Illustrado is essentially a look at the elite of Phillipines society; politicians, writers, political activists and business moguls. The corruption, unrest and personal failure of these people is laid bare.

Syjuco's story starts with the drowning of expat literary lion Crispin Salvador in the Hudson River. His student, Miguel Syjuco, takes it upon himself to research Salvador in order to track down Salvador's missing and controversial final manuscript, while also seeking an answer as to why Salvador would have reached such an end. The story is told via interleaved snippets from Syjuco's biograpy-in-progress, from Salvador's own work and from a third-person narrator. This seems to be pretty effective; apparently many readers have become convinced that Salvador is a real writer.

The construction of this book is clever and the denouement is well done; you can see why it is admired. Unfortunately there was not a single character in this book that I warmed to, empathised with, or cared about. I guess when a first novel wins a prestigious literary award, one approaches it with high expectations, and this book did not live up to that. ( )

When I got to the middle of the book, I suddenly remembered that the life is too short for bad books. I struggled to find an interesting story among the numerous storylines the author had decided to present the reader with in his first novel. The funny story of Erning Isip as a protagonist was my favorite part of the book, but still it was nothing more than copying jokes from standup comedians. And, Mr. Syjuco, you're not William Faulkner, and I think that the effort to read your debut book isn't that much worth it. My opinion is that an authors should respect their readers on the first place. Then they have to know how to tell a story just to justify themselves as writers. And only then they would have allowed themselves to put together a novel like that one: complex, difficult to follow, and leaving the reader lost after reaching the middle of it. ( )

I had mixed feelings about the book. It was hard to get into. It felt slow and uneven. I wasn't draw to the characters. Yet it was masterfully written. Part way through, where Waiting for Godot was quoted, I had to stop and wonder what else was in there for quotes that I was missing.

I read the book in an effort to see the world through different eyes. I am not deeply versed in Pinoy culture, and I wonder what I've missed that way. I wonder about the literary allusions I've missed. I wonder what else I would get from this book if I read it with a bunch of Filipino literature students from Columbia. ( )

This book can be probably best described as an encyclopedic narrative encompassing most of what that genre entails - which would mean not only the 'fun' stuff like the different voices and media, but also the sometimes frustrating stuff - like digressions, obsessive inclusive of details, etc. I feel too it may also be a ghost story, in more ways than one. Because part of it takes on the voice of a young and inexperienced writer, there are parts of this book that are ridiculously (though in my opinion deliberately) overwritten. Still overall this book made me laugh out loud and stays true to the various media it presents, especially blogs and political writing and reporting.

It is one of the more ambitious novels I've read, which means that it manages to do a lot but also leaves some aspects not completely and satisfyingly resolved, which is not always a bad thing. It is also one of the most self-conscious books I've read, which to me flaws an otherwise decent story (and for me story is always paramount). Still, especially if you are interested in the Philippines or Fil-Am literature, this is worthwhile, good for some laughs, often thought-provoking, and a fun read. ( )

This is a uniquely written tale by Miguel Syjuco about a search for details into his mentor's life after a gruesome death that becomes a journey into his own life. Interspersed in the narrative are bits and pieces of his mentor's works (novels, essays, etc.) that highlight the things that are happening during his own quest. Full of information about the Philippines and the people who leave to make their lives elsewhere, I found this book insightful and seemingly personal for the author. As a reader, you are left wondering whether this is a biography or an imagining of the author (in fact, I had to Wikipedia it to make sure!) and it makes the story all the more intense. Well done, Mr. Syjuco. ( )

