“Could it be that he had grown too soft for a city such as this, a place possessed by a very different balance? Here, need blurs the line between good and bad, and a constant promise of random violence sticks like humidity down your back. Wholly different from the zeitgeist lining the Western world, with its own chaos given order by multitudes of films and television shows, explained into our communal understanding by op-ed pieces and panel discussions and the neatness of stories linked infinitely to each other online.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte (MAY 17, 2010)

The young Filipino expat, Miguel Syjuco, has some pretty high expectations riding on his shoulders. After all, his debut novel, Ilustrado, won the Man Asian Literary Prize (a cousin of the Booker) in 2008 when it was still a manuscript. Syjuco also seems to face an issue many expat authors invariably do—one of having to defend the authenticity of his voice.

However, as one reads Ilustrado, it becomes evident that the 33-year-old author has seen these issues coming. He is not only talented, but also quite clever. Through a neat writing device, Syjuco presents the dilemma—the question about who owns any nation’s experience—through a character’s voice and then goes about setting up his defense. The complaint is this: “Our heartache for home is so profound we can’t get over it, even when we’re home and never left. Our imaginations grow moss. So every Filipino novel has a scene about the glory of cooking rice, or the sensuality of tropical fruit.” In other words, works written by expat authors seem to ooze sentimentality. The solution, Syjuco suggests, is easy. “Be an international writer, who happens to be Filipino and learn to live with the criticisms of being a Twinkie.”

It is difficult to gauge whether Syjuco follows that sage advice in his debut effort but it is evident that only someone who has lived the life that Syjuco has, can create a novel like Ilustrado. At the book’s outset, a famous Filipino author, Crispin Salvador, is found face down in the Hudson River. At the time of his death, Salvador is a teacher at Columbia after having lived a flamboyant and colorful life back in the Philippines and around Europe. Many have been eagerly awaiting a new work—The Bridges Ablaze—a project Salvador is rumored to have been working on, for a long time.

Among Salvador’s many fans is a young Filipino graduate student of his at Columbia who incidentally, is also named Miguel Syjuco. Even if Salvador’s death is ruled a suicide, he suspects foul play. To add to his doubts, Syjuco gets a strange email from the Philippines implying that the author might have been murdered.

Syjuco, it turns out, has had an interesting life of his own. Born in the Philippines, he moved to Canada along with his siblings when his parents died and is effectively raised by his grandparents. Syjuco has a very fractured relationship with his grandfather, whom he calls Grapes, and a whole set of awkward family dynamics have made returning “home” to Manila not as attractive a proposition as it might seem.

But Syjuco decides he must return to Manila. He believes he can kill two birds with one stone: make some sort of tentative peace with his past and also find out more about Crispin Salvador for a planned biography. From this point on, the story splits into parallel narratives. There is one part that explores Salvador’s past mainly through his autobiography, The Autoplagiarist. Another narrative focuses on Syjuco’s own past and narrates his immigrant experience. A third thread focuses on the present, on Syjuco’s quest to find out more about his teacher. Thrown into this mix are flashes of humor, glimpses of Philippines’ history, and more snippets from Salvador’s work. These different pieces are written in different tones (and even presented in different fonts) and voices and the reader soon draws a larger picture from it all.

In an interview with the New York Times, Syjuco has pointed out that the way we consume information these days is fragmented and Ilustrado seems to cater to that trend. The fragmented pieces of the novel allow Syjuco to weave different narrative threads (varying in time and place) together to create a whole story.

The problem with such an arrangement is that the person whom the young Syjuco wants to learn more about—Crispin Salvador—never really comes fully alive. He remains a half-drawn character, a swashbuckling hero for sure, but not somebody the reader could really care about. So around two thirds of the journey, the attention begins to flag—you’re not so sure you want to learn more about Crispin Salvador, to follow the journey to its logical end. There’s a reason for this, which becomes clear in the epilogue but it might leave some readers wanting. You do, however, begin to care a lot about the young Miguel Syjuco himself—his fractured relationship with his grandparents, his unsettled expat experience, and his reactions upon returning to Manila.

All in all, Ilustrado finds it hard to break free from the weight of its ambitions. It’s difficult after all to encapsulate a nation’s history, maintain other narrative threads about two primary characters and still put together a cohesive story. But there are many flashes of inspired writing in here that make Ilustrado worth taking a look at. The streets of Manila come alive in the novel and one scene which describes the slow onset of a flood in the middle of a highway is simply spectacular.

