Noli Me Tangere by Filipino Polymath José Rizal - Book Review

Noli Me Tangere is a novel by Filipino polymath José Rizal and first published in 1887 in Berlin,Germany. Early English translations used titles like An Eagle Flight and The Social Cancer, but more recent translations have been published using the original Latin title.

Though originally written in Spanish, it is more commonly published and read in the Philippines in either English or Filipino. Together with its sequel (El Filibusterismo), the reading of Noli is obligatory for junior high school students all throughout the archipelago.

Jose Rizal, a Filipino nationalist and medical doctor, conceived the idea of writing a novel that would expose the ills of Philippine society after reading Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. He preferred that the prospective novel express the way Filipino culture was backward, anti-progress, anti-intellectual, and not conducive to the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. He was then a student of medicine in the Universidad Central de Madrid.

In a reunion of Filipinos at the house of his friend Pedro A. Paterno in Madrid on 2 January 1884, Rizal proposed the writing of a novel about the Philippines written by a group of Filipinos. His proposal was unanimously approved by the Filipinos present at the party, among whom were Pedro, Maximino and Antonio Paterno, Graciano López Jaena, Evaristo Aguirre, Eduardo de Lete, Julio Llorente and Valentin Ventura. However, this project did not materialize. The people who agreed to help Rizal with the novel did not write anything. Initially, the novel was planned to cover and describe all phases of Filipino life, but almost everybody wanted to write about women. Rizal even saw his companions spend more time gambling and flirting with Spanish women. Because of this, he pulled out of the plan of co-writing with others and decided to draft the novel alone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noli_me_Tangere_(novel)

El filibusterismo (lit. Spanish for "The Filibustering"[1]), also known by its English alternate title The Reign of Greed,[2] is the second novel written by Philippine national hero José Rizal. It is the sequel to Noli Me Tangere and like the first book, was written in Spanish. It was first published in 1891 in Ghent, Belgium. Throughout the Philippines, the novel is read in senior high schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Filibusterismo

The content of Rizal's writings changed considerably in his two most famous novels, Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. These writings angered both the Spaniards colonial elite and some of the hispanized Filipinos due to their insulting symbolism. They are highly critical of Spanish friars and the atrocities committed in the name of the Church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Rizal