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cowboylikestoread43's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
mary_soon_lee's review against another edition
Nearly fifty years after his death, Pablo Neruda remains a highly influential and celebrated poet. This collection contains fifty of his poems. The Spanish originals are presented alongside their English translations. Eight translators are credited, with initials used to indicate who had primary responsibility for each poem. So far: excellent. I love when poetry translations include the original text, especially in this side-by-side fashion, so that the reader can conveniently compare the original to the translation. And I'm grateful that English translations of Neruda's work are available.
Onto a couple of minor complaints that are unrelated to the poetry itself. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, being ignorant of the details of Pablo Neruda's life, I would have liked a couple of pages of biography.
Next, the contents name the collections that the poems were drawn from, together with the dates those collections were published, with the poems progressing from the earliest collection onward, ending with several poems that appeared posthumously. I would have appreciated these dates and divisions being shown in the main text, together with translations of the titles of the collections (the translations of the titles are also omitted in the contents list). As a related niggle, it bugged me that the titles in the contents list didn't precisely match the titles in the body of the book: I spotted at least two droppings of the word "the" between the contents and the main text.
Onto the poetry itself. In as much as I can tell -- ignorant of Spanish, but with a smattering of Italian sufficient to mostly match Spanish text to its translation -- these are fine and poetic translations. Yet I didn't care for most of the poems. They are highly regarded, widely loved poems, so I conclude that I am simply the wrong reader for them.
I recognize the poetry in these poems, but often the content didn't appeal to me. Of the fifty poems, I marked ten as ones that I liked or half-liked. Of those ten, there was one poem that I liked quite a bit ("Heights of Macchu Picchu: VI//And then on the ladder") and one poem that I liked better still ("I Explain Some Things").
In general, I preferred the more political poems and those touching on pre-Colombian America. To me, there seemed to be an undercurrent of sexism or something adjacent to sexism in some of the poems. Plus the voice of the poems was sometimes too concerned with the poet as a Poet (capital P). It didn't help that partway through I resorted to Wikipedia to learn more about Pablo Neruda. The following extract from the lengthy Wikipedia article soured me on the poet:
N.B. The above text was taken from Wikipedia, retrieved 6/21/2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda.
This collection stands as an excellent resource, even though I am among the outliers who didn't warm to the poetry.
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved). In the case of poetry books, for various reasons, I often omit a rating altogether.
Onto a couple of minor complaints that are unrelated to the poetry itself. Firstly and perhaps most importantly, being ignorant of the details of Pablo Neruda's life, I would have liked a couple of pages of biography.
Next, the contents name the collections that the poems were drawn from, together with the dates those collections were published, with the poems progressing from the earliest collection onward, ending with several poems that appeared posthumously. I would have appreciated these dates and divisions being shown in the main text, together with translations of the titles of the collections (the translations of the titles are also omitted in the contents list). As a related niggle, it bugged me that the titles in the contents list didn't precisely match the titles in the body of the book: I spotted at least two droppings of the word "the" between the contents and the main text.
Onto the poetry itself. In as much as I can tell -- ignorant of Spanish, but with a smattering of Italian sufficient to mostly match Spanish text to its translation -- these are fine and poetic translations. Yet I didn't care for most of the poems. They are highly regarded, widely loved poems, so I conclude that I am simply the wrong reader for them.
I recognize the poetry in these poems, but often the content didn't appeal to me. Of the fifty poems, I marked ten as ones that I liked or half-liked. Of those ten, there was one poem that I liked quite a bit ("Heights of Macchu Picchu: VI//And then on the ladder") and one poem that I liked better still ("I Explain Some Things").
In general, I preferred the more political poems and those touching on pre-Colombian America. To me, there seemed to be an undercurrent of sexism or something adjacent to sexism in some of the poems. Plus the voice of the poems was sometimes too concerned with the poet as a Poet (capital P). It didn't help that partway through I resorted to Wikipedia to learn more about Pablo Neruda. The following extract from the lengthy Wikipedia article soured me on the poet:
His only offspring, his daughter Malva Marina (Trinidad) Reyes, was born in Madrid in 1934. She was plagued with severe health problems, especially suffering from hydrocephalus. She died in 1943 (nine years old), having spent most of her short life with a foster family in the Netherlands after Neruda ignored and abandoned her, forcing her mother to take what jobs she could.
