellano.wordp...
Salamat, Marya (2010, September 25). Book Review: In Ilustrado and Eight Lives Lived, Which Life is Worth Writing About?. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://bulatlat.com/main/2010/09/25/b...(less)

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Nov 01, 2012 Louise rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philippines-lit-fic, fiction, man-booker-author

This promising author has earned the Man Asian Literary Prize in advance of not only his debut title's publication, but also what appears to be ahead of himself. I see what the Man committee saw in his work: Syjuco has the potential to earn this award in time.

I know enough Philippine history and culture to catch enough references and to know that there had to be many others going over my head. I know little of the political situation, so the themes were shadows of on the proverbial cave wall to...more This promising author has earned the Man Asian Literary Prize in advance of not only his debut title's publication, but also what appears to be ahead of himself. I see what the Man committee saw in his work: Syjuco has the potential to earn this award in time.

I know enough Philippine history and culture to catch enough references and to know that there had to be many others going over my head. I know little of the political situation, so the themes were shadows of on the proverbial cave wall to me.

Besides gaps in my knowledge of the Philippines, the book was a problem in its complexity. It was like a puzzle where you had to assemble an upper layer before you could understand the one below it. I read this over four days and four sittings. In each, I had to flip back to see where this person or that fictional fragment tied in (and some of the searches were fruitless). An index (the kind you see in a non-fiction book) would have helped, but then, a rational approach would ruin the poetry... and there was a lot of poetry in form and content.

The weaving of the stories, the fiction, the narrator, the mentor, the emails, blogs, tweets, news items and interviews was clever, but a lot of my reading energy was lost in the details. There are a lot of cute jokes (like the one on painting a porch) which had me laughing out loud, which while they added to the fun of the book, didn't add to an already complicated the story. Some simplification would have made a better flow.

I loved the author's titles... all of them from "Autoplagiarist" to the "Sabotage Love" by the Cool Kids of Death. I loved his anecdotes and ways of description, but some of the poetic prose such as that on pp. 299-300, would be better worked into a stand alone poem than woven into (or concluding) a fictional work.

The book deserves a re-read, but for now, my energy is spent. Perhaps in a few months I'll come back to it, digest it and see it anew.

This author has a future. I will certainly read his second book. (less)

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Dec 27, 2011 guiltlessreader rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: filipino-authors, historical-fiction, man-asian-prize, reads-2011

Full review here:
http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.com/...

This feels like a huge inside joke. And being Filipino drives home the punchline just like an arrow to the heart.

The book in one sentence: Young Filipino writer Miguel Syjuco seeks the truth about the death of his mentor Crispin Salvador and his missing last manuscript, and in the process shares with readers elements of the Filipino identity.

My thoughts: I'm a Filipino. Born, raised and lived in the Philippines for most of my 30 + odd ye...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Meg Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm afraid to write a review. But I also need time to formulate my opinions about any piece of work that I like and affects me. All books and works of art are personal to me and even though this book covers a large span of Philippine history and I am Filipino, I did not read this from that perspective. Maybe one day I can put it all together in my head because right now it is all just a mess of feelings, ideas, arguments, and questions. I have to point out though that I read this book thrice. Fi...more

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Apr 26, 2011 Kalika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started this book several months ago and finally finished it last week, having read several other books in between. It wasn't that I found it boring, just that there were so many threads and narrative styles interwoven that I found it easier to take breaks and difficult to get fully immersed. But I am glad that I did.
The story of a young Filipino writer's investigation into the murder and hence, the life of his mentor, Crispin Salvador (another ex-pat Filipino writer found dead in NY) spins o...more

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Oct 16, 2010 Lit React rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 f...more

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Sep 07, 2010 Dottie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The blurb at the back of Ilustrado hails it as “exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving”. I agree, but I have to add some other adjectives. Ilustrado is ambitious and complex, but, or maybe precisely because of that, it also tends to be pretentious and abstract. I found this to be especially true for the last chapter. While I am aware that it might have been intentionally abstruse as a technique to set up the big twist, I still found that last paragraph before the epilogue maudlin and...more

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Aug 27, 2010 Aban (Aby) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was keen to read this book because of the award it received and the rave reviews it had from the Globe and Mail. I was also eager to read a book about the Philippines, written by a Filipino, because of our visit there and our family connections to that country.

