Dapitan Schoolboy: A Novel

by Patricia Laurel

At 12 Joselito had just gone through all the schooling available in his tiny hometown of Dapitan and wondered what awaited him in life without further education. Then one night he saw a stranger disembark on the shore accompanied by soldiers headed for the Casa Real. Later it was rumored that the stranger was a dangerous man, best for all to stay away from. But curious and observant from a distance, Joselito came to believe otherwise, and pleaded with his parents to approach the man.

Jose Rizal went on to open a secondary-level school for boys in Dapitan and did all the teaching himself until his exile in that town came to an end.

This is the story of a young person’s discovery of the wondrous world of knowledge and the unjust world of men. Joselito left Dapitan with his maestro and kept daily service to him in prison at Fort Santiago. He witnessed the execution on the field of Bagumbayan.

This, too, is the story of Rizal’s last years in life, from 1892 to 1896, quietly prodigious and magnanimous to the townsfolk, stimulating and inspiring to his students, ultimately self-sacrificing to his nation, as intimately witnessed and shared by the Dapitan schoolboy.

114 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Neil Franz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read.

Rizal's life in novel format told by one of his students in Dapitan, Joselito. Same lang din halos kapag nagbabasa ng Rizal/history book. May konting bagong anggulo/emosyon lang sa buhay ni Rizal.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book out of sheer curiosity and my resolution to read more Filipino fiction. The book is very short but I wish it was longer. This was just basically a quick retelling of Jose Rizal's life in Dapitan. Not much fiction in the sense that the characters are not really fleshed out and they're one dimensional (even Rizal).

The idea of the story being told in the lens of one of Rizal's pupils was very interesting and promising to me as we get to explore Rizal as a teacher, as an ordinary person. It would also be interesting to see how he is with children as well as with his patients. Was he strict? stern? playful? Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of that.

Description of daily life of locals in Dapitan were also scarce, and doggedly focused on their relationship with Rizal. I also would've liked it better if the author explored more about the daily life of the locals there.

But maybe all of these are just a matter of my taste and expectation from the book. That, and the fact that the author is not really a native of Dapitan (she's the great granddaughter of Rizal's sister and she lives abroad) so I shouldn't really expect something extensive. I'm also not sure how much research she did for this, aside from visiting Dapitan and talking to relatives of Rizal's students.

[Sandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually abandon books I am not enjoying, but this time I pushed through and finished it. When I finished the book I let out a guttural groan and tossed the book across the book and exclaimed, "ugh! I finished it!" I think most of my frustration with the book is that it had so much potential. Sayang!! The storyline was interesting and there was indeed a story to be told within those pages.

If I had to summarize my thoughts on the book it would be that it felt like an outline to a potentially really great story to be told with the help of a good editor. The book itself felt like it missed the editorial step completely. In the beginning chapters, t was confusing because the tense of the sentences kept switching so I didn't know if the narrator was speaking of the past, present or future. Also the sentence structure was often the same (subject, verb, comment), over and over again - which gave it a cold and mechanical feel. Several sentences in the same paragraph all began with the same first word which also made the story a bit robotic and choppy feeling.

I also struggled with the narrator himself. The book was obviously all about Rizal, but it was told through the narration of a young boy. But the boy himself was almost a ghost of a character to the story, I didn't learn hardly anything about the boy narrator, except he had an awful habit of ease-dropping, hiding in the bushes and around the corner in order to obtain enough gossip to piece together this story. I kept telling him in my mind, "get out of the bushes and get a life!"

The author takes a lot of assumption on her readers too. I felt that more could have been told to enhance and highlight Rizal himself and his historical significance. Part of the trouble I think is that the author spent most of her time telling and not showing the reader who Rizal was as a man and national hero. It was almost just an assumed given that Rizal was a hero so no effort was needed to reflect or highlight that in the story and develop his character. And because so much of the story was telling and not showing, the plot proceeded and developed at a rapid pace, skipping over so much plot line that I really wanted to learn more of, to linger and see more slowly how each aspect of the story developed.

I feel as if this book was a big frustrating, "Oh bummer!" because the Philippines has a rich and beautiful history and this story really could have been something. I would have given this book 1 star, but because it is about Rizal I gave it an extra star. I picked up this book to pre-read in order to use it later with my kids for homeschooling.

[aliyah · Rating 1 out of 5]

i was hoping for deeper insight into the narrator’s relationship with rizal and rizal as person, yet the narrator just merely reiterates what's already written in our textbooks. all of the characters feel one-dimensional. even rizal himself comes across a one-dimensional historical figure lifted straight from a history book rather than a fully realized character in a fictionalized retelling of his life in dapitan. lastly, the author’s poor english vocabulary was very hard to ignore.