Britton and I have been watching the show “Mad Men” lately and have found it pretty interesting to see the changes in what was normal from the early 60s to now. The most noticeable of course is the rampant smoking and drinking in the office and really anywhere, but also the sexism, racism, and lack of safety for kids (in one scene the mother has a minor accident and the small children are flung into the floor of the car, in another the kids are playing around with plastic bags over their heads). However, while there are a lot of things that have changed as a result of research, laws and social norms evolving, some of this period still seems magical to me. The books When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago, The Time it Snowed in Puerto Rico by Sarah McCoy, The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson and Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner were all set in that fascinating time.

So, anyway, when I saw that the Puerto Rico Tourism Company was modernizing an advertising campaign that connected both the Mad Men style advertising with a refreshed artistic look at Puerto Rico, I was intrigued. Apparently, as the NY Times article relates, a young “unknown” photographer by the name of Elliott Erwitt was sent to Puerto Rico in the late 50′s/early 60′s to cover an ad campaign about Puerto Rico for the Madison Avenue Company Ogilvy and Mather. Now, 50 years later, he has gone back to do it again as a well-established and esteemed photographer. The website: http://www.seepuertorico.com has many of the photographs as well as video of his time there. While it is mainly centered on the San Juan area, I think it is a beautiful portfolio of how much things have changed and how much they remain the same.

My mom read and recommended that I read a book entitled The Time it Snowed in Puerto Rico by Sarah McCoy.  Of course knowing that I love anything about Puerto Rico, I went to the library right away to pick it up. When I heard the title, I thought it was referring Doña Fela the famously popular first female mayor of a capital city in the Americas who brought in snow on an airplane to show the children of Puerto Rico who had never before seen or played in snow.

Felia Rincon de Gautier AKA Doña Fela

But, no, this book was not about that. It is a touching story along the lines of When I was Puerto Rican by Esmerelda Santiago or The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. A young girl named Verdita is in the awkward phases of moving from a child to an adolescent and trying to assert herself as an individual and become a woman. She is also in the transition between loving and hating the U.S. and fights for her independence at the same time that Puerto Rico tries to find its place in the independence movement.

The story takes place in the rural mountains of Puerto Rico in the early 60s. Some of the scenes are truly Puerto Rican such as when she goes (against her father’s wishes) to a cock fight -pelea de gallos or when she innocently learns what a puta is in the traditional sense of gender roles. It is lyrical and beautifully written. I could picture it all the way down to the homemade piraguas that snowed all around her.

Apparently Herman Wouk met a man in real life who told him some fantastic stories about life as a proprietor of a tropical hotel resort in the Caribbean. Wouk encouraged him to write a book about it, but the man declined. So, Wouk decides to go check out the Caribbean and falls in love with it himself. He goes and lives on one of the islands of the US Virgin Islands for some 6 or 7 years. “Don’t Stop the Carnival” is a mixing of the crazy stories both he and this man had while living in the Caribbean. He writes about a New York man with a mid-life crisis who buys a hotel resort in the fictional island of “Amerigo” or “Kinja”. From power outages to piles of ants climbing his body, from kooky toothless gondoliers to glamourous movie actresses, this book has it all. And Wouk does a great job of pulling you into each of the characters’ lives, especially that of Norman Paperman, the protagonist.  

I would strongly recommend it!

The Best Tropical Books!

I  have been on a tropical kick lately, and so I will, at various times, compile lists of the “Tropical Best Ofs”. Please help me if I miss anything really obvious. The first in this series, is the list of the Best Tropical Books. I love reading, but this is not a comprehensive list, and if you have more favorites, let me know. This can be sort of a reading guide to get into the tropical or exotic mood for reading on the beach or locked up in freezing weather dreaming of the tropics. I have read most of these, others I have skimmed, others I read long, long ago, but to really get into the tropical spirit, check these books out:

In the category of Best Humor Tropical Book (Non-Fiction), the winner goes to:

1) Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost.I just finished this book and it really was funny and interesting as well. I now know a lot more than I ever would have about atolls (small reef islands), the South Pacific, the nuclear bombing that the US did on those beautiful little islands and what life would be without much of anything on a modern, overpopulated island like Tarawa (Kiribati). It has some parts that just make you laugh out loud and others that make you shudder in disgust and then the next moment you envy their life of paradise. But isn’t that what life is like? A series of contradictions?