N.B. The above text was taken from Wikipedia, retrieved 6/21/2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda.
This collection stands as an excellent resource, even though I am among the outliers who didn't warm to the poetry.
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved). In the case of poetry books, for various reasons, I often omit a rating altogether.
mrsjburgin's review against another edition
Narrator's voice was....meh
Did the English version
Did the English version
smolbean_reads's review
5.0
'Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands' -
from Every Day You Play
500 pages of the most beautifully written poetry. Right from the early days of his sexy, dark, whimsical, complex poetry to the more relaxed reflection style in later years. A wonderful mix of romantic poetry, life ponderings and travel. I really love that he often draws on his experience of living by the sea and by a pine forest, making for very dreamy prose inspired by mother nature. It helped get me through a very emotionally bumpy 6 months. Also good to have the original Spanish versions alongside the English because I could test myself on my Spanish vocabulary knowledge!
Extract from The Marine Night (its 3 pages of beautifulness)
Marine night, white and green statue,
I love you: sleep with me. I went through all
the streets, disintegrating and dying,
the wood grew with me, man
vanquished his ashes and got ready
to rest surrounded by the earth.
Night fell so that your eyes
might not see his wretched repose:
desiring to be close, he opened his arms
guarded by beings and walls,
and fell into the dream of silence, descending
with his roots into funeral land.
I, Oceanic night, arrived with the love that makes me,
and reached your open form, the vastness that Aldebaran
watches over, the wet mouth of your song.
I saw you, night of the sea, as you were born,
bruised by infinite mother-of-pearl:
I watched the starry threads weaving
and the electricity of your girdle
and the blue motion of the sounds
that harass your devoured sweetness.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands' -
from Every Day You Play
500 pages of the most beautifully written poetry. Right from the early days of his sexy, dark, whimsical, complex poetry to the more relaxed reflection style in later years. A wonderful mix of romantic poetry, life ponderings and travel. I really love that he often draws on his experience of living by the sea and by a pine forest, making for very dreamy prose inspired by mother nature. It helped get me through a very emotionally bumpy 6 months. Also good to have the original Spanish versions alongside the English because I could test myself on my Spanish vocabulary knowledge!
Extract from The Marine Night (its 3 pages of beautifulness)
Marine night, white and green statue,
I love you: sleep with me. I went through all
the streets, disintegrating and dying,
the wood grew with me, man
vanquished his ashes and got ready
to rest surrounded by the earth.
Night fell so that your eyes
might not see his wretched repose:
desiring to be close, he opened his arms
guarded by beings and walls,
and fell into the dream of silence, descending
with his roots into funeral land.
I, Oceanic night, arrived with the love that makes me,
and reached your open form, the vastness that Aldebaran
watches over, the wet mouth of your song.
I saw you, night of the sea, as you were born,
bruised by infinite mother-of-pearl:
I watched the starry threads weaving
and the electricity of your girdle
and the blue motion of the sounds
that harass your devoured sweetness.
paul_viaf's review against another edition
3.0
I did like the book yet beacause I have read some of his more experimental works first, this may have ruined this reading experience. I found the writing to be genuine & profound, but at times, I also found it redundant & saw it as a search to find the writer I've come to love. We all start off searching as writers & this is no exception. I did see the potential in many of the works & did see the outpour of pure emotion, so in this I could never discount such an intimate baring. My favorite poems of the book were El Pueblo & the Obligations of a Poet...those poems touched me the deepest & summed it up for me. I will continue to read his works & cherish them greatly.
mfumarolo's review against another edition
3.0
Like most poems and poetry collections, this one had pieces that spoke directly to me and others that went right over my head. The translations side by side in English and Spanish were a great visual, and I enjoyed opening myself up to the mind and work of a poet who I was mostly unfamiliar with before. This collection has left me with a long list of poems I can't wait to revisit.