I really struggled with this one. Probably because the story structure doesn’t lend itself to an audio read (the format I chose to try and get my trade paperback copy read and off my TBR pile). The narrative mechanisms used include everything from excerpted sections of fictionalized published works, transcribes of interviews, to reproducing emails and blog postings to communicate the story. Quite the jumbled mess that made listening to the story a bit of a challenge, kind of like listening to someone reading aloud a journal article and making a point of reading aloud each footnote in turn, disrupting the flow. This probably would have worked okay as a physical read, especially with the visual cues of section breaks and changes in font style to indicate the shifts in narration, but that wasn’t enough for Syjuco. He had to go and further complicate matters by free flowing the story backwards and forwards through time and place. One moment, we are in modern day New York, the next minute in the Philippines during the Japanese Occupation, and then suddenly in Canada in the 1960’s/1970’s. The premise itself is the reason I picked up a copy of this book and I really like Syjuco’s use of “Ilustrados” – the well-to-do Filipino intelligentsia, who have received European and Westernized educations – to be his "voice" but I should point out that this really isn’t much of a mystery as it has been billed to be. It is really more of a pseudo-autobiographical and sensationalized literary mouthpiece for what one reviewer has called “oblique manifestos” in the same highbrow, expansive style utilized by writers such as Roberto Bolano, with a similar noir undertone. This book does a wonderful job outlining 150 years of Philippine history, and communicating the country’s search for its identity, but I came away from this one with the same feeling I had after having read Bolano’s 2666: an overarching feeling that the story is an information dump of deeper messages layered one over top of the other, piled so high that I fail to work my way through to the core meaning.

Overall, one of the most ambitious debut novels I have ever read. I just wish I had the patience to try and understand the deeper meaning I am sure it contains. ( )

I tried. I really tried to like this. I am supposed to like this. The critics rave, this book is brilliant they say. Well, his brilliance must be blinding coz I can't see it. There are good bits of writing, some nice phrasing etc, but it doesn't hang together. He is so busy listening to his own voice(s) that the stories stutter, bereft of reason.
( )

It was a very modern piece about the political mess called the Philippines and the fictional life of the author and his mentor. It has a really nice twist at the end that I did not expect and Syjuco did a great job. He was very strategic to the point that you just stop predicting what will happen next. However, when reading "Ilustrado" make sure you have a dictionary and an alarm clock ready. It was full of hifalutin words and is really dragging. The story really started slow for me and if you're expecting for an action-packed novel you'll be disappointed. If you're also expecting a Sherlock Holmes-y story, you'll also be disappointed. It's more of biographical kind of story, also full of political satire that is both funny and real at the same time. A must-read for Pinoys. ( )

I tried reading this book but it was too confusing. The story kept switching around from one thing to another, and although a lot of books have this sort of format, this book didn't have a smooth transition. The story switched around too many topics, and I would have to read a section and then try to guess what it was talking about. I would have to see if what I was reading was about: Miguel's present, or his past, or his biography on Crispin, or one of Crispin's interview, or another of Crispin's interview, or about a character/story that Crispin wrote, etc. It was a hassle having to start reading a section and then trying to understand who/what I was reading about and then being able to finish reading the section. This made the book take so long to read.

I didn't like how the character of Miguel held the character of Crispin in such a high standard. I got tired of having to read so much about Crispin because I felt inundated by so much information about him. I couldn't bear anymore at one point to read about the character of Crispin...I just didn't care anymore what had happened to him. Also, the story dragged on and never seemed to be going anywhere.

I did like how the story talked about where Miguel was from. It was interesting to read about a different culture and way of living. That part of the story did catch my interest.

It is hard to understand different societies, even though we consider ourselves pluralistic. We meet and greet people from all around the world everyday but what do we know of their home country? Their home society? Miguel Syjuco gives us an enlightening glimpse into Philippine society in his novel Ilustrado.

Page 3 - Prologue

When the author's life of literature and exile reached its unscheduled terminus that anonymous February morning, he was close to completing the controversial book we'd all been waiting for.
His body, floating in the Hudson, had been hooked by a Chinese fisherman. His arms, battered, open to a virginal dawn: Christ-like, one blog back home reported sarcastically. Ratty-banded briefs and Ermenegildo Zegna trousers were pulled around his ankles. Both shoes lost. A crown of blood embellished the high forehead smashed by a crowbar or dock pile or chunk of frozen river.
That afternoon, as if in a dream, I stood in the brittle cold, outside the yellow police tape surrounding the entrance of my dead mentor's West Village apartment. the rumours were already milling: the NYPD had found the home in disarray; plainclothes detectives filled many evidence bags with strange items; neighbors reported hearing shouts into the night; the old lady next door said her cat had refused to come out from under the bed. The cat, she emphasized, was a black one.

The plot deals with the life and death of Crispin Salvador, a noted Philippine author and scholar. His student, Miguel, sets out to investigate his mentor's death by looking at his life's work. His motivation of an unpublished work that promises to expose the corruption behind the rich families that have ruled the Philippines for generations, Miguel is able to compare and contrast his life with that of Crispin's and explore the history of the Philippines.

