The literary value of the 'Noli'

AS a student of Latin American literature, my interest in comparative literature drove me to become interested in novels and poems written in Finland, Nigeria or Iran. Curiosity is like a snowball, always growing and forcing one to search for new personal discoveries and intellectual pleasures. One day, I found myself reading a book by Étiemble, a quite well-known French comparatist, where there was a chapter devoted to Philippine literature. He claimed the Philippines to be a perfect country to develop the academic area of comparative literature, being a place where oral literature, printed books and different literary traditions coming from different languages coexisted and influenced each other in terms of themes, genres, styles, etc. José Rizal was mentioned, and it took me a few hours to purchase a 1999 Spanish edition of Noli Me Tangere. My first impressions were quite naïve: "This guy was born on the other side of the planet, and his Spanish is better than mine," I thought. My ignorance about the Philippines was total. Unfortunately, Hispano-Philippine literature did not catch the attention of researchers until very recently. How could I have known about him?

Since I arrived in the Philippines, I have been observing that Rizal is not so much taught in Philippine schools as a literary figure or a deep thinker. His political transformation into a national hero has made him a man of supernatural features, a true Renaissance man from the tropics able to speak 15 languages and talented in all the tasks he was willing to take, may that be sculpture, design, engineering, medicine, math or anthropology. This is corroborated by the image of him displayed in the Rizal Museum in Fort Santiago. Moreover, there has been a prolific group of writers devoting a big effort to discover unknown facts about his life. Lastly, Rizaliana has become more an area of chismography or hagiography than of knowledge that allows people to truly understand and discuss his intellectual landmarks. I remember asking my students in class what they could say about Rizal. Two students answered at the same time: "He had a lot of girlfriends!"