Customer Reviews

Shadow of Paradise

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Love his voice and perceptions. Sometimes a little lush for some people but it suits me fine. If you need a respite from the garbage in the media try this book. The images will take you completely out of this world.

While reading Stephen Kessler's bilingual translation of Cernuda's last two books, named after the last book, Desolation of the Chimera (1962), I discovered that Vincente Aleixandre was also a member of the Generation of '27 (along with Cernuda, Guillen and Garcia Lorca). As it happened, I had a bilingual copy of Aleixandre's Shadow of Paradise (1944), given to me by my friend, the translator Hugh Harter. The book has the excitement of a transitional, mannerist work--in many senses. Primarily, the author seemed to be moving from a vivid, youthful surrealism to something different, more plain spoken, but still ecstatically wrapped in the imagery of surrealism. There's also the issue of timing with three gay members of '27: Garcia Lorca was killed in the early days of the Civil War. Cernuda went into exile and spent the rest of his life in the US and Mexico. Aleixandre stayed in Spain. I imagine certain adjustments in style had to be made for a gay man to live in Franco's Spain and, to me, that becomes the ever-present thing unsaid in Aleixandre's Shadow of Paradise. My only quibble with my friend's translations is that they depend so heavily on Latin cognates. Spanish comes by its Latin vocabulary quite naturally; but a preponderance of Latin in English poetry is endemic to 19th century Romanticism, perhaps giving the wrong signal. Leaning more toward Anglo-Saxon vocabulary would restore the hard-edged freshness to this volatile and vital poetry.