STUDENTS' SOUNDING BOARD

Rizal published an English story, but we don’t know if it was edited

Follow-up question from paul_nato (February 2, 2010):

Wow...so much stuff to read! 

Speaking of stuff to read, after finding out that Jose Rizal did speak/write in English, I went to look for stuff he may have written. I came across this:

http://www.univie.ac.at/Voelkerkunde/apsis/aufi/rizal/craig51.htm

Quite interesting in that he got published by a British mag.

How’s his English in this piece?

Rejoinder by Joe Carillo:

Following the link that you provided, paul_nato, I have reproduced below “The Tale of the Tortoise and the Monkey,” Rizal’s English-language anecdote as published in a London publication, Trubner’s Oriental Record, in 1889.

You asked me how’s the English of Rizal in this piece. I would say that its English is competent. Being a professional editor, though, I would have made a few refinements in the prose. In particular, in the very first sentence, I would have put the adverb “once” before the verb “found”—not after—for more fluid, effortless reading. I would have also knocked off the phrase “amidst the waves of a river” as an overfastidious superfluity; simply saying “in the river” would have made that sentence read much better and more naturally. Also, the narrative’s use of the verb phrase “climb up” three times is grammatically incorrect; the verb “climb” already conveys the idea of going “up,” so “up” is redundant in each case. Otherwise, the English of the story is grammatically and semantically aboveboard.

Overall, though, I couldn’t make a judgment of how good Rizal’s English was based on this published story. You see, then as now, practically all of the published stories people get to read are edited beforehand before they are printed. Editors routinely correct them for grammar, syntax, and structure as well as for style; some publications even rewrite them so they will better suit its editorial policy or ideological orientation. So, we really have no way of knowing how good the English of Rizal’s original manuscript was, and how much editing it had to bear before getting published. All I can say for sure is that Rizal had a great talent for storytelling and story adaptation (the tale below is actually his retelling of a popular fable at that time). Can you imagine, if he weren't executed by the Spanish authorities in 1896 at the age of 35, how many more stories and novels he could have written—whether in Spanish, Tagalog, or English—had he lived to the ripe age of, say, 60 to 70?   

Here’s Rizal’s story as published in Trubner’s Oriental Record in 1889:

The Tale of the Tortoise and the Monkey
By Jose P. Rizal

The tortoise and the monkey found once a banana tree floating amidst the waves of a river. It was a very fine tree, with large green leaves, and with roots just as if it had been pulled off by a storm. They took it ashore. "Let us divide it," said the tortoise, "and plant each its portion." They cut it in the middle, and the monkey, as the stronger, took for himself the upper part of the tree, thinking that it would grow quicker for it had leaves. The tortoise, as the weaker, had the lower part, that looked ugly, although it had roots. After some days, they met.

"Hello, Mr. Monkey," said the tortoise, "how are you getting on with your banana tree?"

"Alas," said the monkey, "it has been dead a long time! And yours, Miss Tortoise?"

"Very nice indeed, with leaves and fruits. I cannot climb up to gather them."

"Never mind," said the malicious monkey, "I will climb up and pick them for you."

"Do, Mr. Monkey," replied the tortoise gratefully. And so they walked toward the tortoise's house.

As soon as the monkey saw the bright yellow fruits hanging between the large green leaves, he climbed up and began plundering, munching and gobbling, as quick as he could.

"But give me some, too," said the tortoise, seeing that the monkey did not take the slightest notice of her.

"Not even a bit of the skin, if it is eatable," rejoined the monkey, both his cheeks crammed with bananas.

The tortoise meditated revenge. She went to the river, picked up some pointed shells, planted them around the banana tree, and hid herself under a coconut shell. When the monkey came down, he hurt himself and began to bleed.

After a long search he found the tortoise.

"You must pay now for your wickedness; You must die. But as I am very generous, I will leave to you the choice of your death. Shall I pound you in a mortar, or shall I throw you into the water? Which do you prefer?"

"The mortar, the mortar," answered the tortoise; "I am so afraid of getting drowned."

"O ho!" laughed the monkey; "indeed! You are afraid of getting drowned! Now I will drown you!"

And going to the shore, he slung the tortoise and threw it in the water. But soon the tortoise reappeared swimming and laughing at the deceived, artful monkey.

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