Don Vicente: Two Novels

Rosales Saga #2-3

by F. Sionil José

Written in elegant and precise prose, Don Vicente contains two novels in F. Sionil José's classic Rosales Saga . The saga, begun in José's novel Dusk, traces the life of one family, and that of their rural town of Rosales, from the Philippine revolution against Spain through the arrival of the Americans to, ultimately, the Marcos dictatorship.
        
The first novel here, Tree , is told by the loving but uneasy son of a land overseer. It is the story of one young man's search for parental love and for his place in a society with rigid class structures. The tree of the title is a symbol of the hopes and dreams--too often dashed--of the Filipino people.
        
The second novel, My Brother, My Executioner , follows the misfortunes of two brothers, one the editor of a radical magazine who is tempted by the luxury of the city, the other an activist who is prepared to confront all of his enemies, real or imagined. The critic I. R. Cruz called it "a masterly symphony" of injustice, women, sex, and suicide.
        
Together in Don Vicente , they form the second volume of the five-novel Rosales Saga, an epic the Chicago Tribune has called "a masterpiece."

Genres: Historical Fiction, Literature

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Francisco Sionil José was born in 1924 in Pangasinan province and attended the public school in his hometown. He attended the University of Santo Tomas after World War II and in 1949, started his career in writing. Since then, his fiction has been published internationally and translated into several languages including his native Ilokano. He has been involved with the international cultural organizations, notably International P.E.N., the world association of poets, playwrights, essayists and novelists whose Philippine Center he founded in 1958.

F. Sionil José, the Philippines' most widely translated author, is known best for his epic work, the Rosales saga - five novels encompassing a hundred years of Philippine history - a vivid documentary of Filipino life.

In 1980, Sionil José received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.

In 2001, Sionil José was named National Artist for Literature.

In 2004, Sionil José received the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award.

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished the two novels that comprise this book. Those two are the second and third books of the Rosales saga written by F. Sionil Jose: Tree (4 stars) and My Brother, My Executioner (Rosales Saga, #3) (3 stars).

The author released this book, Don Vicente separately because these two novels have this illustrious rich man Don Vicente as their focal character. I would not say main character because in "Tree" the don barely appears but his presence looms on every page of the story. The main character, Esperidion is the caretaker of Don Vicente and the former is always afraid of upsetting or piquing the latter.

In "My Brother, My Executioner," Don Vicente is a secondary character. He is the cunning landowner who manipulates people around him. However, deep inside, he is afraid of losing his wealth as he feels that he has the responsibility of keeping it for the sake of his father who worked hard in tilling and cultivating the land. Towards the end of the novel, it was also revealed that he is a very loving father as he keeps all the newspaper clippings, school records of his son, Luis, as it is too late already since Don Vincente is already dead and Luis does not really love him.

The character of Don Vicente in this novel is definitely interesting. At the start of the second novel, you see him bringing his 6-y/o son Luis to the tomb of his departed wife. Why only now? Why is he crying? Then in the next scene you will see him welcoming his son and lavishing him with all the food that he likes on the table. Or so you think that he is all soft and tender. However, slowly but surely, the evil deeds associated with him are one-by-one revealed as the story unfolds and you will have all the possible hatreds that will make you utter the most vicious vindictive towards him then in the end when he is already gone, the author will try to win you over back to Don Vincente's side by revealing his good gentle loving heart. It is strange but doesn't it mirror the reality? We normally think of a dead man's good deeds and we say all praises only when he is gone.

I am now on the fourth book of the saga, The Pretenders and there is no more Don Vincente. However, he, the don, is one of the most intriguing characters F. Sionil seemed to have managed to create. Multi-dimensional, definitely in gray area, just enough exposure to still maintain the mystery and leaves you to ask for more.

One thing is for sure, though, he is definitely human.

My picture with the author, F. Sionil Jose and my fellow bookclubbers in "Pinoy Reads Pinoy Books."

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed both novels very much. I thought the first, The Tree, to be the best. It made its point in a more subtle way. The images of rural life in the Philippines were well drawn. Both novels illustrate how privilege in a society with gross economic disparity can corrupt. The elite as well as the masses suffer. This is a central theme in the recent novel Ilustrado by Miquel Syjuco . I wonder if Crispin in Illustrado was in part inspired by Jose.

