Customer Reviews

The Poetry of Pablo Neruda

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was very excited for this book, hoping to fill in gaps of my Neruda collection. but after reading it I was frustrated and disappointed, not only in the quality of many of the translations and the lack of the Spanish there next to the English, but I feel the editor left out many important poems while putting in a lot of Neruda's weaker work. It was clunky. I found a review in the New York Book Review on the web by the poet Charles Simic which explains my thoughts perfectly:

"As one would expect from an undertaking aiming to be so comprehensive in scope, The Poetry of Pablo Neruda is an uneven book. There are first-rate translations by John Felstiner, Margaret Sayers Peden, Jack Schmitt, Greg Simon, Alastair Reid and a dozen others alongside many mediocre ones. I'm not competent to judge the accuracy of individual translations, but I can compare their quality as poems since there are previous renderings of the same poems which seem to me far superior to the ones we have here. For instance, neither of the two versions of "Walking Around" in this book are as good as the one I quoted by H.R. Hays, or the one W.S. Merwin did years ago. As their worst, the translations do not convey the stylistic range and verbal integunity of the original, making Neruda sound instead like a Chilean Carl Sandburg.

The choice of poems is also at times debatable. In order to make the book representative of all of Neruda's work, Stavans has left out some well-known poems and included plenty of questionable ones..."

A missed opportunity. Una lastima.

While a beautiful anthology, I was very disappointed to find that it is not a complete bilingual edition. There is a sampling of *some* of the original poems in Spanish, but if you are looking for a side-by-side reading this is not it. In all fairness, Ilan Stavans presents a formidable compilation of Neruda's poems, and several translations of one poem are included for comparison (demonstrating the art of translation), but if you are looking for Neruda's poems in the original Spanish look elsewhere.

I had never read Pablo Neruda's poetry before until my girlfriend gave me this book for my birthday. I loved it! The early romantic poems are amazing. I also loved the way the Chilean poet wrote about his own country and about poverty and repression in Latin America. The reader gets a sense of history through an artistic viewpoint. There are plenty of poems in this excellent collection and the translations are really good. I think the editor did a great job. I highly recommend it.

I was incredibly excited to get a hardcover of this at a thrift store, in nearly brand new condition, for fifty cents. Why someone threw it away I have no idea.
And while it's a large selection and for the most part is very good, it has some issues, first and foremost, inconsistency in translations. Since the book has dozens of translators throughout, it's going to be hit and miss. Fortunately, it's mostly hit, but I was sad to see that "Ode to Enchanted Light," one of my favorite Neruda poems, was butchered in the translation. There are a few other duds throughout, translators who knew nothing of Neruda or his flow.
Some people have complained that it isn't side by side bilingual, but this isn't too much of a problem for me. While it would be nice, it would also cause the book to be over 2,000 pages, and it's already huge.
My final thought is that while it's not perfect, it's a good book. I certainly wouldn't pay $40 for it (the hardback cover price), but buying a paperback or a used hardback would be a good move for lovers of Neruda.

Poetry Of Pablo Neruda isn't just another slim coverage of poet Neruda's works: it's a definitive, comprehensive collection which makes available in a single volume of English nearly six hundred of his works, many in new translation, and many accompanied by the Spanish original. This sourcebook is an essential addition to any collection seeking a comprehensive gathering of Neruda's achievements under one cover: a 'must' for any college-level collection and many a public library holding.

This is an excellent work. It is written in an elegant
belles lettres style with translation into the Spanish language.
The poetry of Pablo Neruda documented important periods of
the 20th century . i.e. the Russian Revolution, the
Spanish Civil War, Stalinism etc. The poetry depicts love
scenes , as well as death and despair. Here are some samples:

"For from so many bodies an invisible life.
A river, mothers, flags, sons!
A single body alive as life:
One face of broken eyes watches the darkness
Like a sword filled with celestial hopes."

Try on another verse for size:

"To the lands without name or numbers,
the wind blew down from other domains,
the rain brought celestial threads,
and the god of the unpregnated altars restored
flowers and lives."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez described Pablo Neruda as the
greatest poet of the 20th century in any language.

Neruda knew how to love a woman. There's such a sensuous, tactile quality to his poetry that makes you think he just might have been one hell of a lover. And mixed in with this earthy prose is an appreciation for the subtle, fleeting moments that last only in quick impressions and memories of wanting and desire. In one moment he tells us of the heavy weight and feel as he cups the rounded breasts of his mistress and the next he sighs his longing for the ability to devour the parts of her that linger in his memory whole. Truly the love poet for the modern age :

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.


One thing I will say about this particular copy though is that while it is certainly the most comprehensive edition available to English speakers, it is not, perhaps, the best translated. Kudos to the editors for managing to put it all together though - and I do believe credit is due for not sticking to one translator for the whole thing. However when comparing certain works against others it becomes apparent that not all translators do their transcribing equally. Oh well, I suppose you have to go with what's available to you at the time. Obviously not all my favorites have done every single poem and I do appreciate the effort to use the superior translation when available.

Received this book in no time. This is a hard to find book that wasn't available in any of my local bookstores and so I was delighted to find it at Amazon. I'll keep this book for a long, long time.

I had read some of Neruda's works, but I wanted a large collection that surveyed a wide range of his output. There is no complete works of his English. It would take up several volumes if there was. This collection succeeds admirably in providing readers with as comprehensive as a survey as there is in the English language. The result is a rich and beautiful outpouring of one of the greatest poets of all time. The collection spans his entire career and focuses on what are generally considered Neruda's best works.

I love the fact that there are only occasional poems with the Spanish translation available. I love this because I only read in English, however, I do enjoy reading the occasional Spanish poem out loud to hear the rhythm and to improve my language just a little. I don't know why translators don't do this more often. It seems that we usually get either a complete bilingual edition, or a complete monolingual edition. A complete bilingual edition would have added an extra 800 pages or so. It does not make sense for a comprehensive volume for English readers. On another interesting note, some of the poems offer more than one translation, along with the Spanish original to compare them with. Also, the text features different translators. I like this because it will help me to select which translators to read in the future.

Now that I am almost finished with this volume, I can't wait to get all of the complete translations as individual books, assuming that no one does come out with a complete works in English. Neruda is brilliant, breathtaking, political, metaphorical, powerful... I could go on. He really has it all. I highly recommend this volume for anyone who wants a comprehensive book of his English. It is one of my favorite poetry books. I return to it often.

Years ago I saw the movie Il Postino (The Postman)and came to know who Pablo Neruda was. I bought the soundtrack and discovered the poems being read by actors. Finally I discovered this book and am glad I purchased it. It is a joy to discover new poems each time I open the book.