Dusk is one of the five novels in F. Sionil Jose's Rosales series.

Rosales is the town in central Luzon where Jose grew up. Dusk was originally called Po-on, which means "beginning" in his native Ilokano, and though it was the last of the novels to be written, it is the first chronologically.

Dusk is a better title, I think. The book opens with a masterly evocation of that magical time when the day ends:

"Dusk is the day's most blessed hour; it is the time when the spirits of darkness drift slowly down the bright domain. The acacia leaves droop, the fowl stop their cackling and fly to the boughs of the guava trees to roost, and as the light starts to fade and the shapes of trees and houses and even the motion of people seem shrouded, the essence of time, of change, and the brevity of life itself is realized at last."

I was much impressed by this book when I read it during my study leave in 2018, but I failed to find time to write about it. The busyness of work and other things took over, and by the time I came to read the second book of the saga, I couldn't remember the links to the first. So last year, while in the Philippines again, I re-read it, and am now continuing the series.

Like Jose's own forebears, Istak, the central protagonist, flees the north of Luzon with his family, and sets up home with them on land they have to claim from nature. Istak's clan have been forced from their home by massive injustice (forced labour, inhuman punishments, which in turn engender crime, confiscation of land, arbitrary abuse of power -- the whole panoply of Spanish colonialism, in short).



The first part of Dusk covers the family's trek south: the struggles, the dangers, the fear, the losses, and the arrival at a place that is likely to offer sanctuary. It makes for suspenseful reading.

Jose portrays sickening injustice. But the narrative is not entirely dark. Also there, shining brightly, are loyalty, and help from strangers, and good people, like Don Jacinto, the "mestizo" (person of mixed ethnic origin), who gives the fugitives work, and shows them where they can settle and whom they should avoid.

Padre Jose, the Spanish priest who, until his retirement, took Istak under his wing, and educated him in many different fields that later prove useful, is not a colonial caricature, but rather an interesting and ambivalent figure. The book opens with a letter in which he not only pleads for provision for Istak to enter the seminary, but also recognizes the writing on the colonial wall:

"I feel deeply about what is happening in this part of the country, the growing discontent that is not yet expressed but will soon be... When the time comes, I pray that we will go peacefully... The time approaches when they should sit side by side with us in our highest councils not because this is what they want but because this is what we ourselves desire."

He has learned to recognize and respect "the mystery of this land". But even this comparatively far-sighted man struggles not to see his would-be Filipino colleagues as "children".

Unsurprisingly, while Istak reveres his teacher, he also clearly understands that he is a part of the injustice that the Church perpetuates.

This ambivalence affects Istak's spiritual struggles, too: "If you are the God of my people, how could You also be the God of those who oppress us?"

Nevertheless, he ascribes his healing powers not only to the knowledge of herbalism that Padre Jose had taught him, but also to "his prayer, his faith in the Almighty ever present in the very air he breathed". And he senses God, in a direct experience that is beyond anything offered by the ritual of the church, and would be familiar to contemplatives of all religions:

"[T]hat blinding light that seemed to wash over him... I have seen another world without the hard crust of earth. I have gone beyond passion and craving; I have seen the spirit, an invocation beyond understanding..."

Dusk narrates the routine racism upon which colonialism is built. Istak's father, who now has blood on his hands, reflects:

"They had all been doomed from the very beginning, their fate foreordained because they had dark skins, because their noses were flat.

It is also a (probably unconscious) exposition of man's unremitting desire to conquer his environment (the forest is the enemy to be overcome; every natural thing is subjected to the human's need for food):

"[In the mountains] were hunters who could ... become one with the bush until they assumed the mystery of the forest as well, sharing its darkness and its sensuous promise. But there was no promise in the forest now. It was a black redoubt to be sundered so that its soil would bear the seed... [N]ot a single tree must stand so that the good earth would yield its blessings at last."

But this too is at least partially a product of injustice:

"Others had [found new land]..., escaped the clutches of the Spaniards... They left the security of the towns and sought refuge in the forest, where they cleared land and raised their food, far away from their tormentors..."

The uprising against the Spanish is dealt with very briefly. We hear of "the wildfire spreading in the south, particularly in Manila". Don Jacinto tells Istak about the execution of Jose Rizal (in 1896), and gives Istak some of his books to read.







But by the beginning of Chapter 13, we are already in the midst of the struggle with the Americans.