[Ultimotomasino · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hacienda becomes the setting and the battlefield for F. Sionil Jose's two more novels in the famed Rosales Saga.

In Tree, the reader finds himself flung into the life of the young unnamed narrator who hails from the changing province of Rosales Pangasinan where the tension between tenant and landowner stiffens.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

TREE

The book is about how masters treat their servants badly and the fatalistic future for people in traditional society in which social hierarchies are destined from birth. I give TREE 3 stars.

The book starts with the protagonist feels like he did not live up to his potential because of compromises and procrastinations. At middle age, he is not where he thought he would be at this point in his life. The protagonists flashes back to his past to see how he got to this point. The protagonist is a second generation college educated man who lost his father in some cataclysmic event in which the town square burned down. His cousin, Marcelo, who is an unstable artist tells him that people have hope in their eyes now that a year has passed from that cataclysmic event.

In his youth, the protagonist befriended Hilda a circus performer who was not afraid of him because she laid outside the normal landed cast system being a traveling circus performer. Perhaps, it was better to be an outsider the normal hierarchical system if one is poor because one is not beholden to an oppressive system. Hilda seems to be a well-adjusted 9 year old girl who had confidence in herself because of the skill she performs with people's adulation. Hilda had a crush on the protagonists and when he did not appear to see her performance, she fell and nearly died from her tight-walk act.

The protagonist's grandfather, a homesteader, was able to get his own lands and gradually increase his land holdings. The protagonists states that Ilokanos are thrifty people who like to save money whenever possible. He wanted his descendants to have a college education since he saw it as a gateway out of being a simple farmer. So, all his children went to college except for Tio Benito who had an adventurer's blood in him so he went to the US at age 18 in search for a better life. He paid for his passage to the US by stealing from grandpa's grain and selling it to Chinese merchants.

Tio Benito is spiritual but not religious saying organized religion only enriches the priest and nuns and isn't necessary since God knows you owe everything to him. Too bad, he succumbed to American materialism while he was in California. Although he is correct that capitalism is the only way to enrich and impoverished nation, it is troubling that he focuses on the false idol of material goods. Tio Benito tried religion in the Philippines but did not like any of the religious denominations he visited.

Even though Tio Benito like the freedom that 1920's America offered, it was the land of opportunity only to WASPs not for people of other races in which they had difficulty finding jobs. Tio Benito like the ideals which Americans represent but resented that they did not actually live up to those ideals when it came to other races or immigrants. In California, he had a blond girlfriend whom he fooled around with on Sundays during his off days from picking fruits as a migrant worker. Tio Benito married a rich older woman who converted him to Iglesia ni Kristo. Did he convert because he believed in its religious tenets or was it because the lady was rich?

Father, land overseer/bario captain, worked for Don Vicente (Lolo Emok) who was land lord who financially funded Quezon. Does father who seems to be a minor landlord himself work for Don Vicente because of the power he gets from working for such a powerful man?

Grandpa thought the balette tree had magical properties. Grandfather treated his servants like family because he was a first generation land owner and knew the importance of good servants who were integral for his success as a farmer. He was ready to die at the age of 70 and rightly refused to prolong his life unnecessarily. He developed an apathy toward the Spanish priests and later the church. Like American Transcendentalists, Grandpa equated being close to nature with being close to God. What a great way to go hearing bells that can be liken to an angelic death knell.

Tenants were clamoring for Father to take their children as house servants as they received 3 square meals a day which was much more than their family could afford. Protagonist made friends with Ludovico who is a son of a servant. He died because he was malnourished, overworked, and poor. His mother probably has TB. After Ludovico and Grandpa's death, Carmay lost the appeal it had for the Protagonists.

Father wanted clear boundaries to exists between his son and the servants. While other servants were subservient, Martina had a natural self-confidence that buckled social convention. She worked at the house as a servant because Father felt guilty that her father got into an accident working for him and lost his limbs as a result. Martina lost her mother as a baby. Her father said that she was bad luck just as her mother was bad luck to him. I wonder if Martina internalized and became what her father told her was her destiny to be his bad luck. Martina stole from her employer because she thinks that their hard work should go to them and not to the land owner. The Protagonist abandoned both his friendships with Ludovico and Martina when he is confronted by something uncomfortable about his friends circumstances that he does not share with them.