Link to my complete review

I tried. I really tried to like this. I am supposed to like this. The critics rave, this book is brilliant they say. Well, his brilliance must be blinding coz I can't see it. There are good bits of writing, some nice phrasing etc, but it doesn't hang together. He is so busy listening to his own voice(s) that the stories stutter, bereft of reason.
( )

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. Missing, too, is the only manuscript of his final book. Enter Miguel, his student and only remaining friend, who makes it his mission to find out what happened to his friend and mentor, Miguel attempts to sort through the weft of Salvador's life, charting his trajectory through his poetry, interviews, novels, polemics, and memoirs, these literary fragments interlock to become stories, tales, become epic generational sagas linked like so many pieces from some large Jigsaw puzzle. As we follow Miguel’s journey home in search of more information, we come to realise that this book is as much about him, as it is about Salvador.

This story is told via rumour and jokes, via Blogs, text messages, through Miguel, through the works and interviews of Crispin Salvador and through the musings of seemingly omniscient narrator, it builds up layer upon layer resulting in a fascinating and dramatic family saga covering four generations, and 150 years of Philippine history, forged by blood and politics under the Spanish, the Americans, and the Filipinos themselves.

Constantly blurring our perception of what’s real, Illustrado becomes part metaphysical detective novel enthralled to Jorge Luis Borges, part satire on Philippine society (or at least the part of it the author has intimate knowledge of).

This is a wonderful fantastical debut novel, whether it’s the parts written as Crispin Salvador, or as Miguel Syjuco, it conjures up magical hallucinatory images interwoven with the day to day reality - until past, present and future are all one tense, all one story.

“And with this fiction of possibilities, entwined with the possibilities of fiction, I've woven in my own unlived life.”

http://parrishlantern.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/miguel-syjuco.html ( )

Ilustrado is a novel by Miguel Syjuco.

Honestly, I didn't understand the story very much. It’s fragmented, and the author is very verbose. I only began to sort of grasp the whole unity of the novel when it was about to end. The twist in the ending reminded me of the twist in Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I didn't quite expect it.

From what my feeble mind was able to gather, the story is about a young writer who loses his mentor. The latter’s death is mysterious. No one knows if it's suicide or murder. To make sense of his teacher's fate, and hopefully solve the mystery, Miguel, the protagonist, returns to the Philippines to interview people from his teacher's past -- a sister, a friend, a former friend, and a rumored daughter. At the same time, he writes down Crispin's biography.

But, as I've hinted, there's a twist near the end. (Spoiler alert: Stop reading this if you don't to know what it is.)

There's another mystery Miguel wants to solve, and that is to find Crispin's "missing" novel, The Bridges Ablaze, which is supposed to be his last great work. The novel is supposed to achieve what few literary works in the past have achieved for the country.

We find out, in the epilogue, that, actually, Crispin didn't die. Miguel did! He drowned in the Pasig River following a typhoon. We are reading a story that Crispin is writing. In an effort to make sense of the abrupt and tragic death of his former student, he writes a story that explores what might have happened during Miguel's last days. In effect, he tries to make sense of his own life. Miguel’s death shakes Crispin up and compels him to rethink his life's trajectory. He finally decides to go home to the family and country he has alienated (he was on a self-imposed exile for many years), and hopes to be reconciled with the daughter he betrayed. The Bridges Ablaze was apparently unfinished and was eventually destroyed.

So that is roughly the structure of the story.

There are a lot of things going on in this novel. It’s a story about a young writer who goes on to make sense of the death of his old mentor, and in the end, it is revealed to us that actually, it was Miguel who died, and that the novel is actually about Crispin trying to make sense of Miguel’s death and in effect his (Crispin’s) own life. But it’s also a story that offers us a glimpse of Philippine history. Inserted between the narrative of the story are Crispin’s memoirs, and through them we are able to peek into his past: His family originated from Bacolod. They were probably Spanish mestizos, and they own vast areas of lands. They lived through the time of the Americans and the Japanese occupation, got exiled during the Martial Law, and thrives in the modern administration (his grandparents enter politics). Finally, it’s also a story that seeks to present the ugly truths in our society, from corruption in government and business to corruption in culture and families.