In May 1898, a US flotilla sailed into Manila Bay to fight the Spanish. The following month, Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed independence from Spain. By the end of the year, the Spanish-American war was over -- and the Philippines were a colony of the US. So, from fighting the Spanish, the Filipinos turned to fighting their new colonizers.





"The Americans are no different from the Spaniards," argues Don Jacinto, "Do you think it matters that we are destroyed as long as they get what they want?"

Apolinario Mabini, the revolution's ideologue and a victim of polio, takes up residence with Don Jacinto, and commandeers the services of the highly literate Istak in an attempt to counter US propaganda. As Mabini says, the Americans "have the means to tell the world how righteous they are". How little changes...



Guerrilla warfare tactics constitute one such bone of contention for the spin-doctors of the time. For the outnumbered, outgunned Filipinos, there is no alternative. But the Americans take the line that this kind of warfare proves that Filipinos are "cowards or immature children". Mabini goes on:

"This is what the Americans are saying... That we cannot manage our affairs, that we do not deserve to be free.... [T]here is so much the world does not know, how the Americans have tortured our people, committed the most brutal crimes against humanity. And yet, read their constitution -- how civilized and humanitarian it is. Yes, we have so much to tell everyone... I am writing to convince people of the validity of our struggle, its righteousness, and the utter fallacy and hypocrisy of the Americans in saying we are not capable of self-government... [Quoting US propagandist Thomas Collins] The defeat of the insurgents is inevitable; not only are they disunited and disorganized -- they are also hated by the natives... It is this chauvinist Thomas Collins again, and his report tells of how bands and cheering crowds have welcomed them in the towns they have entered... Our forces are assisted by ... native scouts from Pampanga... How can we build trust among our own people? How can we make them confident of themselves and their countrymen so that they will not sell their souls for a few silver dollars?"

It is hard to escape a sense of deja vu here... The US still seems unable to understand any nationalism other than its own. It still seems unable to even imagine not being welcomed everywhere by "bands and cheering crowds", regardless of the egregiousness of its intrusions.

Dusk is also the story of Istak's gradual awakening to nationalist ideals. While still on the march to sanctuary, he reflects: "Pride tells me that this land is mine... and if they will not leave, pride tells me that I should push them away, and should they refuse this, I should vanquish them, kill them..."

He later thrills to Mabini's "call to pride". But when Mabini sends Istak off on another journey, he goes reluctantly. Again there is deprivation and danger; he witnesses American atrocities; and even when he finds General del Pilar and the troops who are protecting Aguinaldo, he struggles to gain their trust.

Almost to the end, Istak is unconvinced that the broader cause of the insurgents is his. He does not recognize a duty to some "Filipino" people -- only his duty to his family and the people from his locality.

Istak knows that Mabini and Don Jacinto love the entity called the Philippines, but "this I cannot say for myself because I am not sure. How can I love a thousand islands, a million people speaking not my language but their very own which I cannot understand?... I feel no affection for these mountains, these people whose fates are not my concern... My duty is not to this nameless mass you call Filipinas..."

In language reminiscent of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Mabini replies: "If there is no country as such or as you know and recognize, then in your mind you must give it its boundaries. Do this because without this country you are nothing. This land where you stand, from which you draw sustenance, is the mother you deny... [I]f we act as one, we will be strong and so will she be..."

By the end, having witnessed the atrocities committed by the Americans, and having experienced the distrust of his fellow-Filipinos, Istak feels called by duty to a larger purpose than just survival. Finally, he takes up a gun, and kills. The soldiers who were previously strangers to him were now comrades: "In death, all men are brothers."

The book closes, as it opened, with a letter from a colonizer. A new time, a new conqueror. Again, it's arrogant and full of prejudices. Manila is "an Asiatic city, inconvenient and filthy"; the "natives" are "wily, passionate, irresponsible, and cannot be trusted"; Americans "have a God-given responsibility to the world".

The last word, however, goes to Istak. In the journal that the American has found, the healer-turned-fighter writes of his admiration for Mabini, and his conviction that the Americans are unjustly in his land:

"Conquest by force is not sanctioned by God. The Americans have no right to be here. We will defeat them in the end because we believe this land they usurp is ours; God created it for us. The whole history of mankind has shown how faith endures while steel rusts."

He was proved right, of course, but how complicated it has all become...



Dusk is a very moving and beautifully written novel. The themes woven into its introduction to the Rosales series are worth following up, and there are four more volumes, so there are definitely more posts to come...