The patronage system held that land owners were responsible for their wards in exchange for absolute loyalty. The inherent weakness of the patronage system is tenant farmers were rewarded based on subjective measures instead of legal objective means so both sides think that the other is cheating them of what is owed to them. One good thing about the patronage system is that Father was able to give Padre Andong rice though he was not a devout church goer. Padre Andong dressed and ate like a poor person but was a disciplinarian when it came to Catholic rituals which he considered absolute holiness. Padre Andong saved the silver he received for his salary in order to build a proper church in Rosales

Maternal cousin, Clarissa was exiled to Rosales because her parents did not want her to have suitor without a college degree. Father told his son to intercept the love letters from Clarissa to his Cebuano suitor and vice versa and give it to Father after which he was to burn the letters. After paternal cousin, Pedring started courting Clarissa, they seemingly got married happily. Only years later when the Protagonist told Clarissa what he did, did he realize that she is still in love with the uneducated clerk's son but was doomed to failure because of differing class.

When the Protagonist fell in love with a bright girl of a tenant named Teresita, he realized the wrong he caused Clarissa in destroying the love letters between her and her college un-educated beau. At the age of 15, the Protagonist fell in love with a 16 yrs old Teresita though he was set to leave for Manila to go to college he did not want to leave her first love. She correctly teaches him that giving has to be more than about giving things. He fell in love with the passionate resonant voice with which she read a poem about faith and love and how suffering and loss could be borne with fortitude. Wisdom can be seen in many people from different classes. She told the Protagonist that he never recognized her before because he never pays attention to the children of his Father's tenant farmer. It is a shame that Teresita did not want to attend her high school graduation because she could not afford clothes for the occasion. It is also a shame that a glass ceiling is placed to Teresita who is smart enough to enjoy the books that the Protagonist gave her but was not the right class to afford a college education.

Father could make it harder for his tenants to farm by changing where they live from fertile land to infertile land. Perhaps, he sold Teresita's father's fertile land in order to discourage the budding romance between Teresita and the Protagonist. Everyone around them knew that the budding romance was doomed from the start because of class and perhaps race difference. When Protagonist returned home for his father's burial, he found out that Teresita died.

Cousin Marcelo accepted the label that he was slightly off because it allowed him to do what he wanted outside the prescribed social convention. He was the happiest man that the Protagonist knew and thus did not mind if the label of being slightly off was also used on him. Cousin Marcelo graduated summa cum laude in philosophy from Ateneo. Perhaps, the fact he excelled in academia made him immune to people questioning his sanity. He was unpretentious because though he loved the education he got he did not really care about the diploma showing his completion.

Cousin Marcelo had a bohemian disposition and attitude. His positive disposition made him look younger than his years suggests. He was an artist by profession. Jose describes him as an artist who lived in his own mind without burdening himself with mundane affairs that occupied most people's minds. He painted an abstract painting of Don Vicente with black overcast because he thought him to be greedy. Marcelo vacationed in Manila once a month. Protagonist liked him because he always brought back chocolate and books for Protagonist.

Father sent Tio Baldo, a promising smart man who was the Protagonist's tutor for along time, to college to be a surveyor. Tio Baldo sought to rectify the land that Don Vicente from some of his tenant farmers because of their ignorance of the laws about delineating their land from that of Don Vicente. Father imparted to Tio Baldo education and the wisdom to know right from wrong. When Don Vicente tried to bribe Tio Baldo with a concubine or with money, he proved to be incorruptible. So he went to the courts to seek justice not knowing that Don Vicente bought the judge with his money.

He hung himself after losing all the money that the peasants entrusted to him to him to legally get their stolen land back. Protagonist thinks that Tio Baldo committed suicide because the people he tried to help thought he stole from them combined with the fact that justice could be bought for a price in the Philippines. Jose sees suicide as heroic when faced with an insurmountable force but an admission that one failed to achieve once goals in life. The Protagonist considers suicide to have unintended consequences beyond once personal actions. For example, Father felt profound guilt at the downfall of Baldo whom he placed into college and had deep respect for.

