I just finished the Soledad Lacson-Locsin (an old Filipina at U. Hawaii) translation which is brilliant, I think. It contains an internal intellectual consistency that I’ve learned to call “the ring of truth”. I can “hear it” as I read. I believe strongly that it is a truely faithful translation which captures much of the subtle complexity of the original (which I infer from the trans). The more recent Penguin trans is a soap opera by comparison.

Anyhow, the Epilogue and MC’s fate left me stunned and cold (literally) for a long time once I understood how all the pieces came together. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to read the Noli again. MC’s fate is too horrid. Damaso was horrified by MC’s intention to take vows… because he knew they were often rape-prisons. He may even have known of Salvi’s feverish attractions to MC. Near the beginning of the Epilogue — the beginning of the end for MC — we are told Salvi regularly visits the convent where MC is held prisoner, so to speak. This knowledge is quite probably what causes Damaso’s death — along with his sudden transfer to so far away that he could no longer protect her with his influence. He died because he knew what his daughter was being subjected to, and he knew there was no escape for her.

A truely horrifying, horrid fate for any woman. These words fail me. That the Mother Superior is the willing jail-mistress is beyond inhuman… she a woman, watching women of a shame-culture be destroyed. Even today rape is a “disgrace” in which Filipinas are automatically blamed by both society and family. Filipinas today have the forced “choice” of silence or total rejection: losing every friend and all family. In Filipino culture rape is effectively a black hole from which women cannot escape once they are “stained”. I don’t know how far back this horrid stigma extends, but the Noli sets up a situation which, to me, implies the stigma was as strong then as it is now.

So my question to you is this: do you think Rizal constructed his “heroine” as part of a satire designed to provoke the righteous indignation of Filipinos, and thus rouse the anger needed for revolution? Most of the Lacson-Locsin translation “feels” to me (a native English speaker currently learning Tagalog) as if it is always taking the imposed Spanish ideals to extremes in order to show their shortcomings. I’m not certain “satire” is the correct term for what I’m describing. Perhaps more of a parody, taken to extremes?

With MC I imagine Rizal’s conversation with the Filipino reader (probably mostly male back then) going something like this: “So do you really want to accept the Spanish ideal for your Filipinas? See where it can lead to. Remember the control and corruption wielded by Fathers everywhere without check. Unless you overthrow the current abuses, your daughters too will end up in rape-prisons like MC does. Do you really want that?” Of course they don’t, and Rizal would know that the rape stigma is/was perhaps the most powerful social construct in Filipino culture, which is a shame culture first and a guilt culture by import.

The structure of the Noli is full of surprise revelations and intentional misdirections by the narrator/author. For example we are led to suspect Salvi early on, so the revelation that Damaso is the only rapist of the family (MC’s mother) comes as a complete surprise. But since Salvi has already been painted unpleasant in the extreme, the Epilogue becomes immensely powerful as soon as its dots are connected in the reader’s mind. Salvi is the only character so lurid that stomachs turn at the first thought of his periodic visits to “preach” in the convent-prison.

If this interpretation makes any sense to you, can you please give me some references where I can followup? I’ve had a terrible time trying to research this angle online. People everywhere complain about the social adoption of the MC Ideal / MC Effect, but I’ve seen nothing to support my thesis that Rizal was intentionally taking MC’s personality to it’s extreme logical consequences in order to provoke revolutionary insights in his fellow Filipinos. In the Lacson-Locsin translation, and in my reading of it, this method is consistently appied by Rizal throughout the Noli. I believe Rizal may have constructed MC so as to maximize the shock at the end of the Noli.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!!
-brice

On my own process, I’m using the “mixtape” analogy more and more. What’s my intro? Are the connections between poems faded in or hard breaks? What themes keep looping back? What’s the background music? Am I mixing enough voices and influences into the work that it becomes its own form and not just a ripoff? Do the sum of the parts become greater than the whole?

At this point, I have more questions than answers but it’s what keeps me moving forward.

The artist should know the dimensions of the space where he/she is showing. Of the considerations, the number of walls is one strict consideration. Also, the height of the ceiling. The acoustics. Where the gallery is in terms of other businesses.

With the hanging of the paintings themselves, some paintings will undo the work of the others just by their vibrancy or their will . . .