Rizal joins ranks of Dickens, Austen
JOSE
Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” has been published in a new English
translation and released worldwide by Penguin Books, one of the major
publishing houses of the English-speaking world, under the Penguin
Classics imprint. The publication effectively canonizes the novel as
one of the classics of world literature.
It is the first time that a Southeast Asian title has been included
in the Penguin Classics, which was started in 1946 with the publication
of E.V. Rieu’s translation of Homer’s “Odyssey.”
In the book’s blurb, Penguin bills the “Noli” as “the book that
sparked the Philippine revolution” and “the great novel of the
Philippines.”
“[It] was the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance
to European colonialism, and Rizal became a guiding conscience—and
martyr—for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the
Spanish province,” Penguin said.
The new translation of the “Noli” was done by an American writer,
Harold Augenbraum, a scholar of Hispanic-American letters and the
executive director of the National Book Foundation and the National
Book Awards.
Filipino-American writer Jessica Hagedorn, author of the critically
acclaimed and best-selling novel, “Dogeaters,” has said that
Augenbraum’s “Noli” was a “beautiful new translation.”
Elda Rotor, Penguin Books Classics’ executive editor, said the
publication “represents Penguin’s commitment to publish the major
literary classics of the world.”
Rotor, a Filipino-American, said she was not the original
acquisitions editor for the book, but “for me, it’s a particular joy on
many levels, to place Rizal on the same shelf as Dickens and Austen, to
share a classic that is read, studied and celebrated in parts of the
world, yet unfamiliar to a wider audience.”
In Manila, the book is available at Powerbooks and Fully Booked.
Scathing portrayal
First published in Berlin in 1887, “Noli Me Tangere” tells the story
of Crisostomo Ibarra, who returns from his European studies to find his
old town in the grip of social iniquity and decay. His efforts to
introduce enlightenment and modernism are defeated at every turn by the
Spanish colonial establishment as represented by abusive civil and
military officials and obscurantist friars.
Because of its scathing portrayal of Spanish colonial depredations,
the book was banned in the Philippines, but copies of it were smuggled
into the country for clandestine reading by educated Filipinos.
As a result, the “Noli,” along with its dark sequel, “El
Filibusterismo,” which tells of the return of Ibarra as an avenging
angel a la “The Count of Monte Cristo,” became the bible of the
Philippine revolution against Spain in 1896.
Although Rizal denied any involvement in the revolution, his name
became the password of the Filipino revolutionaries, and he was
executed by the Spanish authorities on Dec. 30, 1896.
Fascinated
Augenbraum said he stumbled upon Rizal’s novel in 1992 while
compiling a bibliography of North American Latino fiction writers. He
said he came across the name of National Artist N.V.M. Gonzalez whom he
thought to be Latino. He went on to read Gonzalez and “loved it” and
thereby got “introduced to a whole world of Filipino and
Filipino-American literature, which I began to seek out here in the US.”
“The name of Rizal came up several times, so I read the ‘Noli,’
which fascinated me,” he said. “Then I read the ‘Fili,’ which also
fascinated me. Then I read the Austin Coates biography, and Rizal
himself became one of my heroes.”
Augenbraum said he tried to get university presses interested in
republishing the novels in the English translation by either Charles
Derbyshire or Leon Ma. Guerrero, but none was interested. (The
University of Hawaii Press has published the Soledad Lacson-Locsin
translations of both books.)
In 2002, after editing and revising a Penguin book, Augebraum was
asked by Penguin editors if he could recommend a new addition to the
Penguin Classics line, and he suggested the “Noli.”
Very excited
“[They] knew very little [of the ‘Noli’], but when they began to investigate, they became very excited,” he said.
“This would be the first Filipino writer in the venerable classics
tradition, and the Filipino-American community had been growing,” he
said.
Penguin at first thought of adapting one of the existing English
translations, but “concluded that it needed a new translation for the
American eye and ear,” Augenbraum said.
Augenbraum said he enjoyed translating Rizal. “The ‘Noli’s’ Spanish
was not particularly difficult to translate. Rizal wrote a clear, lucid
Castilian without much slang and without overusing idioms,” he said.
“I would like to add that the pleasure of translating [and reading]
the ‘Noli’ is that the non-central characters are extraordinarily
rich,” he said.
Augenbraum said he found it more difficult to be editor than translator.
Bridging cultural divide
“The harder part was to compile the notes that would explain the
many, many religious and cultural references Rizal used... The US is
not steeped in the Catholic faith and many Americans will probably be
reading about the Philippines for the first time,” he said.
Apparently, Augenbraum succeeded in trying to bridge the cultural
and historical divide between the “Noli’s” 19th century-Philippines
setting and American readers in the 21st century.
According to Hagedorn, Augenbraum’s introductory essay, “is smart
and sensitively written, providing great background for Rizal’s rich,
moving novel.”
Augenbraum said he liked the Derbyshire and Guerrero translations, but there should be new translations of Rizal’s work.
“Most translators will tell you that each generation should have its
own translation of classic works. Language changes over time, political
ideals change over time, information emerges over time, new critical
thinking emerges. I hope that this translation will be the translation
for our time,” he said.
Required reading
Augenbraum said the “Noli” should be required reading in
Asian-American courses in US universities “because it is the
foundational novel of the nation, with large implications for the
diaspora and its influence on other writers.”
According to Rotor, Penguin has learned that the novel has generated
interest among professors across the US who would like to make the
novel a part of their curriculum.
The new English translation of the “Noli” comes at a time when
Filipino critics and historians are starting to complain that there was
too much lionizing and even deification of Rizal so that honest
critical assessments of his work and legacy have become nearly
impossible.
Florentino Hornedo, Unesco commissioner and a literature and history
professor at the University of Santo Tomas, said rendering Rizal and
his works as a “dogma” was “not good” since the novels were a “fiction”
and a creative embellishment, with some exaggerations conditioned by
Rizal’s masonic and liberal leanings.
Augenbraum agreed. “The Noli’ is fiction obviously, but [that’s] an
interesting point about how historical fiction becomes perceived as
history,” he said.
“In my introduction to the ‘Noli,’ I discuss Rizal becoming a sort
of ‘santo’ in the Filipino diaspora, no longer a real personage, and I
question whether he ever really was a real person, since he saw himself
as part of Philippine narrative history and acted accordingly. Although
some people have compared Rizal to Jose Marti [the 19th-century Cuban
writer and patriot], Marti has never attained the supernatural status
of Rizal,” said Augenbraum.
“[Rizal] is a prisoner of his own legend... Whoever he was in life
has become irrelevant. He’s probably closer to Joan of Arc or St.
George than he is to Jose Marti,” he said.
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