Father felt jealous with the attention that Ms Santillan got from Mr Sanchez and cut the budding romance before it bloomed into full fruition under his house. Ms Santillan played the piano and sang well. She finally moved out when Father became too restrictive on who she sees.

The Protagonist is mad that his Father has a mistress but should be happy that he has found companionship that makes him happy. Ironically, it was the mistress who was truly in love with his father and accepts him despite his many faults. Though the Protagonist respect his father, he never felt that they loved each other.

Jose makes a strong case for sustainable farming practices when he points out Father and Old David can no longer hunt easily due to overpopulation and resulting overuse of the land for farming purposes that has killed off the deer, wild boar, and birds that are gone due to a decimation of their natural habitat. Father's pride was hurt when Old David coached the Protagonist on how to hunt and find their way out of the delta. Father was hurt that the son turned out to be a more skillful tracker than the Father. For this knowledge imparted on his son, Father slapped Old David twice on his face.

Servants and beast of burden such as horses were treated like slaves by the landowners. Old David had empathy for the overworked horse because they treated him just like the overworked horse. What is worse is that a loyal servant like Old David is made fun of by the family that employs him when they know it is hard to find loyal servants in the city. Was Old David always drunk because he was tired of the life of a servant whose work is not appreciated?

Except for Tio Doro's channeling his nationalistic pride into the political arena, the family had an anathema to politics. Tio Doro admired people who would die for their country. He was an advocate for Filipino independence from foreign rule. Although he was a elementary school principal by training, he became active in politics when his wife died. Although he ran multiple times, his extremist nationalistic ideology (American Nativist sentiment) led him to continuously lose due to his opposition to the business interest of the Chinese as well as being calling American's hypocrites for not allowing Filipino to rule themselves. Tio Doro slowly left active politics as his ALS progressed but was still the power broker behind the scenes behind the opposition.

WWII changed the power structure in that everyone was fighting for their own survival; thus destroying the patronage social structure since the land lords no longer could protect their wards. WWII also showed how the tenant farmers could band together to fight any oppressor from the Japanese to later their landlords.
Because of institutional racism and the law that enforces such racism, tenant farmers forever get into debt that they cannot repay. The prolonged drought made the tenants hungry and desperate so they endeavored to storm the storage where Father kept the seed crops. Father did not want to give them seed crops because their would be no seeds to plant for the future. While Father acknowledge that Don Vicente may have stolen land from the tenants, he said that he worked for his lands.

Angel's parents went to Mindanao and found similar oppression as elsewhere and finally death which Jose seems to say is the lot of the poor. As for Angel, he left because he wanted to be the master of his own fate. It did not matter to him whether he joined the military or the Huk as long as he dies on his own terms and not what circumstances dictate for him. The protagonist cites soldiers who enlists because it is their only way out of poverty. This sounds familiar because in the US it also poorer people who typically enlist. Father is operating under the assumption that the old order still held in that room and board was enough to pacify his servants without giving them personal freedom. Thus in his view, Angel is an ingrate for leaving.

Father wanted the Protagonist to go to college in the city so he could experience city life and would learn and grow up. Father wanted his son to be an individual who would not trust anyone but his own instincts because he believed the world is a cruel place that will destroy people who are too trusting. Perhaps, this is how landlords transform from nice boys to self-serving dicks. Because he saw enemies everywhere, Father died by multiple bolo hacking wounds by the hands of his tenants. For Marcelo, this was the best thing that happened to the Protagonist because he is no longer tied to the land of his ancestors like his father and his tenants.

In the end, the Protagonist sees life circumstances as something that cannot be changed which is appropriate for a traditional society in which social hierarchy predominate instead of social mobility. He sees people as victims of their social circumstances and perhaps this is inherent in farming societies where unpredictible weather patterns plays a huge role in determining once success. He thinks his fate is inevitable. Although he is "a creature of comfort and a victim to his past", he dreams of being a self-made man whose virtue allows him to succeed, a fighter of corruption. Instead, he cites how honesty and service are rewarded by banishment in the society he lives in.


