nonlinearpaolo's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
gellyreads's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This book should be called The Revolution According to Footnotes.
Is this a trend with modern Filipino authors where they are just deliberately writing difficult texts? Or is this my luck? I felt like I was grasping at straws the entire time I was reading this - I understood the relationship between the fake people translating and working on the documents more than the revolutionary’s life in the documents. If that was the point, great! If it wasn’t, can someone please send help?
I’m probably being too generous with this for what I actually think because I’m assuming there’s something here that I’m just not getting.
pageglue's review against another edition
This was actually highly effectively written. This is a fictional memoir of a revolutionary who lived during the Philippine-American War alongside Jose Rizal. The first 50 pages are the preamble to a modern publication of a newly translated book: there’s the Translator’s Notes, Editor’s Notes, Preface, etc. Within these, and throughout the book, are footnotes by three academics: the translator, the editor, and a third academic serving as a contributor to the book. And within the introductory texts, and within the footnotes, these academics are bickering with each other in an extremely unprofessional and obnoxious manner. It’s pretty annoying but kinda funny. But then the actual memoir starts, and only 1 paragraph of memoir appears on the page, and the rest are just footnotes. I know that this book is a critique of the historiography and mythology of Filipino history (especially regarding Jose Rizal), and a satire of the academic discourse surrounding Filipino identity, but holy shit the academics are so fucking annoying. I just can’t handle another 300 pages of their pompous, arrogant bullshit.
jaccarmac's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
For better or worse, the weight of my inadequacies as a reader inform my perception of The Revolution. I finished Insurrecto a few years ago, unable to form coherent thoughts at the end. I did know I wanted to return to Apostol, and this older-and-younger novel forced me to, first in the form of my own journal entries (in the midst of reading I actually liked Insurrecto much more than I remember!) and then in external research. Anyway, I can only guess that at some point in the past my brain got broken, because I love this novel and can connect it to recent literary loves Finnegans Wake and Borges. It's uncomfortably funny, it has an embedded historical fiction, it blurs the lines between written and spoken language and language through history and war. Most importantly, Revolution forced me to learn to read it, brilliantly paginated as a teacher. There is connecting tissue, say three quarters of the way in, which is a little more opaque, but that choice turns out to be intentional and explained if not wrapped up. If you pick up the book, prepare to focus on letters as much as words; This was the technical, among other kinds of blind spots, revealed for me.
santino1215's review
3.0
Book 93 out of 200 books
"The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" by Gina Apostol
"The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" is a novel by Gina Apostol, and from its title, tells the story of one Raymundo Mata, a night-blind man in his late 2os or early 30s, during his presence in many of the groundbreaking, important events of the Philippine Revolution. From his sojourn to Dapitan to meet Jose Rizal and him curing Mata's ill-stricken eyes, to Mata witnessing Aguinaldo's plans on independence.
MY THOUGHTS:
Here's my 3 stars for this damned book! As I Filipino who loves history, this book has one of the worst types of show-don't-tell ways of depicting and narrating Philippine history yet!
The author shouldn't have added lengthy and unnecessary footnotes! She could've just added historical facts within the real life diaries rather than making semi-fictional historians and researches argue in the footnotes. I don't know if there is a story to this but she shouldn't have done this!
This novel was obnoxious in so many ways, I myself found it not to be appetizing because of the lacking of historical contexts most of the time, even with footnotes. While the overall story is just to me above average, Raymundo Mata being a more fascinating figure because he isn't mentioned in our history books, I disliked the overall prose of the novel but the story!
I won't recommend this book, even though it is the narrating of the memoirs of Mata, I'd recommend Nick Joaquin's "A Question of Heroes" better.
"The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" by Gina Apostol
"The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata" is a novel by Gina Apostol, and from its title, tells the story of one Raymundo Mata, a night-blind man in his late 2os or early 30s, during his presence in many of the groundbreaking, important events of the Philippine Revolution. From his sojourn to Dapitan to meet Jose Rizal and him curing Mata's ill-stricken eyes, to Mata witnessing Aguinaldo's plans on independence.
MY THOUGHTS:
Here's my 3 stars for this damned book! As I Filipino who loves history, this book has one of the worst types of show-don't-tell ways of depicting and narrating Philippine history yet!
The author shouldn't have added lengthy and unnecessary footnotes! She could've just added historical facts within the real life diaries rather than making semi-fictional historians and researches argue in the footnotes. I don't know if there is a story to this but she shouldn't have done this!
This novel was obnoxious in so many ways, I myself found it not to be appetizing because of the lacking of historical contexts most of the time, even with footnotes. While the overall story is just to me above average, Raymundo Mata being a more fascinating figure because he isn't mentioned in our history books, I disliked the overall prose of the novel but the story!
I won't recommend this book, even though it is the narrating of the memoirs of Mata, I'd recommend Nick Joaquin's "A Question of Heroes" better.
literary_hazelnut's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
stefan_'s review
funny
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
lucygoss's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
1.0
natchewwy's review against another edition
5.0
Polyglottal pyrotechnics, anticolonial historiographies, academic pastiche, narrative anarchy, death by marginalia—Gina Apostol can do it all. I'm in awe of the craft, research, and sheer gumption that went into Revolution; this book is hard work and almost too clever but seriously earns its right to both. A searching exploration of how we read, and from reading make revelation, revolution, and the whole halo-halo world in between.