“Your real home country will be that common ground your work plows between you and your reader,” an author tells the fictional Syjuco when he struggles to define his identity as a writer. At yet another time, he gets this counsel: “Take Mr. Auden’s advice: Be like some valley cheese, local but prized everywhere.” It is hard to gauge which piece of advice Miguel Syjuco seems to be going with in Ilustrado.

It is still early in Syjuco’s career though, and it is clear that he is an immense talent. So whichever path he decides to take in the future, one can rest assured that Syjuco will be going places. And reading Ilustrado can grant the advantage of having been on board right from the start.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 19 readers
PUBLISHER:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (April 27, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Miguel Syjuco
EXTRAS:	Excerpt Ampersand interview with Miguel Syjuco Publisher page on Ilustrado
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Another on the 2008 Man Asia short list: Brothers by Yu Hua A Filipino man’s NYC tale from  a few years ago: Fixer Chao by Han Ong

Bibliography:

• Ilustrado (April 2010)

“Grace, whenever you may find this, I ask this solemn promise: You never forget that we weathered the storm captured in these pages, not by the strength of men, brave as your father was. Women made certain you came to be. Hepzibah Jones, your grandmother Thomasin de Lacey, and me. And perhaps her. The greatest queen England may ever know, the woman who ruled all but her heart.”

“Remember this, your legacy, as you face the world and its many dangers. We women. whether linked by blood or just by circumstances, whatever names history chooses to call us – Jones or de Lacey, Wyatt, Boleyn ot Tudor. We are survivors, all.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie (DEC 29, 2009)

In 1554, Lady Elinor de Lacey pays her first visit to London. She is five years-old. Elinor, (Nell), and her beloved nurse, Hepzibah Jones, accompany the child’s parents, John, Baron of Calverley, and his wife Thomasin, to the capital city for the express purpose of filling up chests with books and scientific equipment for the Baron to bring home to Lincolnshire. A brilliant and learned man, he studied with Dr. John Dee in Cambridge. Dr. Dee is a noted mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, and, much later in the story, consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. De Lacey plans to spend 3 weeks studying with the scientist. The family lodges with the Lieutenant of London’s Tower and his family.

The Baron believes his extraordinarily precocious daughter should be able to study and learn in an equal fashion as men and boys of the period. The Christian world, at this time, doubts that women have souls – “Let woman first prove they have souls; both the Church and the State deny it.” So, obviously, women were not considered to be worthy or capable of learning. There are a few exceptions, Elizabeth I is one. As a child, Lady Elizabeth, the future queen, was given an impressive education. Elizabeth, like Elinor, excelled at her studies. Famous scholars, such as William Grindal and Roger Ascham, tutored her, and from an early age it was clear that she was remarkably gifted. Roger Ascham will also become one of Elinor’s teachers.

Nell is another gifted female. Later in their lives, Dee would say, ‘”Elinor is the fiercest woman I have ever seen. There is something exceptional about her. Something I have wondered about all these many years. Some are destiny’s children. I cannot say why it is so. Mistress Nell is one of them.”

Now, however, Nell is only five and when she catches a glimpse of the fair, young Lady Elizabeth imprisoned in the Tower, walking in the Lieutenant’s gardens, she is entranced and determined to free her. The mischievous child finds an old key and manages to scrabble over the gate partitioning the official residence from the garden. There the child meets the Princess and gives her the “magic key” so she can escape. For a few brief moments, they chat and Elizabeth tells Nell she will never forget her or her loyalty.

Frequent flashbacks take the reader to the period of Elizabeth’s traumatic infancy and youth. The hurts and upheavals she experiences will strongly affect how she lives and rules as Queen of England. Most know the history of Henry VIII’s six wives and their terrible fates, but one marriage in particular has a major impact on Elizabeth. When her mother, the King’s 2nd wife, Anne Boleyn, failed to produce a male heir, Henry lopped-off her pretty head based on trumped-up charges of adultery, incest and treason. Elizabeth’s birth was one of the King’s biggest disappointments, and from childhood she knew this. The toddler, at age 3, and her half-sister, Mary, were declared illegitimate, after Jane Seymour, wife number three, gave birth to a son, Edward.

