Ilustrado: A Novel [Hardcover]

Miguel Syjuco (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2010

Garnering international prizes and acclaim before its publication, Ilustrado has been called “brilliantly conceived and stylishly executed . . .It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humor” (2008 Man Asian Literary Prize panel of judges).

It begins with a body. On a clear day in winter, the battered corpse of Crispin Salvador is pulled from the Hudson River—taken from the world is the controversial lion of Philippine literature. Gone, too, is the only manuscript of his final book, a work meant to rescue him from obscurity by exposing the crimes of the Filipino ruling families. Miguel, his student and only remaining friend, sets out for Manila to investigate.

To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, piecing together Salvador’s story through his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics, and memoirs. The result is a rich and dramatic family saga of four generations, tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, the Americans, and the Filipinos themselves. Finally, we are surprised to learn that this story belongs to young Miguel as much as to his lost mentor, and we are treated to an unhindered view of a society caught between reckless decay and hopeful progress.

Exuberant and wise, wildly funny and deeply moving, Ilustrado explores the hidden truths that haunt every family. It is a daring and inventive debut by a new writer of astonishing talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Syjuco's novel investigating the mysterious death of a beloved writer is crammed full of quotations, letters, found documents, and all sorts of devices and flotsam that translates better on the page, where it can be read or skimmed, than in audio, where everything must be given equal attention. William Dufris does his best with this material, but he cannot prevent the addenda from bogging down the flow of the narrative. Dufris gamely tries to navigate his way through the thickets of Syjuco's prose, but the constant interruptions and stylistic embroidery does not lend itself to fruitful listening. A Farrar, Straus, and Giroux hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 1).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Review

Praise for Ilustrado

“Winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize while still in manuscript form, Ilustrado is a hip and secure first novel about the urgency of art and regret. Confident and quirky, with passages that recall early Phillip Roth and a structure not unlike the best M. Night Shyamalan films, the book actively seeks to provoke its audience with bathroom humor and sexist stabs at superficial melodrama. Such scenes are bookended by passages of profundity that somehow manage to always say something about life as well as literature.” —Roberto Ontiveros, The Dallas Morning News

“Ambitious . . . In a daring literary performance, Syjuco weaves the invented with the factual . . . Ilustrado is being presented as a tracing of 150 years of Philippine history, but it’s considerably more than that . . . Spiced with surprises and leavened with uproariously funny moments, it is punctuated with serious philosophical musings.” —Raymond Bonner, The New York Times Book Review

“A dazzling and virtuosic adventure in reading . . . The narrative is organised with immense confidence and skill . . . The author’s post-modernist bag of tricks also contains a whip-crack narrative skill that’s as reminiscent of Dickens as it is of Roberto Bolaño . . . There’s a capaciousness that makes the book richly attractive to wander into . . . [This] novel . . . fizzes with the effervescence a large book can have when its author is in total control of the material. This isn’t a story; it’s the unfolding of an entire world, a mirror-land that seems familiar but is always ineffably strange . . . Syjuco is a writer already touched by greatness . . . This is a remarkably impressive and utterly persuasive novel. Its author . . . may one day succeed with the Nobel committee.”—Joseph O’Connor, The Guardian

“An exuberant, complex, and fascinating ride through 150 years of Philippine history . . . Syjuco’s writing is playful, smart, and confident . . . An inventive and exciting debut.” —Grace Talusan, Rumpus

“An extraordinary debut, at once flashy and substantial, brightly charming and quietly resistant to its own wattage . . . Syjuco’s gifts for pastiche, his protean narrative energy, are in particular evidence in these pitch-perfect fictions of the fictions of his fictional author . . . An exuberant, funny novel that neither takes its grand ambitions too seriously, nor pretends to be measuring itself by any less a scale of intent. How Syjuco . . . has done this is foremost a testament to his prodigious gifts . . . With his dazzling first foray, Syjuco suggest how his new Asia, his new identity, must ‘look’ on the page and between the covers. That look is unexpected and fresh, quite unlike anything that has been seen before.” —Charles Foran, The Globe and Mail

