Reademption Literature

I've noticed a pattern in the Rosales Saga since reading the previous third installment of the series, My Brother, My Executioner . Simply put, the issues concerning national freedom and independence as well as the struggles, prejudices and prevalent corruption that have defined the relationship of Filipinos with themselves and their own countrymen ARE STILL THE SAME THINGS that are being discussed and argued to this day in my country. Now it was under a different social context but the fight is still being fought, and perhaps is currently suffering a stagnation. FSJ's Rosales Saga was written in 1973 (starting with the third book I mentioned above), and his insights and chronicles about the effects of Spanish and American colonialism in Filipino heritage and culture are impressive and beautifully rendered on page. My personal favorite installment of this saga will always be Po-On  which is the first book (ironically written as the last one, chronologi...

"I love our country. But what is our country? It is a land exploited by its own leaders, where the citizens are slaves of their own elite ." This is the third installment for F. Sionil Jose's Rosales saga after Po-On  and Tree , and being able to finish it last night left me rather cold and unsatisfied. Unlike the first two books, this one has a protagonist I could not form any attachment to, and I truly tried to make some sort of genuine connection with him and it doesn't make sense to me why I couldn't. All things considered, Luis Asperri--the lead POV character for this novel--is probably the closest archetype I should have some affinity for. He's a writer who lives with his ideals through pen and paper. He worked for print media. He was privileged, well-educated and eloquent. In other words, I should have related to him because we have those listed commonalities to contend with. But I simply did not like him at all; and perhaps that reveals someth...

"You are going to die," I told him. "But I will die decently," he said, pausing. "Isn't that what we should live for?"    His question had a quality of coldness, of challenge. Reading the first book, PO-ON , of the Rosales series last year by prolific Filipino writer and living legend F. Sionil Jose was a gruellingly reflective experience that awoken a dormant passion of the nationalistic sense within me that I never thought I ever had to begin with. I would go as far as to say that this should have been a required reading in schools all across my country, and it baffles me now that it's wasn't. Simply put, this series is an extraordinary piece of work that needs to be celebrated and read every day because of its relevant commentary in the Philippine society as a whole, using no other than the means of fiction to deliver across some of the most crucial and moving points regarding the state of our post-colonial cou...

I don't know why I waited this long to read this book. I've bought this a week before I met F. Sionil Jose himself in the Cavite Young Writers event back in 2010. He recognized my surname and knew how to spell it, which doesn't happen often since my twelve-lettered surname is an uncommon Spanish last name. For a man who is almost ninety, his memory was astounding. Though I haven't read his works at that time, I knew of his legacy, and the excitement and anxiety at that moment upon meeting a national icon were palpable and overpowering. I thought I was going to have a panic attack right there. Here I am three years later after that fateful day, and I finally started reading the first book of his critically-acclaimed Rosales Saga, Po-On . The series itself follows different protagonists for each novel, but the stories of the five books are interrelated across chronological boundaries. Set in the Philippines during its most notable and tumultuous times, F. Sionil J...