Brutal Beauty: Slavery & Poetry

Sugar Plantation - from the NYPL Digital Gallery

The Poet Slave of Cuba by Margarita Engle
New York : Henry Holt, 2006.
183 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

I'm not sure why this 2008 Pura Belpre Award winner didn't grab my attention until recently.  Maybe it's just that I'm not sure that biographies in verse are very effective (or appealing to young readers).  However, the book was recently turned in, and and I decided to give it a chance.  I'm glad I did!

The book tells - in poetry - the amazing (and heart breaking) story of Juan Francisco Manzano (1797-1854) a slave and poet who excelled at literature, yet suffered horrendous cruelty and was eventually silenced by repression.

Though the poetry is accessible and interesting, I think some students might find the details of Manzano's life a bit confusing.  He is celebrated by some of Cuba's literati of the time and granted freedom (that is never achieved) by his first "owner" - while his second "owner" both dotes on him and subjects him to grotesque abuse.  However, the story of  Manzano is so compelling  -and his accomplishments in such a hellish world so wondrous - that I'd be pleased to recommend this book to any student looking for a slave narrative, a compelling tale in verse, or a resource on slavery or Cuban history.

The notes at the end of the book are helpful and a few excerpts of Manzano's poetry bring the character of Engle's poems to life.

Hardy with Heart

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
New York : Signet Classics, c2006.
xxi, 407 p. : map ; 18 cm.

It had been quite awhile since I read a Thomas Hardy novel, but I have such fond memories of reading his Jude the Obscure during a summer when I was in college. Hardy's writing style is a bit florid at times (after all he was writing in the late Victorian period) but the payoff is that his writing is poignant, lush and very attuned to the beauty of the English countryside and the complicated texture of human relationships.

Tess was no exception and did not disappoint me.  The novel shocked his contemporaries with its frank treatment of the double standards of sexual morality experienced by the main character, Tess.  Tess is clearly the heroine of this novel, and the tragedies she suffers expose the hypocrisies of social attitudes toward sexuality, class, marriage and gender.

One of the things that makes a Hardy novel so enjoyable is its lively and riveting plot.  There are many scenes where the dramatic impact of the plot hinges on one circumstance that - if slightly different - could have dramatically changed the outcome of the novel and the fortunes of its characters.  In that sense it is sometimes like reading good history where the reader is always thinking, "If only...."

Tess is a very readable, engaging novel and should appeal to any high school student who is looking for something readable, but "literary."

A Readable History of Mexico

The Life and Times of Mexico by Earl Shorris
New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.
800 p.

This summer I did things a little differently.  I was interested in reading a fairly new book on Mexican history and found one recommended (see the SF Chronicle) that we did not have in our school library collection.  This is a fairly long book for a school collection and so I bought and read the eBook version for my Nook.

At first I didn't think I'd care for the book.  It is very much concerned with discovering the unique nature of the Mexican character - something that I'm not so interested in, and - frankly - something I'm a little suspicious of.  However, the book really started getting interesting to me during its treatment of the US-Mexican war, and I found myself learning a lot about the war that I had never known.

Shorris' coverage of the Mexican Revolution was equally interesting and so I stuck with the book to the end and I'm glad that I did.  The book offers the reader a lot to think about - including what policies and events make nations rich and poor.  It also takes the reader through the tumultuous early years of the 21st century when NAFTA was wreaking havoc on the economy of Mexico, the the maquiladoras were springing up at a phenomenal pace, and the PRI was losing its grip on complete control of the nation's political system.

I was hoping that Earl Shorris might eventually write a revised version, but I found out that he died about the same time that I was reading his book.