The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata by Gina Apostol
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Send-Up Too Far

OK I get it: Filipino history is complicated, as is the country itself which only shares this complicated history and not much else among its 7,640 islands, its diverse ethnicity, its approximately 180 languages (more than 20 are official in various regions), and a tradition of being governed from the Americas (first Mexico and then the United States). So any literate novel about the place is bound to be complicated if it claims authenticity.

The country’s greatest national hero is José Rizal, executed by the Spanish authorities in 1896 for his involvement in an attempted revolution. He actually was in Europe while its events were underway and had nothing to do with their planning. His crime? Publishing a novel, while in Europe, which his summary court martial felt initiated the sedition. Makes the Declaration of Independence look somewhat pedestrian, doesn’t it?

Raymundo Mata is Gina Apostol’s fictional protagonist (well, sort of). Mata’s purported memoir of 19th century Filipino life and his involvement with Rizal and the revolution is the bass line, as it were, of the book. At times the memoir is barely readable, sometimes written in indecipherable code, and continuously making reference to obscure events, concerns and people.

But the main story, the melody of the book, is not the memoir. Rather it is the cultural and academic controversy that envelops it. The provenance and authenticity of the memoir is a matter of debate put forward in polemical forewords and afterwords. And the text itself is buried in explanatory footnotes à la the worst doctoral dissertations. The book is densely satirical in other words.

But it is far too dense for me. The inside jokes and subtle references are beyond comprehension for anyone with only a passing knowledge of The Philippines. I suspect that even natives would have difficulty with much of it. Apostol’s parodies of academic cat fights are amusing but even they are a bit burlesqued for my taste. So while undoubtedly witty and scathingly self-referential, I don’t think it’s a piece of literature that travels well.

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