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This book is an awesome work with splendid poems that have something to say to everyone. Side-by-side texts with their translations are great in making the reader evaluate the meanings and nuances in both languages. I love these verses:"And the air came in with orange-blossom fingers over all those asleep: a thousand years of air, months, weeks of air, of blue wind, of iron cordillera, that were like soft hurricanes of footsteps polishing the lonely boundary of the stone." The imagery is vivid and thrilling, like in these verses: "Full woman, carnal apple, hot moon, thick smell of seaweed, crushed mud and light, what obscure clarity opens between your columns. What ancient night does man touch with his senses." I can recommend this poetry to anyone.Joyce Akesson author of Love's Thrilling Dimensions
I lost sleep last night to devour its last page.I love a night like last night where a book keeps me awake like a lover. This collection is the juice of a cool of mango on a scathing summer day, I tasted radience in the words. I immediately got more to give as presents to friends in love.This collection is a falling in love with life and shouldn't be missed.
I started to read this book with skepticism, because I think that it is impossible to translate Neruda in his exact sense. However, I had a very good impression of the book, and I think that the author did a great effort understanding Neruda's poems. Obviously, if you really want to know Neruda, you need to read his work in Spanish, but still it is a good approach to introduce you in his poetry.
It's difficult to read Neruda and remain intact."Of all that I was, I bear only these cruel scars, because those griefs confirm my very existence."
just bring Neruda so alive, and the selection of poems just captures his whole range of 'the many Pablos'. I got The Essential Neruda when it came out in 2004. So when I came here today to buy one as a gift, I'm pleased by the reviews of how great an introduction to Neruda it is, but I want to stress how great it is as a book to keep going back to again and again. I already loved Neruda, and have the old Selected Poems edition (which unfortunately ends at 1968, and some of the translations are just plain flat) plus the 20 Love Poems, Residence on Earth, Canto General, and some of the odes. But the translators here (former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass just won the Pulitzer). Actually, to quote the great writer Ariel Dorfman on the back cover of the book:"What beter way to celebrate the hundred years of Neruda's glorious residence on our earth than this selection of crucial works - in both languages. A splendid way to being a love affair with out Pablo or, having already succumbed to his infinite charms, revisit him passionately again and again and yet again."
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