Book Review: San Juan

San Juan: Memoir of a City

By Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá

Published June 2007

University of Wisconsin Press

144 pp.

ISBN: 0-299-20370-0

Date reviewed: July 12, 2007

Originally reviewed at: BookReview.com

“It was necessary, in the [James] Joycean manner – because Joyce was the other literary idol of my youth – to open to the sound of the city, to listen to its voices, to eavesdrop on its speech at the bus stop, at the vendor’s stands in Calle de Diego, in the little bars in Capetillo or the ones along the roadside of the 65 de Infantería.”

It was this attitude that, in his own words, accompanied Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá as he entered the University of Puerto Rico on his path to becoming one of the island’s most well-regarded writers. His latest work “San Juan: Memoir of a City” is a sign that he never relinquished that attitude, as he moves through this Caribbean capital with as much care as Joyce covered Dublin.

Rodríguez Juliá lays out the city like a cartographer, moving across the coastline and diving into each distinct region. His eye catches all the details: the mix of Art Deco and Frank Lloyd Wright in shaping the city’s architecture, the decay of neighborhoods intersected by the freeways and the resigned laconism of those drinking outside cafés in the afternoon.

Clearly determined to present the full picture of San Juan, Rodríguez Juliá gives readers a dual lesson of history and literature. He tells stories of the island’s famous visitors and how they affected the city’s politics, as well as lesser known residents that influenced characters in his own novels. He also offers his opinion on the city’s other chroniclers, studying the evocative poetry of Derek Walcott and the vitriolic memories of Hunter S. Thompson.

There is an obvious affection in his writing for the city, which expresses itself in the way he makes himself a character. As a young boy Rodríguez Juliá is overwhelmed by the “uncontrollable, savage Progress” of freeways and strip malls, as a college student he is intrigued by the bohemian flavor of used bookstores and socialist meetings and as a successful writer he moves to introspection of the sea. At every turn the city has given him what he needs to move forward, and he obviously feels each of his younger selves owe it something.

I would have liked to see some of his poetry-inspiring sights for myself – the book only has city maps, no photos – but his writing is vivid enough it compensates for the loss. Rodríguez Juliá has constructed a stirring, often mystical depiction of a city that is always reinventing itself. No visitor to San Juan should go without reading this book first.

Book Review: Death in a Prairie House

Death in a Prairie House

By William Drennan

Published January 2007

University of Wisconsin Press

230 pp.

ISBN: 0-299-22210-1

Date reviewed: May 29, 2007

Originally reviewed at: BookReview.com

My first exposure to Frank Lloyd Wright came in fall of 2003, when I took a tour of his Spring Green estate Taliesin. I was pulled in by the beauty of the landscape and the design, but also by the story that it had been rebuilt twice – the first time as a result of a servant who burned half the house and murdered seven people, Wright’s mistress among them. A gruesome story, and yet one that garnered no questions on the tour and got as much time as the design of the drafting room.

The actions of the murderer Julian Carlton and their impact on Wright now have the necessary coverage though, thanks to William R. Drennan’s “Death in a Prairie House.” Drennan, professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Baraboo/Sauk County, has written a solid book that gives novices a picture of the famous architect and scholars a new look at his lowest point.

Drennan starts with the blueprints of Wright’s life, showing how his family’s Unitarian roots and his own Emersonian free spirit contributed to his architectural maturation. After years chafing under suburban comfort he entered into an affair with feminist thinker Mamah Borthwick Cheney, constructing Taliesin as their love nest. This piece was shattered by Carlton’s hatchet and gasoline, and Wright’s style – artistically and personally – was never the same afterwards.

Drennan’s research is exhaustive, going over interviews, newspaper articles, memoirs and even decades-old gossip to piece together the full picture of Wright. He shows the opposition of Spring Green’s moral residents to Wright’s “sinful” ideals, how racism played a part in Carlton’s motivations and suggests the killings were what removed the “prairie house” community design from his homes. The book is always reasoned, never committing to a single viewpoint until he finds historical support for it and disproved all other alternatives.

What I really appreciated about the book was its writing style: not the dry academic voice of most conventional histories but discursive, almost conversational. Drennan frequently inserts random facts or anecdotes in the middle of his sentences, and describes the crime with phrases such as “the unhappy calculus of body count.” Though occasionally distracting, they remind the reader of facts that are easily forgotten next to Wright’s personal drama.

“Death in a Prairie House” is an excellent work of both journalism and history, well-written and well-researched. I already plan to make a return trip to Taliesin as a result, and the tour is sure to be more interesting with a picture of the mind that built it and the blood that stains it.

Book Review: Head Trauma

Head Trauma

By Gary David Johnson

Published December 2006

iUniverse.com

116 pp.

ISBN 0-595-40338-7

Date reviewed: April 19, 2007

Originally reviewed at: BookReview.com

Like most everyone who’s taken an English course, I had to sit through weeks of studying English sonnets and memorize the form until I counted syllables in my sleep – which is one of the reasons I enjoyed reading Gary David Johnson’s “Head Trauma” so much. It’s a book of sonnets that keeps some of the basic structural elements, but takes them beyond the boundaries set by Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser.

While his poems mostly keep to the “abab” rhyme scheme and the quatrain format, Johnson is nowhere near as strict as the old masters. Syllable count changes, one sentence runs on for three lines and there may not be a single rhyme in the poem until the last couplet. Johnson claims in his introduction that he is drawn to the discipline of the sonnet form, but I think the fact that he deviates slightly from that discipline is what makes his poems unique.

Johnson branches out topically as well as stylistically, covering a broad portfolio ranging from “Tookie” Williams’ execution to a woolly mammoth hair. My personal favorites include “I Make No Pact With You, Walt Whitman,” which makes no secret of his distaste for the legendary poet; and “The Life Electric,” an excellent metaphor connecting people to light bulbs. Honorable mention goes to “Starkweather’s Confession, 1958,” a sonnet assembled solely from lines of a serial killer’s actual confession.

“Head Trauma,” the poem which the book takes its title from, is an outlier in the book and an interesting piece of work. It’s a blend of free verse and sonnet, mixing Latin phrases and Greek mythology with insect metaphors on par with William S. Burroughs. Less accessible than the other poems, it’s still an interesting read that exposes mankind’s false perception and apologizes for the consequences.

When I read poetry, I look for someone who’s willing to experiment with tradition, and that’s what I got out of “Head Trauma.” Johnson’s work removes the sonnet from the bondage of iambic pentameter and crafts some truly innovative prose.