It's the story of two writers: Crispin Salvador and Miguel Syjuco (same name as the author!). At the beginning of the book, Salvador's body is found dead, floating in a river somewhere in the USA. Miguel decides to write a biography abo...more

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Jun 28, 2010 Elise rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Ilustrado," Miguel Syjuco's first novel, reminds me of another first novel by a young author - Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Both authors are characters--narrators--in their own books who function as detectives, piecing together different fragments of their heritages. Both authors layer multiple plot lines, each narrated by a different character, or written in an altogether different narrative style (ie. excerpts from interviews or other novels). Both tell funny, moving st...more

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Jun 12, 2010 Wcsminorcircuit rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-novel

It's easy for a new novelist to get lost in his craft, making complex story lines that go nowhere, creating multiple characters of varying depth, and writing clever sentences for the sake of it. I was worried that Miguel Syjuco's debut novel would fall into that trap, especially after chapter one, when I realized I was going to delve into multiple narratives at once if I was to finish the book. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when after reading the novel I was not left feeling empty or that...more

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Aug 27, 2010 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just finished this book in the last 12 hours , and it was a truly unique experience. Early on, I was less than excited about the numerous different threads that Miguel Syjuco is weaving, whether they be the many different works of Crispin Salvador, the past of Miguel himself or the present day as Miguel goes about searching for answers in the wake of his mentor Crispin's death.

However, as the pages went by, I grew to appreciate and then truly enjoy these many threads. Syjuco is truly talented,...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Jeniffer Almonte rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed, quit-reading

This is such a hard book to review...

First of all, it's really ambitious and I think ambition should be rewarded. None of the problems I had with the book had to do with structure (switching back and forth between the first person, Salvador's autiobiography, a biography about Salvador, some works of fiction etc ect). I actually think all that stuff worked really well. And I was generally really impressed with Miguel Syjuco's often beautiful writing. He is, for a lack a better word, hardworking....more This is such a hard book to review...

First of all, it's really ambitious and I think ambition should be rewarded. None of the problems I had with the book had to do with structure (switching back and forth between the first person, Salvador's autiobiography, a biography about Salvador, some works of fiction etc ect). I actually think all that stuff worked really well. And I was generally really impressed with Miguel Syjuco's often beautiful writing. He is, for a lack a better word, hardworking. Which is why his book is so ambitious.

But...well, it was clear that he was sensitive to finding specific markers of both American and Filipino culture. And, in terms of American culture, he was a little TOO specific. For example, He has his characters express that they are liberal New Yorkers by having them live in a small apartment in Williamsburg, admire a Jackson Pollock at the Met, argue over organic toothpaste, have naive conversations about boycotting China etc, etc. As a liberal New Yorker having to read this laundry list of what liberal New Yorkers are like, I had to roll my eyes. It was like paint-by-numbers and made it very hard to imagine them as actual people, and not as Syjuco's carefully built characters. And here, in a sense was my problem with the book.

So much of the writing was so graceful and interesting and the story itself was so big and layered (covering dramatic periods in history) and the structure, with the multiple books etc, is so elaborate. So there is a lot going on.

But the characters? They were somewhat of of an afterthought. Or an overthought--I am not sure. This was certainly not always the case and I spent most of the the first half of the book completely riveted. One of the most charming moments is when the narrator, "Miguel", gives a detailed account of an interaction he has with someone. And then quickly admits none of this happened, that he just imagines it. And he pledges to be honest from now on. It was just a great moment that told us so much about Miguel. And there were other moments like this where I really connected with the people of "Ilustrado". In these moments I really loved the book.

But I just lost that feeling, at some point. Especially watching Miguel interact with other people using dialogue that was consistently canned and stilted and overly clever. In one example, he has a conversation with two intellectuals (that is how they are described) where they proceed to talk over each other in a style that I can only describe as "How a college freshman thinks intellectuals would discuss an author". This scene was so painful that I put the book down for several days and had to coax myself back. Truly paint-by-numbers. And a few pages later we see Miguel interacting with a "literary" 21 year old woman who sounds like an unliterary 15 year old girl and owns a Hello kitty notebook, etc.

So the point is, the characters were so consistently tone-deaf to me. Or they were cartoonish. They would speak in ways people don't really speak, or the details about them wouldn't fit. I guess, this is to say that Syjuco devoted so much time to all the impressive and clever aspects of Ilustrado (and there is so much to admire) but the people don't come to life for me. They didn't feel real. And...worse... the dialogue was so often jarring to my ear. That disconnect made it hard for me to enjoy the book, ultimately.