I’m not sure if I like the story. It’s very dark and gloomy. I can’t understand Crispin’s philosophy. What is he trying to achieve with literature? I also have the sense that Miguel, too, is a bit lost and confused. What is he searching for? Where is he going?

Miguel is also quite critical towards religion, Christianity in particular. But I guess that’s not a surprise, since he is after all an atheist. He sees religion as one of the causes of the country’s problems. But I think what he is really describing is hypocrisy among some religious people. Nevertheless, he has a very negative attitude towards religion, and does not see the sacredness of religious objects. His atheism is also quite strange. He doesn’t believe that there’s such a being as God, but it seems he thinks he should thank someone transcendent for the happiness he sometimes feels. But maybe I just misread him.

And the jokes, most of them are crass. I think that simply reflects bad taste. Moreover, there’s a lot of cussing in the dialogues.

“Ilustrado” seems to refer to Crispin. But I think that label means more than his being an “enlightened” intellectual. It also means that his reflection on Miguel’s death “enlightened” him about what the important things in his life really are. ( )

This feels like a huge inside joke. And being Filipino drives home the punchline just like an arrow to the heart.

The book in one sentence: Young Filipino writer Miguel Syjuco seeks the truth about the death of his mentor Crispin Salvador and his missing last manuscript, and in the process shares with readers elements of the Filipino identity.

My thoughts: I'm a Filipino. Born, raised and lived in the Philippines for most of my 30 + odd years. I migrated to Canada shy of 2 years ago. My appetite for Filipino literature has been limited, though I have read the compulsory Noli and El Fili and have enjoyed F. Sionil Jose, Lualhati Bautista, Gilda Cordero-Fernando -- but mainly because it was hip to do so in university and in the NGO circles. It's ironic that I started book blogging because I wanted to expose myself to more genres of literature and read writers from various cultures, but never really looked in my own back yard. My bad.

I guess being in another country was the push for me to truly appreciate the idiosyncrasies of being Filipino, and finally read this much talked about book! I first read the review of Ilustrado by Blooey of this young Filipino writer who with his debut novel takes home the Man Asian Literary Prize. Then during lunch break this 2011, irony of ironies, my Canadian co-worker tells me that their book club is reading Ilustrado!

So hunker down to read it I did. And I surprisingly discovered that so many things resonated with me.

Read the rest here: http://guiltlessreading.blogspot.com/2011/05/ilustrado-by-miguel-syjuco.html ( )

I really wanted to like it, and at times it shone brilliantly, but it also kept skidding out of control. The playful approach and varied voices are fun for a while, but a more restrained execution would probably have been more beneficial in the long run. ( )

It's a common complaint that the special effects in movies today are extraneous, explosions and computer graphics inserted into a narrative simply because the director/studio can. Filipino writers in English (IMHO) have the tendency to be the Jerry Bruckheimers or George Lucases (I still love Star Wars though) of literature. They are skilled and they can write and they are hell bent on proving these facts by using every special effect in their writing arsenal.

This penchant for writing FX is on full display in Ilustrado - multiple texts, multiple authors/readers, multiple timelines (via multiple texts), multiple obscure dreams; all topped off with drugs, sex and rock and roll. It sounds kind of cool at first, just like all the gee whiz special effects are fun to watch at first. But ultimately getting through it all is kind of tiring.

Ironically, Ilustrado itself is aware of the tendencies of Filipino writing, which it describes as "Living on the margins, a bygone era, loss, exile, poor-me angst, postcolonial identity theft. Tagalog words intermittently scattered around for local color, exotically italicized. Run-on sentences and facsimiles of Magical Realism, hiding behind the disclaimer that we Pinoys were doing it years before the South Americans."

There are fulfilling moments in Ilustrado, quiet moments when the writing FX ebbs slightly, when the language shines. Particular highlights for me were Crispin's description of the doomed Philippine cavalry marching to war as well as the occasional wry observations of Miguel, "Cliches remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that others have trod this ground long ago."