Henry dies in 1547, when Elizabeth is 13 years old. Edward VI succeeds his father. Henry had reinstated his daughters in the line of succession before his death. Mary is to follow Edward, and Elizabeth is to follow Mary. Elizabeth is now second in line to the throne. Nine year-old Edward is too young to rule, so his uncle, Edward Seymour, becomes Protector of England. Dowager Queen Catherine soon marries Thomas Seymour of Sudley, also Edward VI’s uncle and the brother of the Lord Protector. For Catherine, this is a true love match. Elizabeth, who has come to really care for her final stepmother, (and visa versa), is invited to live with the newlyweds in their house at Chelsea. This interval with the Seymours “should have been a time of happiness and security for Elizabeth.” Quite the contrary, however, as she “experiences an emotional crisis that historians believe affected her for the rest of her life.” The charismatic, ambitious Seymour, at age 40, possesses “a powerful sex appeal” and is a master at wooing and bedding the ladies. Historical witnesses verified that he frequently “fondled and touched” the 14-year-old girl. He was seen entering her bedroom in his nightgown, tickling her and slapping her on the buttocks beneath her own nightclothes. “There is a report of Seymour slashing and ripping Elizabeth’s gown in the gardens of the house.” After Catherine Parr discovers the pair in a compromising embrace, she sends Elizabeth away. Once more the young woman is abandoned and betrayed, her honor compromised by a man old enough to be her father.

When Katherine Parr dies of childbirth fever, Thomas renews his attentions towards Elizabeth. She is a beautiful teenager and Seymour wants to be King. He is intent on marrying her. When Catherine Ashly, governess and close friend to Elizabeth is interrogated, along with Thomas Parry, a household attendant, Seymour’s behavior comes to light. Elizabeth, living at Hatfield House, refuses to comment, except to swear she is a virgin. She is to swear this throughout her life, and is known as the “Virgin Queen.” Seymour was arrested and beheaded for plotting to marry a princess of royal blood and overthrow the government. Did Elizabeth remain a virgin all her life? Given the number of men who seriously wooed her, especially Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, it is doubtful. For many years, Dudley hoped, with good reason, that the Queen would marry him. He was widely believed to be her lover.

For centuries rumors have circulated that Elizabeth bore Thomas Seymour a child during the period right after Catherine Parr sent her away. This event would not have been impossible to conceal. England was in political turmoil. Those at the royal court paid little attention to Elizabeth, whose face was not known in the countryside. She could have been sequestered with Cat Ashley and a few other intimates. The midwife who attended her wouldn’t have known who the young noblewomen was, especially if she were brought to the house blindfolded. It is a possibility Ella March Chase explores in a most believable fashion. She postulates that Elizabeth bears a daughter who is supposedly smothered at birth. The baby is secretly adopted by Thomasin de Lacey, a lady-in-waiting to Katherine Parr, who has just lost her own newborn. The girl child is named Elinor de Lacey. Her nurse, Hepzibah Jones, “Eppie,” was Catherine Parr’s midwife. Nell’s mother, and her nurse have every reason to keep this secret. Their lives and Nell’s depends it.

When Baron de Lacey dies, Nell secretly contacts Queen Elizabeth and wins a place at court. As a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, the lovely, red-head learns just how dangerous life at court can be, with the courtiers’ ambitious scheming, and political intriguing. She begins to understand why her mother obsessively wanted to keep her in Lincolnshire. Nell’s appearance and character, so similar to Elizabeth’s, draws the curiosity of those who surround the Queen. Elizabeth becomes increasingly suspicious of Nell’s origins and sends spies to all corners of her kingdom to gather information. Nell realizes her life is in serious jeopardy when she learns the truth of her birth. She wants nothing more than to return to Calverley, but there is no way out for her now. Her life means nothing. Protecting Queen Elizabeth, her reputation, and her reign is everything. The story builds in suspense and the author delivers a gripping and compelling ending. She also includes a romance between Nell and a courtier, loyal to Robert Dudley. Their relationship helps to bring the story to an extraordinarily surprising ending.

Ms. Chase brings Elizabethan England to life. Many historical characters figure in the storyline. Her research into 16th century England, is impeccable. I am very interested in this period and am impressed by her knowledge.

Above all, this is a story of two brilliant women trying to survive, on their terms, in the traditional world of men. They both share a love of knowledge and the truth, and rebel against a woman’s subordinate role. Elizabeth and Elinor are both strong heroines.

I highly recommend The Virgin Queen’s Daughter, for historical fiction fans who are interested in a different take on Tudor England.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 38 readers
PUBLISHER:	Three Rivers Press (December 29, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Ella March Chase
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More Tudor fiction: Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom Revelation by C.J. Sansom Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Bibliography:

• The Virgin Queen’s Daughter (2008)
• Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (2011)
• The Queen’s Dwarf (January 2014)