[21ST M01] An Excerpt of 'The Revolution According Raymundo Mata' by Gina Apostol

'The Revolution According Raymundo Mata' 

by Gina Apostol
Download Link - Click the title

Vocabulary:

Zap – a sudden forceful blow                                                                                       
 Ingrate – ungrateful person

Pummel – pound or beat                                                                                                 Reproach – a rebuke or disapproval  

Heave – rise                                                                                                                         Heedless- not paying careful attention

Cantankerous – often angry/annoyed                                                                         Whiplash – a blow from a whip

Gesticulate – making gestures while speaking angrily                                           Obstreperous – difficult to control and noisy

Chronology - a record of order in which a series of events happened             
 Spleen – feelings of anger  

Injunction – an order from a court that needs/ needs not to be done             
 Constitute – make up for something

Raving – irrational incoherent wild extravagant declamation or utterance   
 Infidels – one who is not a Christian

The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata

(Excerpt)

By Gina Apostol

It was a bolt – a thunder bolt. A rain of bricks, a lightning zap. A pummeling of mountains, a heaving violent storm at sea – a whiplash. A typhoon. An earthquake. The end of the world. And I was in ruins. It struck me dumb. It changed my life and the world was new when I was done. And when I raised myself from bed two days later, I thought: It’s only a novel. If I ever met him, what would my life be? I lay back in bed. But what a novel! And I cursed him, the writer – what was his name – for doing what I hadn’t done, for putting my worlds into words before I even had the sense to know what the world was. That was his triumph – he’d laid out a trail, and all we had to do is follow his wake. Even then, I already felt the bitter envy, the acid retch of a latecomer artist, the one who will always be under the influence, by mere chronology always slightly suspect, a borrower, never lender be. After him, all Filipinos are tardy ingrates. What is the definition of art? Art is reproach to those who receive it. That was his curse upon all of us. I was weak, as if drugged. I realized: I hadn’t eaten in two days. Then I got out of bed and boiled barako for me.

Later it was all the rage in the coffee shops, in the bazaars of Binondo. People did not even hide it – crowds of men, and not just students, not just boys, some women even, with their violent fans – gesticulating in public, throwing up their hands, putting up fists in debate. Put your knuckle where your mouth is. We were loud, obstreperous, heedless. We were literary critics. We were cantankerous: rude raving. And no matter which side you were, with the crown or with the infidels, Spain or Spolarium, all of us, each one, seemed revitalized by spleen, hatched by the woods of long, venomous silence. And yes, suddenly the world opened up to me, after the novel, to which before I had been blind.

***

Still I rushed into other debates, for instance with Benigno and Agapito, who had now moved into my rooms. Remembering Father Gaspar’s cryptic injunction -  “throw it away to someone else,” so that in this manner the book traveled rapidly in those dark days of its printing, now so nostalgically glorious, though then I had no clue that these were historic acts, the act of reading, or that the book would be such a collector’s item, or otherwise I would have wrapped it in parchment and sealed it for the highest bidder, what the hell, I only knew holding the book could very likely constitute a glorious crime – in short, I lent it to Benigno.

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GUIDE QUESTIONS:

1. Why did Noli Me Tangere have such a big impression on the Narrator? Could you relate to the feelings of the Narrator’s experience of reading? Why or why not?

2. What does the line, “Art is reproach to those who receive it” mean?

3. When the narrator says the act of reading is a historic act, what did he mean?

2.        4. During those times, do you think you would have been moved to fight against the government after reading the novel?

5. They say that the act of reading gives people more empathy and makes them more critical and reflective. Do you think this true?

6. Given this excerpt, what do you think is the importance of literature to society? Is this still applicable today?

7. Why is the Noli Me  Tangere, a book that was banned in the past, now a required reading in Philippine schools? Why did the Catholic Church go against making Noli a requiremet.

2.        8. Do you think there should ever be a time when certain books should be banned? Why or why not