The themes of separation and reunion, distance and intimacy, unravel in the interplay among three zones or layers of experienced temporality: a) time lost/frozen (for Anna fixated on finding her daughter consigned to a lost comrade Karla), b) time present (Roy remembering the burning of his family in front of an NGO group trying to reconstitute the historic truth/authenticity of what happened, and finally confessing his role as party agent of revenge), and (c) time future (duration as continuity), personified by the two daughters: Karla who wants to know/learn about her past, her mother's homeland; and Lorena whose everyday recording of what is occurring to her parents, etc., registers the symptoms of rupture and displacements, the asynchrony between past and present, thus rendering the future problematic, at best, and amenable to speculative extrapolation.
Napatunayang mabisa ang Banaag at Sikat sa pagkalat ng mga kaisipang anti-kapitalista—3,000 kopya ang nabili sa ilang linggo lamang pagkalabas ng nobela. Marahil, mas makahulugan ang pagmuniin na ang sirkulo ng mga peryodista, manunulat, impresores, at unyonista’y kabilang sina Crisanto Evangelista, Domingo Ponce at Cirilo Bognot, mga tagapagtatag ng Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas noong sumunod na dalawang dekada (Saulo 1990, 6-9). Bago pa man dumating sina Tan Malaka at James Allen (Sol Auerbach), malusog at mayaman na ang kaalamang mapagpalaya ng uring mangagawa’t artisano sa kalunsuran ng Pilipinas sa yugtong ito ng kasayayan. Ang makatuturang naitanghal ni Santos sa nobela yaong wala roon o naipahiwatig lamang: ang pagkakalapat ng teorya at praktika.