“Wildly entertaining . . . Engaging . . . Absolutely assured in its tone, literary sophistication and satirical humor . . . Syjuco is only on his mid-30s, and he already possesses the wand of the enchanter.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Ilustrado will provoke audible oohs and ahhs from readers . . . The writing is gorgeous. Plus, there's an O. Henry twist in the epilogue. This is a great book. Read it.” —Luis Clemens, Senior Editor, Tell Me More

“Syjuco’s exceptional novel exceeds its heightened expectations, serving notice that a brilliant new talent has arrived, somehow fully formed.” —Jared Bland, The Walrus

“Dazzling . . . It is a virtuoso display of imagination and wisdom, particularly remarkable from a 31-year-old author; a literary landmark for the Philippines and beyond.” —Michele Leber, Booklist (starred review)

“This imaginative first novel shows considerable ingenuity in binding its divergent threads into a satisfying, meaningful story.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Through his vivid use of language, Syjuco has crafted a beautiful work of historical fiction that's part mystery and part sociopolitical commentary. Readers who enjoyed Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao will enjoy this literary gem.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“An ambitious debut novel, winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, introduces an author of limitless promise . . . It dazzles as brightly as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated . . . First novels rarely show such reach and depth.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Miguel Syjuco’s dizzyingly energetic and inventive novel views his native Philippines with a merciless yet loving eye, its many voices a chorus illuminating the various facets of this chaotic, complicated country. An ambitious and admirable debut.” —Janice Y. K. Lee, author of The Piano Teacher

“Vulnerable and mischievous, sophisticated and naïve, Ilustrado explores the paradoxes that come with the search for identity and throws readers into the fragile space between self-pursuit and self-destruction. A novel about country and self, youth and experience, it is elegiac, thoughtful, and original.” —Colin McAdam, author of Fall and Some Great Thing

“From the ruckus of rumors, blogs, ambitions, overweening grandparents, indifferent history, and personal crimes, Miguel Syjuco has innovatively reimagined that most wonderfully old-fashioned consolation: literature. Ilustrado is a great novel.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Atmospheric Disturbances

“Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, [Ilustrado] covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour.” —2008 Man Asian Literary Prize Panel of Judges

“A daring literary performance.” —Raymond Bonner, The New York Times Book Review

 

“Short, sharp and funny. . .” —Joyce Hor-Chung Lau, The New York Times

 

“Winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize while still in manuscript form, Ilustrado is a hip and secure first novel about the urgency of art and regret. Confident and quirky, with passages that recall early Phillip Roth and a structure not unlike the best M. Night Shyamalan films, the book actively seeks to provoke its audience with bathroom humor and sexist stabs at superficial melodrama. Such scenes are bookended by passages of profundity that somehow manage to always say something about life as well as literature.” —Roberto Ontiveros, The Dallas Morning News

 

“The book Ilustrado most recalls is Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Though stylistically the two writers couldn’t be further apart, the way Syjuco places his characters in the political pressure cooker of the Philippines’s political history achieves the same disorienting mix of breadth and claustrophobia. The book picked up the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008 and will likely be nominated on our shores, as well.” —Jonathan Messinger, Time Out Chicago

 

“The thing about wildly inventive novels that play with form and voice and style is that they’re often easier to praise than to read. Even the ones that feel like a rewarding accomplishment to finish can be tough sledding to get through. That’s one reason why Miguel Syjuco’s debut novel, “Ilustrado,” is so rare, rich and rewarding . . . Syjuco has talent and style to burn—he’s a dynamic and funny writer who uses every tool at his disposal to create a narrative. The result is literary fiction that will keep you up all night thrilled, laughing, enthralled and amazed. Don’t miss it.” —David Daley, The Courier-Journal

 

“This is a big, bold, cunning, impassioned, plangent and very funny book. . . Although there are riotously satirical parts to this book, there is an emotional core as well: the comedy would lose its tang without the characters’ blasted hopes and self-aware inadequacies. Like Steve Toltz’s A Fraction of the Whole, another epic comedy from the southern hemisphere, it deftly negotiates between the absurd and the all-too-real, the cosmopolitan and the local, the nature of failure and celebrity.” —Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday

 

