Insurrecto Hardcover – November 13, 2018

Insurrecto: A Novel by Gina AposotolThis book is a work of art and neither a work of historical fiction nor really a coherent novel. While the story of Samar and the Balangiga Massacre form the backdrop of the book, it's not intended to be a work of historical fiction on that era. As made quite clear in the author's rambling "Notes" section at the end, even the historical footnotes are made up. The heroines in the book are intentionally fictional as one point of the author's is to write a book of female empowerment-- there was no female photographer in Samar who later testified in outrage before Congress. My favorite part of the book was the author's essay "How Do We Know the Things that Make Us?" in the afterword describing her life, education, political interests, and her intentions for writing this novel. I highly recommend reading it before even beginning the book."The vestiges of the two histories, Filipino and American, exist like a haunting—a trace that is both invisible and unknown yet whenever I look up around me now, at this world of Trump and Duterte, for instance, twin fascists who now lead my two countries—it is relentlessly present...the novel grapples with my synchronic sense of history, the way I think we exist in simultaneous times—of horror but also of resistance—in which by recognizing the limitations of our human gazes, maybe we will heal."This book was marketed to me repeatedly by Amazon as I have reviewed several other books about the Philippines. Other than the author's stated intention (above), it's hard to see what the point of the book is. It is rather though the author signed a commission with a publisher to write books, and set out to write them as they came to stream of consciousness. She does credit the friend who gave her the idea for a topic.I read the book along with a Filipino friend who helped me understand some of the subtle cultural and geographic references that would be lost on a foreign reader. I lived in the Philippines for a couple years and I would say this is also a useful prerequisite for reading this book. However, my friend and I found the book's non-linear format rather exhausting (part II has eleven sections labeled "Chapter 1," for example). We found it difficult to get to the end, and ending which we both found rather unsatisfying. Rather than have the book carry on towards nowhere in particular, the author mercifully ends it.I did appreciate much of the imagery of the modern Philippines, as such I appreciate the book as art. One feels the grime of Manila, the endless tropical heat, the frustrations of the crowds of people, the madness of police killings, the joy of its people in singing. The scars of its history are real, and echo to the present, and the author does well to show both the odd mixture of the good and bad of American presence there. (For a simple starting point on the Banlangiga Massacre, I recommend Michael Sellers' Warriors of Samar: Inside the Balangiga Massacre as a starting point.)If this line from the book appeals to you, then by all means buy the book:"Manila is necrotized in America, too—scar tissue so deeply hidden and traumatized no one needs to know it. One is in the other and the other is in one, she thought, feeling ill in Nashville."I give the book 2 stars out of 5.

I lucked into an advance reader copy of Insurrecto, and about ten pages into it, I had the same intellectual (and even bodily) response that I'd had the first time I read books like Beloved and Lolita: I knew I was reading a masterpiece already, and every subsequent page only deepened that sensation. It is quite true that one would have to have a taste for layered, experimental, dizzyingly metafictional books to fully appreciate this novel--Apostol's imagination is too fecund, too convinced of the pluralities of existence to settle for straightforward, New Yorker-style realism. But the novel is extraordinary, too, in the way it works like both a darkly comic road trip narrative and a braided, dead-serious look at the inadequately broadcast truth of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines. Three time periods--1901, the 1970s, and now--are placed like palimpsests over one another, or juxtaposed next to one another, to reveal the fundamentally cyclical nature of oppression, despotism, cultural forgetting and cultural remembrance. It is full of clever structural jokes, amusing and poignant references to pop culture (Muhammad Ali and Elvis get plenty of page space), and deeply researched history of the Balangiga Massacre of 1901. It is a nakedly political novel that, nevertheless, never feels preachy. I got an education on Philippines history and politics; I got enormous pleasure from the Nabokov-like brilliance and wit of Apostol's prose; I discovered some new writers from the many references tossed out in the book, and in the end, I came to feel more attached than I would've imagined to the two flinty women at the story's center.This is, straight up, a literary masterpiece.

Knew almost nothing about the country

I started this book and put months after reading 10 pages because it felt contrived and trivial. If I had read 20 more pages I would have been hooked.Now I know it is a serious but entertaining mediation on history, colonialism, the U.S. Phillipinian war, Elvis and popular culture.

This novel began with great potential. Thought I was in for a great ride, but sadly, things deteriorated rapidly after about page 50. As an American married to a Filipina and currently living long term here in Luzon, I was so excited for this story. But the only thing that kept me reading the rest of this scattered novel were the details of the food and culture. There was no coherent story, more like the opposite, the more you read the more confusing things get. Zero plot. Zero character development. Zero focus. I have no idea why this novel won multiple accolades. It did not deserve to be published, and was basically a waste of time. This from a lifelong reader of literary fiction, and a writer of 7 novels myself, 4 of which I'd also give 2 stars! So I know what a good book is, and this most certainly is NOT! Skip it....

Very well written and challenging. I am interested in the Philippines, its history and its relationship with the US. This novel was really excellent.

I think I should read this book again. The author has written a very complex book. Fascinating, confusing, beautiful, and moving.

brought this book for a friend. she loved it.