is myrd biographical book about Rizal read in the lastdays, Jose Rizal is the National Hero of the Philippines, Our book club here in Goodreads will be reading discussing face to face his masterpiece, Noli Me Tangere Touch Me Not on August,.
The last time I read about a book about Rizal was during my sophomore year in college, i.
e. , school yearso it wasyears ago and I thought I should brush up my knowledge about our national hero so I have a firm grasp of his life in relation to his book.
I have to be honest that half of this book I already knew from that Rizal course in college as well as the firstbiographical books.
It surely affected my rating for this book and the irony of it was that it had nothing to do with the authors.
In fact, what I liked about this book was the fact that this was written by Rizal's grandniece Asuncion LopezRizal Bantug, the granddaughter of Narcisa "Sisang" Rizal, the third Jose Rizal was theth of theRizal offsprings.
The stories mentioned here were those stories that the author heard straight from the only brother of Rizal, Paciano MercadoRizal while the author was a small child and she was sitting on her Lolo Paciano's lap.
The author claims that the many of the stories in this book became the basis of the other books written by other authors or historians.
Even if I knew half of this book prior to my reading, I still got some learnings:
.But still Jose Rizal is, for me, the greatest Filipino that has ever walked on earth!
That there were many attempts to rescue Rizal prior to his execution by firing squad on December,.
Even Emilio Jacinto disguised as a waiter aboard the ship that would have brought Rizal to Cuba.
Imagine the pretty boy Emilio disguised as a waiter!
, That Teodora Alonzo, Rizal's mother was incarcerated foryears when Rizal was a young boy because she was implicated as accomplice in an attempt to poison the wife of her jealous nephew.
What a price to pay for a foiled crime of passion!
, Rizal's blank letter addressed to Teodora Alonzo was not given a big deal here just like in Ambeth Ocampo's sitelinkRizal: Without The Overcoatstars.
That was the part when I almost cried in the other Rizal book, sitelinkJose Rizal: The Man and the Herothat I read last month.
Early in the morning of his execution, he first wrote a letter to his only brother Paciano, then to his father, then when he was about to write to his mother, he could not say anything and the author of the book said that this was because he loved his mother so much!
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When did Rizal think of having a national language, i, e. , Tagalog Of course, he wrote "Sa Aking Mga Kababata" To the Filipino Youth at the age of nine with the famous line: "Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa ang amoy sa malansang isda.
" However, Rizal continued to talk and write in Spanish and seldom used Tagalog, The author believes that he only realized the importance of having a common language in the Philippines when he was aboard a ship and there was only one Filipino aside from him.
He was so excited to talk to her but she only knew how to speak Visayan, So, Rizal got so frustrated, When he was in Dapitan, he made sure that he learned how to speak the Visayan dialect.
Wow, si Rizal dugay na! Ambeth sa imo!
, Noli and Fili were really banned in the country during that time.
House searches were done and there was a time when Rizal's aunt had to bury the book in the yard or have the housemaid sit on the book while the guardia civils were looking at the nooks and crannies of all houses in Manila.
The author said that the book was being sold clandestinely at Pper copy, This amount was the monthly allowance of Rizal from Paciano during his whole stay in Europe, I only realized the extent and scope of the ban for Rizal's books while reading this work.
. This book believes that Rizal did not retract nor he and Josephine Bracken got married.
For me, this is not an issue, What I thought was a disappointment was the fact that Rizal did not support Bonifacio's revolution, I thought it was a bit of a cowardice on Rizal's part even to the extent of writing a disclaimer that fortunately was not allowed
to be made public by the Spanish government.
I thought that it would not have lessened my admiration of Rizal if he just kept silent throughout his ordeal.
He was calm and his blood pressure did not shoot up on the day prior to his execution because he thought it was like the dream that he hadyears ago.
So, it was dreamlike for Rizal like he was just sleepwalking from Fort Santiago to Luneta! But of course, what's done is done and there is nothing that can bring back the hands of time.
Rizal was a person tao lang and he hoped for "Divine Providence" based on the earlier letter he wrote to his mother" to intercede and so he fought for his day in court only to lose and get a death verdict.
This is the best Rizal biography that I have so far read.
Original. Straight for the horse's mouth so to speak, Not from the latter day historians but from someone who has Rizal's blood on her veins,
Highly recommended. I remember borrowing this book from my high school's library, and this is the second book I've ever read of Rizal's life.
One of the few reasons I picked this book up was because of the pictures inside.
Those had me read this book and borrow it from the library,
And I can't believe I found this on GoodReads, Haha! :D As the grandniece of The Great Malayan, Asuncion Bantug wrote with admiration and effervescent curiosity the life of Jose Rizal, through the help of her Lola Narcisa and aided by correspondences between the hero and his family and friends.
This intimate portrait written in acquaintance with the passion and genius exercised by Rizal in his lifetime, a lifetime so short but transcending gave us few details in contextualizing Noli and El Fili.
"I have seen a little light and all I desire is to show it to my countrymen.
" The destinies of Ibarra and Simoun, as had been assigned by the novelist, found parallels in his own immediate future, when his calm and diplomatic perspectives towards oppression, cultivated and populated in faraway shores, were interspersed by the government's harassment of the family he valued the most, thus infuriating the timid yet charming polymath to detest the colonial power.
It was his intelligence and desire for the nation's unity and independence that had sparked the rebels to pursue the clash of knives and guns.
Rest assured that this book, through the assistance of notable nonfiction writers Sylvia Ventura and Nick Joaquin and effectively punctuated by BenCab's sketches, will be loved by children and adults.
May the dream of this hopeful sage, whose legacy of ideas and ideals is eternally undisputed, inspire us in all the imaginable and unimaginable circumstances.
This is an illustrated biography of the Filipino hero Jose Rizal tailor made for young readers, .