MY BROTHER, MY EXECUTIONER:

I give this book 5 stars for the complexity of Luis, I found utterly fascinating.

Luis Asperri is Don Vicente's bastard son from a tenant farmer's daughter he raped. Instead of going back to the confusion of his life in Rosales in which he has to contend with the awkwardness between his privileged rapist father and his poor maternal family, Don Vicente visits him in Manila five times a year and goes to his favorite gambling den in San Juan and whorehouses in Pasay. Unfortunately his father becomes sick with chronic diseases that visit the rich, so Luis has to go back to Rosales.

Unsurprisingly in a traditional society that is late in coming to globalization, he finds a changeless landscape. Infrastructure investments determine the destiny of whether a small town like Rosales becomes a major trading center or stuck in its agriculture past. Like Roxas City, Rosales is stale in its changeless nature. Here patience is a vice of inaction rather than a virtue. Because of land overuse for farming purposes, an increasing population is getting less and less production for a given plot of land. Since more forest has been cleared for farming purposes, the animals that would have sustained people during agricultural lean years are gone. In turn, labor is getting organized to get back what is rightfully theirs by law in which Don Vicente and Americans favored landowners in order centralized control thereby enslaving the tenant farmers. Luis sees the army as an institution to protect the privilege because as his father rightly states who ever controls the guns controls the state and whomever controls the state controls the country's order.

He felt guilty that he is no longer part of the land where he was born instead was plucked from obscurity in order to be the heir of the Asperri fortune. For this reason, he feels that life was dictated on him not one he chose. Like Lolo Emok affair with Lola Pres, Luis mother is servant of Don Vicente. He lived part of his boyhood as a poor peasant while the part of his life he lived as the son of Don Vicente. So while Luis lives a life of luxury, his mother, maternal grandfather, and half-brother live in poverty. He feels closer to his maternal family than to his father. So the people who are serving him could be his relatives. The servants who drove him home are both of Malay stock, like Santos, lesser landlord, kept his position by sheer talent while his cousin, Simeon is not dim-whitted and acts as a "jack of all trades".

Although Ilokano's are hard workers, they are constantly in debt so they will forever be slaves to the land of the landowners. Even though Don Vicente wanted to live his life in Manila or Europe, he was as much enslaved by the land he owned as his tenant farmers due to his duty to his niece whose parents were massacred by unhappy tenant farmers. Because Don Vicente was given his job by his forebearers, he did not consider work to be a noble venture. Unlike his illegitamite son who considers his job as a journalist as a vocation, Don Vicente sees work as a chore. Because he does not want to be trapped by the land he will inherit, he took a job as a professional journalist that gives him the freedom to get out. As a professional journalist, he could afford to look with disdain towards what the landowners are doing to their wards and secretly sympathize with the plight of the tenant farmers.

[Jenina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not finish this book, at least not yet? All I have are these dogeared bits and pieces for future keeping.

“The journey to the past— a hazardous track through byways dim and forgotten — forgotten because I chose to regard many things about this past.”

“I am a commuter, not between the city and the village [...], I am a commuter between what I was and what I would like to be…”

“...And that is why America is strong, because it worships money.”

“... for as a Chinese sage once said, ‘I searched and searched for truth, and in the end I found there was no truth.”

[ebag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tree was excellent, I’ve said enough about it. The one I had to slog somewhat through was that second novel “My Brother, My Executioner”. I complained earlier on about it’s slow burning pace, which was a stark contrast to Tree’s conciseness. That being said, the story that proceeded to unfold is one that I never expected, and my opinion of My Brother, My Executioner has changed 180 degrees.

Excellent works of Philippine Lit.

[Jackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of “Don Vicente”
By: F. Sionil Jose
“Don Vicente” contained books two and three of “The Rosales” saga and focused on landowner Don Vicente, though he didn’t appear in book two “Tree”, only “My Brother, my Executioner”, but was the over looming shadow.
“Tree” was about the young son of the land overseer and how he was caught between the love he had for his father and not understanding why they had turned their backs on the people of Rosales. Book three “My Brother, Executioner” was about the bastard son of landowner Don Vicente, Luis. Luis enjoyed the life he was given by Don Vicente, who claimed him as his son when he was a young boy, but Luis’ mother was a Filipino peasant, and he tried to fight for the rights of the peasant class as a radical magazine editor.
“Tree” was told from the perspective of an unnamed boy who still had hope and hadn’t become a cynical person. He was just learning how complicated people were and that his father was a flawed human. Like most children he looked up to his father but bared the brunt of the hatred his father received when he chose to do what Don Vincente requested that forced the people off the land. His father had no choice, because it was, he and his son’s livelihood since Don Vincente is his boss, and the father had to make a difficult choice. The titular “Tree” represented hope in the eyes of the boy.
“My Brother, My Executioner” has an older more cynical narrator, Luis, who understood the harsh reality for the Filipino peasants. Unlike the boy in “Tree” he had been freely put into a position of a privileged existence as the son of Don Vicente. Luis was lucky, because Don Vicente actually cared about Luis, and made sure he had the best upbringing, but Luis left behind his mother and half-brother, who became an activist as an adult, when taken in by Don Vicente. Luis used sophisticated tactics to show what the Filipinos suffer with his education by becoming an editor at radical magazine while his half-brother used more guerilla like tactics, even threatening Don Vicente’s life by burning land and house. There was guilt and shame for Luis, but he had to admit he enjoyed his privileged life. Luis had opportunities that his brother didn’t, and he was protected from the consequences that went against his father’s wishes to not defend the Filipinos but helped them see Don Vicente was doing what was best for them.
Both explored themes of identity and class and how it affected these two young men in different ways. I preferred “My Brother, my Executioner”, because of the exploration of his conflicting feelings on being in a privileged position, but not forgetting where he had come from. Luis is caught between two forceful figures: his father and his half-brother. Luis’ father was an arrogant man, who thinks because he had the power, he could do whatever he wanted, despite who suffered from his actions. Luis’ feelings about his father were complicated, because he learned his father did care about him and was proud of him. Luis couldn’t hate the man, despite what he did to his mother’s people. The relationships dynamics are interesting to read about as the characters in both stories navigated them during the tumultuous time in their homeland of the Philippines.
“Tree” and “My Brother, my Executioner” were tense, heartbreaking, and showed the struggles of those caught in middle of this fight for freedom in the Philippines. They had a lot more going on than their predecessor “Dusk” and I cannot wait to continue this series with “The Pretenders” and “Mass”.

[Cece Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is two of the five-part Rosales Saga. The antagonistic obese, Don Vicente, is their common character. Unlike “The Samsons: The Pretenders and Mass” as well as “Dusk”; the protagonists of “Don Vicente: Two Novels" are rich boys; hence, their problems are not as heavy as the Samson antiheroes.

Thus my ratings:
Tree - 4.5 stars (Vicente is repeatedly mentioned, but appears only once)
My Brother, My Executioner - 2.5 stars (Vicente is ailing, eventually dies amid)

Tree's unnamed protagonist is son to the rich sublandlord Espiridion of the wealthy Vicente's hacienda. That protagonist's grandfather is Don Jacinto, the rich and liberal mestizo who took care of Apolinario Mabini in another Rosales Saga novel, "Po-On" (transl: Dusk). The story's genre is melodrama. My Brother, My Executioner's protagonist is Vicente's bastard son/only child, Luis Asperri. This one is controversial (banned during Martial Law) and has the genre of an action-drama. That brother in the title is Luis' oppressed maternal half-brother, Victor.

It is difficult to sympathize with the problematic (f-boy, self-centered, complex) Luis Asperri of the second novel when you have read the gracious and courteous protagonist of the first novel beforehand. Must I add that the 17-year-old protagonist kid of "Tree" is way more mature than the 20-something Asperri heir of "My Brother, My Executioner".

Although "My Brother, My Executioner" was published in 1973, and "Tree", in 1978; the latter is chronologically set earlier than the former.

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sionil writes place well. I felt like I was back in Pangasinan while reading. This is a compilation of two books, and I wasn't engaged in plot or character in the first book. But the second drew me in the way the best stories do. I'd give that book five stars.

[Jean Jean]

i think it is a interesting book and I want to read that book because it is written by a good author which is Sionil Jose and I think also that I can learn something in this book.