NOVELS: NOLI ME TANGERE AND EL FILIBUSTERISMO

-The first general lesson is that the long-standing practice of selective and often tendentious short
quotations from the novels in order to force their author into particular political positions is obsolete,
and should now be abandoned.

The second lesson is that it is essential to bear constantly in mind that the novels were written by a man
who spent almost all his adult life (up to 1982) outside the Philippines. The the noli was clearly written in
part for a non-filipino readership; although the fili is, in contrast, completely aimed at Rizal’s fellow-
countrymen, it’s imagining of the philippinesis heavily refracted through the author’s often painful
experiences in Europe.

The third lesson is that, in the course of writing the novels, Rizal was, step by step, and probably not
always consciously, rethinking his identities and those of his fellow-countrymen. The noli shows visible
traces of the semantic turmoil surrounding the idea of ‘the filipino’ in the last two decades of the
nineteenth century.

The fourth lesson is that students if these novels have to reckon with some extra ordinary absences.
Throughout the two books, only one character, tadeo and only in one occasion, specifically mentions the
term mestizo chino.