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Wednesday, 05 January 2011 21:19 |
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Dear Romy and Ka Jesse and Friends:
There were other individuals who have raised before Ka Jesse's valid question. Almost all of the Knights of Rizal and other Rizalists have evaded the issue.
But here are some points to consider:
1.0 Alexandre Dumas (27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was born and died ahead of Jose Protacio Mercado Rizal (June 19, 1861 -- Dec. 30, 1896).
2.0 "The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work. The writing of the work was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it is expanded from the plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.[1]" -- data from Wikipedia.
2.1 Dumas' obra maestra was completed in 1844, roughly 17 years before Rizal was born.
2.2 But even Dumas had a ghostwriter. But then as my journalism professors in San Beda said, "Almost all ideas have been written before, especially as narrated in the Bible, the Torah and the Koran. It is almost impossible to write an original story. One can only re-write a story already previously written and the writer can add a twist or two or even an O'Henry (surprise) ending.
2.3 While I am not saying that Rizal was the direct ascendant of the Perrytale writer (who copies a lot from the Wikipedia and other search engines and passes them off as his own original writing), certainly our national hero was inspired (again) by European history and other events and characters.
2.3.1 According to my grandfather-in-law, Don Belong de los Reyes, Rizal's line in the Fili ("Today's slaves are tomorrow's tyrants") was actually copied from a lesson derived from the French Revolution (1789–1799). Remember that some of the leaders of the French Revolution had their heads guillotined also, after they fought the others for supremacy and lost. This happened months after they guillotined first the French king and queen and most of their court members. History keeps on repeating itself. Even the NPAs in the Philippines eliminated too some of their comrades as a means of cleansing the revolution. The same happened in China during the Cultural Revolution and in other countries, too.
Since Rizal took his literary secrets to his grave, then we can only make educated guesses. And your guess, Ka Jesse, is as good as Romy's, which is as good as mine. Or as good as Joseph's or Bart's.
And if I may direct you to the 78-word biographical sketch of Dr. Rizal, which Romy featured in his newsvideo, I may write this line when I re-do Romy Marquez's biography for our coming souvenir program, "Before there was Hugh Hefner, there was Jose P. Rizal and after them came Romeo P. Marquez . . ." LOL.
Mabuhay,
Roberto "Lolo Bobby" Reyes y Mercado
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