Best Recent FictionTropical Book

The winner in this category is: 2) Telex From Cuba by Rachel Kushner.

I really loved reading this book . It was one of those stories that just wraps you up and takes you there. And there, in this case, is late 1950s Cuba, the height of glamor and revolt. It has multiple vantage points including a burlesque dancer, a 10 year old boy, and a spy, and it gives the feel of what it would have been like to be all of those during this tumultuous time in history. The tropical scenes are just gorgeous, and I didn’t want it to end.

Best Classic Fiction Tropical Books

I couldn’t decide on just one, so there is a big tie. Which do you prefer? The winners are: 3) The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss, 4) Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, 5) Robinson Crusoe by Daniel DeFroe, 6) Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and 7) The Pearl by John Steinbeck.

Of course these are the classics! Who could forget the family that lived in a tree or the wild adventures with pirates (Long John Silver, of course), and of treasure on the untamed seas. Or one of the best tales of man against beast -and himself- off the Cuban shores. And of course, the story of greed, corruption and lost innocense in The Pearl.

Best Book of Short Stories

Tales from Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet

Just as Jimmy Buffet could never be left off any list of Tropical Music artists, he is also an author with a few books under his belt. This was released in 2002 and is a collection of what he calls “fictional facts and factual fictions”. If anyone can write about the tropical life, it would be Jimmy Buffet since he has traveled all around the world. But he doesn’t just write stories about himself, but rather intriguing, fun stories that probably have a little bit of him in each one.

Best Tropical Book for Children

9) Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Scott O’Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961. I remember reading this when I was a kid. It is about a young Indian girl, Karana, who lives alone on an island and survives the challenges of nature and isolation. It is based on a true story.

Best Tropical Book About Puerto Rico

10) Cuando Era Puertorriqueña or When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago

This is another book that I just loved. It is an autobiography of Esmeralda Santiago’s life as a poor, rural country girl in Puerto Rico in the 1950s. Her perspective is so full of childlike wonder, it makes you crave to experience a little bit of the life of this young jíbara. Certainly life is difficult for this poor family but the magic of the Enchanted Island creeps into every aspect of life from eating a guava to performing the death rites to an infant. I could feel the sadness in the author as she recalled moving to New York and leaving her beautiful home island. To truly feel the emotions, history and culture of Puerto Rico from a Puerto Rican’s perspective, you must read this book.

And finally, for Most Adventure at Sea Tropical Book

11) Adrift by Steve Callahan

This is a true story of a man that survived for 76 days on just an inflatable raft! It is on National Geographic’s list of the 100 best adventure stories.

What do you think? Is this an accurate list of the best tropical books?

Newly added:

Herman Wouk’s “Don’t Stop the Carnival“.

Britton, Me, and JR

I have also almost finished reading The Rum Diary  by Hunter S. Thompson, the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It almost entirely takes place in Puerto Rico, although there is quite a long part about getting drunk and partying in St. Thomas. Apparently, Hunter S. Thompson once lived in Puerto Rico and this is basically a thinly-veiled journal of his time as a writer at the Star. I also just now learned that Johnny Depp is set to yet-again play the lead character in a film-version of the book.

I think Thompson had a love-hate relationship with the island. Throughout various passages you can sense a sort of uneasiness, but there are moments when he relaxes and takes it all in, and it takes his breath away. From the book: “I bought a Times for forty cents and read about a blizzard in New York: ‘Merrit Parkway closed…BMT stalled four hours…snowplows in the streets..everyone late to work…’ I looked out at the bright Caribbean morning, green and lazy and full of sun, then I put the Times away.”

Hunter S. Thompson died in Colorado, February 20, 2005, and The San Juan Star , the primary English-language newspaper on the island closed on August 29, 2008.

And a song of the day (de jour/del dia) from BK:
rusted-root-free-my-soul