“Beyond Ilustrado’s furious skewering of Filipino elites is writing that bristles with surprising imagery. Life with a girlfriend, Miguel says, ‘was like walking naked around a cactus with your eyes closed.’ Miguel notices how an old woman’s skin ‘sags on her as if she were a child wearing her father’s sweater.’ An unruly and energizing novel, filled with symmetries and echoes that only become apparent in its closing pages, Ilustrado pushes readers into considering matters of authenticity, identity and belonging. Despite its various comic turns, it is ultimately a tragedy—a raw reminder of the fact that we can never, really, find our way back home.” —Financial Times

 

“Ilustrado is built like a carousel, revolving between first- and third-person commentary, news reports, interviews, extracts from Salvador’s work and a Crispin Salvador biography the narrator is writing. Nonetheless it is all held tightly together, focused on the returning son’s difficulties with his family an...

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374174784
• ISBN-13: 978-0374174781
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,659 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Miguel Syjuco received the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize and the Philippines' highest literary honor, the Palanca Award, for the unpublished manuscript of Ilustrado. Born and raised in Manila, he currently lives in Montreal.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My Elbow's Lebensraum., March 27, 2010

By 

Nicole Del Sesto (Northern Cal) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ilustrado: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I guess this is sort of an epistolary novel, and as I'm already struggling with what to say, I'm also going to go with "hard to describe".

The story begins with the death of a Filipino author (Crispin), and our narrator and pupil of the dead author (Miguel) decides to write his biography. The story is definitely more about Miguel and his journey, and about the Philippines, than about Crispin.

The tale is told in a number of different ways. There's the biography of Crispen, snippets from Crispin's writings and interviews, the narrator's story, narrative about the narrator, but not told by the narrator, and some random blogs and other errata.

For me, the book gets extra points for the way in which it told the story. In many ways, it reminded me of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, where a modern day tale is told, but facts of the history and politics of a country are woven in. In Oscar Wao, the historical bits were told in dull, excruciating detail, in microscopic print, via footnotes. This book definitely approached the history and politics in a more interesting fashion. Even still, at times it got a bit wearying.

For the most part, the writing is stellar. Though I certainly felt that the author suffered a bit from 'new-author-itis' where they want to convey every idea they've ever had in their first novel. We start the book with Crispin's bibliography and that goes on for several uninteresting pages, and there's another point in the book where Miguel is flipping through the television channels and describing what's on every channel. 3 1/2 pages worth. Granted, some of it was more of that clever "slipping the history/politics in", but mostly the bit was overdone.

At times I found the writing pretentious and overwrought. Though "my elbow's lebensraum" is clever, (once one has looked the word up in the dictionary), things like "....he was more avuncular than pederastic" felt like he was trying too hard. But then he'd come up with something like this ... "Her hair, dyed such a bad brown it was orange, was pulled severely into a bun on her head like a tangerine," and all the author's other irksome things were forgiven.

I can understand how the literary community loves this book. It's a book about books and writers. It is done in a way that I personally don't think I've seen done before, so I think I loved it too. The epilogue almost made it a 5 for me, but there were too many other little things that kept it from a 5 star read. I won't even allude to how the book ends, only just to say that in keeping with the theme of the book it was creative and perfectly suited to everything that had gone before.

Less could have been more with this book, but it is absolutely a worthy read and I would definitely read another book by this author.

And now I'm off to pursue my goal for the day: To use the word lebensraum in a sentence. Now if I could just figure out how to pronounce it.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Humdrum and not up to the marketing, April 21, 2010

By 

Peter G. Keen "rabidreader" (virginia usa) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ilustrado: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This novel just doesn't work for me. It is one of those intentionally kaleidoscopic, hypermodern riffs that provides multiple snapshots on an enigmatic figure, in this case a Filipino author/political activist and all-around out of his skull nomad, whose death is equally enigmatic. It is very hard to make such a style build a coherent narrative. It's not enough to be hip in the writing. Here, kaleidoscopic becomes just episodic. The multiple snippets of scenes, voices and settings do not build to anything. At the end of the book, I felt no more connection to the mysterious Salvador Crispin nor to his narrator-disciple who is searching to reconstruct his life than at the start. The scattershot mixing of styles - blog snippets, in-the-narrator's head commentary, reminiscence, history summaries, press clips--are initially intriguing but in the end tiresome.

