Technology

Technology

     On March 5, 1887, Rizal received a letter from Felix Resurreción Hidalgo that detailed how he wanted to read Rizal’s work as a book and not serial texts like “newspaper articles that ‘live and die within the page[s] of a newspaper’” (Testa-de Ocampo, 2011, p. 501). This correspondence alone suggests an awareness at the time of the ephemerality of certain text technologies and the importance of using a print technology that was sustainable and preservable for generations to come. This was especially relevant to Rizal’s purposes of doing what no Filipino had done before, which was to encapsulate the entire condition of the Philippines and its people. From this, one might even deduce that Rizal’s choice of turning the Noli into a book was a purposeful decision. 

     The Noli had started out as a handmade manuscript, designed, written, and bound by Rizal himself. Long before he even finished the manuscript, Rizal had already begun the search for a cheap publisher who would print his book (Guerrero, 2012, p. 146). Rizal found a printer who “worked for a very moderate compensation, so that the volume of over four hundred pages cost less than a fourth of what it would have done in England, or one half of what it would have cost in economical Spain” (Craig, 1913, p. 131). This was the standard in 19th-century Germany as with the country’s inventions within book printing like wood-pulp and steam-driven presses, prices were able to be tremendously reduced (Suarez & Woudhuysen, 2014, p. 379-380).

     So, in 1887, Noli Me Tangere was published as a book in Berlin, Germany with the fiscal support of Rizal’s friend, Maximo Viola (Testa-de Ocampo, 2011, p. 502).  Lending Rizal “₱300 for 2,000 copies,” the Noli was sent to the press and finished printing in less than five months (Guerrero, 2012, p. 148-149). Without fail, the printing press would send Rizal proofs every single day which delighted the author (Guerrero, 2012, p. 148). Ultimately, the printing of the Noli as a book is what allowed for many copies to be cheaply reproduced and its further circulation and survival within the Philippines. It allowed for clear lettering and for book-reading to become a social activity within communities as older community members read the Noli to their neighbours (Craig, 1913, p. 185). While a book would be somewhat more inconvenient to hide in one’s neighbourhood or house in comparison to a more malleable text form like paper, the Filipino people persisted and its printing as a book is what allowed for the text to be sustainable and preserved—even with its storing in strange places that weren't entirely optimal for bookkeeping.