Book Love: Ilustrado

I can hear the supercilious, syrupy singsong - mellifulous - lilt of the women from Manila; their Tagalog peppered with English or the other way around. The normalcy of pretense and the pronounced dysfunction in a family dinner where the protagonist guests is a total riot. The ubiquitous Filipino world-view (from my vantage point) of finding the right to be citizens of the world, finding passports from Goethe ("National literature no longer means much these days, we are entering an era of Weltliterature.") and being well-heeled and -traveled is palpable in each rich chapter of Miguel Syjuco's award winning novel Ilustrado.

The book is erudite, no doubt about it. There is a myriad of high-sounding words (get your dictionaries ready!) and intelligent jokes (deftly translated from the hysterical dialect to the equally hilarious English conversion) that lend to the true Ilustrado appeal and parody even. All in all, the book has its attraction on both the honesty and the self-depreciating quality Syjuco weaves his Filipino-universal Ilustrado story.

While it is wittily engaging, it is a modern-day exhortation of sorts for Filipinos to look at our culture straight in the eye and see it for what it is. You've got a good eye, Syjuco. Kudos! You have made this Filipino book lover proud!