The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams -- Book Review

The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1967 [1951])  William Carlos Williams.  New York:  New Directions.  402 pp. 

What I learned from William Carlos Williams was economy and precision.  Every word has a weight and a texture.  The different weights and textures create balances and imbalances that give shape and character to each line that in turn form a landscape of words.  Images become vivid by virtue of their very starkness.  Nothing is wasted; there is no clutter.  Small details and observations that may seem trivial, like a red wheelbarrow, acquire great significance because so much depends on them.  The 't' at the end of 'wet' is a sharp point.  It makes you stop before a brief moment before you slide into the white chickens.  It creates a rhythm, a pace.  The consonants and vowels in the words define how you read the poem rather than a uniform meter of regular beats and numbers of syllables.  In a plethora of words these small details would merge into a mass leaving an impression with all the edges smoothed and flowing.  Williams is not Debussy.  His famous maxim "no idea but in things" emphasizes concreteness, a grounding in external reality that gives his poems a reach beyond the narcissistic.  The poem is not "I depend so much on this red wheelbarrow," but "So much depends on a red wheelbarrow."  The former is limited because a reader who does not depend on a red wheelbarrow may not be able to relate to such a sentiment.  It allows for the possibility of an immediate clash between the reader and the poet at the very outset.  But the latter is an observation that is both empathic and objective.  A reader can assent to the message even if he never saw a wheelbarrow or a chicken in his life.  The reader is drawn into the poem through the emotive power of the object; a connection is forged.  The ability to use ordinary objects to create emotional resonances gave Williams his vast outreach and appeal. 

This autobiography illustrates those values and approach.  It is beautifully written, personal, and detailed.  At the very beginning he said "Terror dominated my youth, not fear."  This is linked to an early memory of being put outdoors after the blizzard of 1888 and yelling to be taken in again away from the wind and the cold.  He would have been four years old at the time.  There is no other explanation for this statement of being dominated by terror.  In fact, his youth does not seem to have been dominated by terror at all.  He had a good relationship with his younger brother Ed, with whom he shared many adventures.  He seems to have had a positive relationship with both parents; their house was full of guests and relatives.  He makes a point of paying his parents a tribute "And here let me voice a long overdue tribute to my father and mother for the way they backed Ed and me in whatever we wanted to do." (p. 50)  He had ample social contacts.  He had no sisters or female relatives in close proximity except for his mother and his grandmother.  But there were young female servants, of whom he had good memories.  He had the good fortune not to have been raised in an oppressive religious environment.  His family attended the Unitarian Church, which offers a much more positive, healthy outlook on life than Christianity.  His youth laid the foundation for a man of great self-confidence, capability, introspection, and social engagement.  He was both inwardly reflective, but at the same time extroverted, rich in human contacts of every kind.  He admits on the first page of his foreword to a strong sexuality, but at the same time declines to explore it in his autobiography.  Nevertheless, there are hints throughout of liaisons and relationships with both men and women that may have had a sexual component.  He describes intense relationships during his childhood with several boys "before women touched us." (p. 281-82)  He does not offer a great deal of detail about his marriage or his relationship with his wife, but he does offer thoughts and observations on marriage that provide hints to the character of his relationship with his wife.  "Three years is too long to wait to be married. . . . I wore the streets out between the two houses [his and Flossie's] . . . Happy days and nights -- if lovers are ever happy!" (p. 127-28)  "Without absolute friends no man or marriage can last long." (p. 320)  "If a man and a woman are friends with another pair and one of each is left alone with one of the other pair, crossed any way you like, anything might result:  that sort of risky relationship is refreshing only so long as it is uncertain."  (p. 320)  Williams was an adventurer.  Although he spent most of his life in Rutherford, New Jersey, earning his living as a family physician and obstetrician, his life was full of stimulation, both inward and outward.  He traveled extensively, especially in Europe, but also in the Caribbean, and the United States.  He carried on friendships and correspondences with many people of literary and artistic fame including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound whom he knew from his college days, Hilda Doolittle, Marcel Duchamp, Charles Demuth, Edward Steichen, Ernest Hemingway, and many others.  He tells many interesting anecdotes involving his many friends and acquaintances.  He does not say much about his family and his children, however.  He seemed to dislike T. S. Eliot, although I was not able to discern exactly why from what he said about him.  He presents his views of poetry and art, but he is always concrete, never abstract, "By imitation we enlarge nature itself, we become nature or we discover in ourselves nature's active part." (p. 241)  He was very much influenced by nature.  His poetry and his autobiography are full of references to flowers and trees and landscapes.  Williams loved the outdoors and the beauties of natural settings and objects.  He never went to college, but was admitted directly into medical school at the University of Pennsylvania as the youngest member of his class.   There are many anecdotes from his medical practice, which provided inspiration for his writing.  He tells us "in the permission I as a physician have had to be present at deaths and births, at the tormented battles between daughter and diabolic mother, shattered by a gone brain -- just there -- for a split second -- from one side or the other, it has fluttered before me for a moment, a phrase which I quickly write down on anything at hand, any piece of paper I can grab." (p. 289)  The twin careers as a physician and poet complemented one another very harmoniously in him.   It gave his life balance, inspiration and financial security -- probably a good role model for a poet in American society.  An autobiography never gives a complete picture of a person, but it does present the subject's own version of events and gives him control over the agenda.  It is the most basic, primary source about a person.  This one is rich in interest and detail and is a good beginning to understanding the life of a master stylist who had such a profound influence on twentieth century poetry.