An attraction for me in trying out this unfamiliar author was that the book was the winner of the Man Asia prize. I assumed that this had a stature comparable with the Booker Prize and that it signaled the recognition of literary achievement. Without in any way wanting to be dismissive of this worthy initiative, it needs to be placed in context. It is a small competition aimed at bringing attention to new Asian writers, ones with promise that may become sustained achievement. It is sponsored by the Man Group plc, a Hong Kong investment management company. It has a limited number of submissions and is very much for the unpublished to get attention in "literary circles" (its specific target). So this is a book by a new young author. That's it. It is very much a nifty first novel and that is reason enough to try it out. There are some good points to raise. The author is smooth with words but words are not enough to compensate for lack of cohesion, thematic structure and characterization. It's OK-ish but not at all a major work.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kaleidoscopic - but maybe tries too hard, May 25, 2010

By 

Ripple (uk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ilustrado: A Novel (Hardcover)

When the dead body of Filipino writer Crispin Salvador is found floating in the Hudson River, apparently having committed suicide, his student and fellow Filipino, Miguel is suspicious that darker forces may have been behind his death, particularly when there is no sign of Salvador's latest manuscript that threatens to dish the dirt on the sleaze and corruption of the rich and powerful in his native Philippines. In order to investigate further, Miguel decides to write a biography of his teacher and mentor. That's the premise of this book, but it tells you almost nothing about the experience of reading it. This is no straightforward narrative of a regular crime fiction. It's a kaleidoscope of sometimes apparently disjointed writing that gradually comes together to create a story that only starts to come into focus about half way through, but it's not until the final pages where the true picture is brilliantly revealed.

This is not a book to dip into casually before you drop off to sleep at night. Quite simply, if you try to, you won't have the foggiest idea what's going on. The story is told in a wide variety of short `voices'. There is the narrator's story, extracts from his biography of Salvador, extracts of Salvador's writings, blogs by a Filipino literary critic, a series of Filipino jokes, extracts from an interview with Salvador and, most confusing of all, meta-narrative that comments on the narrator's actions. For this reason, it's not the easiest of books to get into and some commitment is demanded of the reader. Persistence is rewarded later on though and it starts to make a lot more sense.

In trying to understand Salvador and the forces that shaped his writing and actions, Miguel explores the complex, myriad of factors that make up the Filipino psyche, and in turn, this of course reveals to Miguel something about himself. There are clashes of big business, post colonial independence (several times), religion, communism, and general political corruption and inequalities. Oh, and a lot or rain. But it's a book about ideas rather than about character or place.

Ilusrado was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008 which rewards young Asian writers. In a wonderful piece of irony that you couldn't make up, the prize was awarded before it was even published, and the fictitious Salvador also won a major literary prize for a book before it was published. You can certainly see why Ilustrado was thus rewarded. Not only is it a book about writers, which the literary prizes often appear to favour, but it also pushes the envelope of the novel (presumably in this case, that would be a Manila envelope).

It's a book that would stand a number of readings, even after you know how it ends. There are countless allusions and allegories in the inserted extracts from Salvador's works. Particularly early on, I'm sure I missed most of them and would be fascinated to go back and re-read this at a later stage. As the story progresses they become more overt, or perhaps I just got used to the style and found them easier to pick up on.

The book is unashamedly literary in style and while sometimes the writing is an absolute joy, at others you wonder if Syjuco has swallowed a Thesaurus or is just showing off a little. Also at times, it feels as if he is trying to force too many ideas into the book at the expense of simply getting his point over. This is Syjuco's first novel, and he certainly wouldn't be the first to try to cram too many ideas into his first book. Particularly early on, I couldn't help feeling that if he didn't try quite so hard to be literary, there might be an even more brilliant voice to come in the future. But if you have patience and time to devote to this jigsaw of a novel, you will be greatly rewarded.

The book has much in common with Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna: A Novel and there are hints of Roberto Bolano, particularly Nazi Literature in the Americas (New Directions Paperbook) and even David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas: A Novel, but mostly it's a unique style, and it will be interesting to see what comes next from this author.