It's hard to appreciate these quiet moments though as they are constantly drowned out by the literary fireworks and explosions which Ilustrado revels in. ( )

It's wonderfully written, astonishingly so at times, but only rarely did I connect with the story. Something left me cold. I think this is a novel that demands a revisit in the future. ( )

Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado is a typical award-winning book, and though it will probably have sparse appeal among mass readers, it certainly an interesting book (if not entirely successful).
Many have already commented that the book is a difficult read and hard to get into; this is true. I would also term the structure experimental in a way that made me feel as if the story Syjuco imagined didn't ultimately translate into prose fiction.

A promising book that ultimately could not carry the weight of its excessive hype. Loved it at the beginning, but by the end I was bored and skimming just to finish it. ( )

I just couldn't get into this. It reminds me a bit of a cross between Dogeaters and The Brief Wondrous life of Oscar Wao, both of which I loved. I think it was a case of the right book at the wrong time, so I'm going to wait a couple months and try again.

Although this was an Early Reviewer book for February, I only received it in May so am late getting the review published.

Other reviewers have given excellent summaries and commentaries and have assessed the literary qualities in ways I couldn't hope to emulate, so I won't make the attempt.

Ilustrado was a tough, but enjoyable read with its multiple characters, different time periods, different voices, a history I was less familiar with than I'd expected, and quirky injections of Filipino humour.

I appreciated learning more about Philippines history and modern culture (or a part of it, at least). As a municipal councillor, I was very interested in the convoluted and dangerous political life of the past 100+ years in the Philippines, and very grateful not to be faced with anything like that in my world.

Like another Canadian reviewer noted, our town has a large Filipino population and although I wouldn't pretend to know a lot more about their lives as a result of reading Ilustrado, it has heightened my sensitivity to the displacement they likely feel and the enormous pull of the home country. When a book stays with me and affects my thinking for days or weeks after, it's an important read, and this one promises to be one of those books.

It's also a book I should re-read in a year or two as I know there was much I missed in plot, characters, and history. ( )

This is a very demanding book to read, but it does have its rewards. The historical nuggets about the Philippines are fascinating and the references to diverse media (novels, essays, newspaper articles, online content, emails and more) are ambitious. I get the sense that the author wanted to create a world that was simultaneously fictitious, but also had a great deal of verisimiltude. Without thinking too much about it, we go through our lives constantly using information from all sorts of media sources to support ourselves, and at the same time we knit together self-concepts that are based on our present circumstances, our personal pasts, and our collective pasts. We do all of this shifting and knitting constantly and quickly. I applaud Mr Syjuco for attempting to recreating this with his characters although, to be frank, it does wind up being a bit of a daunting read.

Illustrado tells the story of Crispin Salvador, a Filipino writer who dies mysteriously in New York, and a student named Miguel who considered Crispin his mentor. Miguel sets out to write Crispin's biography, and returns home to the Philippines to find out more about Crispin's life and understand his death.

I had high hopes for this book, as it won the Man Asian Literary Prize, but I was quite disappointed. While I liked the writing, and was very interested in the history of the Philippines, which plays a major part in the story, I found the style too disjointed. On almost every page the novel jumps between Crispin's past; Miguel's childhood, recent past, and present; sections of Crispin's novels, essays, and autobiography; sections of newspaper articles; online comments on newspaper stories; emails between characters; and third person narration of Miguel's story. The constant jumping around in time and between different types of writing felt really gimmicky, and made it impossible for me to get involved in any of the story lines or with any of the characters. I felt like the writer made the structure of the book unnecessarily complicated, which ultimately got in the way of the story. ( )

The first 50 or so pages of this were quite tough to get through. The novel's structure feels chaotic, as it's vascillates between the narrator's present-day experiences, passages from his mentor's novels, blogs, and even, at times, commentary from an apparently omniscient narrator who cues the reader that our narrator may not always be quite forthcoming. It's difficult to describe this kaleidoscopic, confusing, but somehow rewarding novel. I closed it feeling I hadn't quite "gotten" the entirety of the message, as it's fairly literary; this could be one to reread several times to glean the finer points of all the parallels, allusions, etc.

Despite my initial frustration, I gave it four stars because it truly gives a flavor of Philippines culture and history. The narrator's search for answers seems to mirror the country's search for an identity. The smattering of passed-down jokes throughout the novel added an authentic, personal feel. I'm glad I didn't give up on it; it left me questioning and somewhat confused but it raised my awareness and that's what good books should do. ( )