But I would still recommend it! Especially in the first half, there are some incredible moments and there can be no doubt that this is an extremely talented writer. Also, since I knew nothing at all about the Phillipines, I just really enjoyed getting to know a little bit about this country. So, despite its big flaw, Ilustrado is a very unique book that really has a lot to offer.(less)

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Aug 09, 2011 Brett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Quite simply, this is one of the best books of the decade. Already, Syjuco has been compared to writers like Salman Rushdie & David Mitchell and it is easy to see why; he challenges our concept of what a novel can be. Using disparate sources (jokes, traditional linear narratives, interviews, diary entries and book excerpts), Syjuco fashions a tale of a young writer's search to find the missing manuscript of his mentor and friend, Crispin Salvador, and to uncover the truth behind the death of...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Jessica marked it as incomplete-read · review of another edition

Shelves: hardcover, fiction, mystery, 2012-reads

I tried reading this book but it was too confusing. The story kept switching around from one thing to another, and although a lot of books have this sort of format, this book didn't have a smooth transition. The story switched around too many topics, and I would have to read a section and then try to guess what it was talking about. I would have to see if what I was reading was about: Miguel's present, or his past, or his biography on Crispin, or one of Crispin's interview, or another of Crispin...more

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Jan 14, 2012 hirtho rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of The Instructions or History of Love or any cool books

Recommended to hirtho by: Lauren from Around the World

1/14/12
I'ts more of a 4.5 but I'll round up even though it's not a perfect book (I eventually zoned out on the jumparound structure with the exceprts and interviews) but that's very minor and I can see others loving it all the way through. For me the best parts were the ending (of course; solidifies it as a brilliant book) and the parts where the narrator is either lamenting his reminiscences of his old relationship or chronicling the burgeoning one in the 2nd half of the book.

For most of it I a...more 1/14/12
I'ts more of a 4.5 but I'll round up even though it's not a perfect book (I eventually zoned out on the jumparound structure with the exceprts and interviews) but that's very minor and I can see others loving it all the way through. For me the best parts were the ending (of course; solidifies it as a brilliant book) and the parts where the narrator is either lamenting his reminiscences of his old relationship or chronicling the burgeoning one in the 2nd half of the book.

For most of it I absolutely loved the jumparounds and Crispin Salvador is such a fascinating persona, but the real strength of those sections for me was how much Salvador's connection to current events/politics in terms of Marcos and anti-colonialism and his expatriation, is transmogrified into Syjuco/narrator's return and exploration of his own inability to carry any legacy of his parent's/grandparent's connection to current events/politics, especially as the globe begins its post-9/11 hangover.

Syjuco the author is an incredible talent and he's a natural at that "mixed episode"-like moment in art that I think is the most important achievement nowadays, and I'd often find myself horrified or bummed, yet bursting out in laughter at the same time. There's plenty of flavors of third world/post-colonial identity elegy stuff here, which I'm always a bit wary of/alienated from, but then there's just as much first world problem-typa stuff as well (the title is a perjorative indicating spoiled race-traitors), and so at the same time that this book is speaking to the hurts of Filipino culture within a larger world's hurts, it never maintains taht methodology at the expense of any straight-out literary punchdrunkness (a great motif was whenever lists of other artists would be mentioned in Salvador's interviews or Syjuco's itemizing, there'd be little wink-wink cameo-homages by, say, John Shade or Vinteuil or however many I may have missed)

1/11/12
Layers:
- Narrator/Syjuco's involvement in mystery around Crispin's death and his missing magnum opus
- in-progress bio on Crispin being written by Syjuco as the 1st narrative unfolds
- excerpts from Crispin's works
- interviews and media mentions of Crispin, his work, his public persona
- italicized 3rd person commentary, possibly abt Syjuco/narrator(less)

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Jun 15, 2010 Bechai rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i'm giving the book 4 stars, simply because i was entertained and it got my brains to "think"... oh, and my heart to falter :). these stars i give as follows:

1 1/2 stars for entertainment. I find the jokes the jokes inserted bit by bit in the novel as they should be - FUNNY! And though not my normal read ( i generally do not like shifts and plot changes, moreso satire in my stories), i've come to like it as i turn every page.

1 1/2 for making me think. One is led to believe that the story is abo...more

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Nov 18, 2010 Jhoanna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dysfunctional-families-are-us, world-lit

A challenging, but worthwhile read that offers some insight into what it means to be a young Filipino intellectual, struggling against his country's, and his own, fraught past and its, and his, attempts to break from this legacy of colonization, patronage, deception and youthful optimism. A good read for those of us Filipino-Americans who have mostly broken with our heritage in order to embrace becoming "American" - especially eye-opening in Syjuco's depiction of life in the Philippines today, a...more

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About Miguel Syjuco

Miguel Syjuco earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and is completing his PhD at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He received the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize and the Philippines’ highest literary honor, the Palanca Award, for the unpublished manuscript of Ilustrado. Born in 1976 into a political family in Manila, Syjuco left the Philippines to become a writer. He currently live...more

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“It kills me how these days everyone has clinical justification for their strangeness.” — 55 people liked it

“Love and honesty don’t mix.” — 29 people liked it

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