Neruda, p.57
Neruda, page 57
When Nascimento eventually sent: According to Neruda, “Erratas y erratones,” in OC, 5:237–238.
“one part quest”: Author Tomás Q. Morín’s blurb for Neruda, Pablo. venture of the infinite man, trans. Jessica Powell (San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 2017). Excerpts of venture of the infinite man are from Powell’s translation.
like Alice with her looking glass: Wilson, Companion to Pablo Neruda, 85.
In a midbook climax: René de Costa explains how this “sexual act becomes a metaphor for ultimate oneness” in Poetry of Pablo Neruda, 53.
“twisting to that side”: venture of the infinite man, trans. Jessica Powell (all passages quoted herein).
meditative thinking generates: Wilson, Companion to Pablo Neruda, 85.
“the least read”: Cardona Peña, “Pablo Neruda: Breve historia,” 265.
“The flesh and blood”: Quoted in de Costa, Poetry of Pablo Neruda, 45.
“going the way of the absurd”: Ibid., 42.
It shimmers with poetic tension: De Costa, Pablo Neruda’s tentativa del hombre infinito, 146–147.
“I have always looked”: Neruda, “Algunas reflexiones,” in OC, 4:1204.
“profesor de profesores”: Arrué, Ventana del recuerdo, 46.
Neruda managed to see Albertina: Varas, José Miguel. “El cara de hombre,” Mapocho 33 (First Semester 1993): 14.
He was about to have: Azócar, “Testimonio,” 215.
After a few days in Temuco: Loyola, Neruda: La biografía literaria, 206. 131 “the first night that we”: Letter dated September 15, 1926, OC, 5:901.
Neruda rekindled his relationship: Loyola, Neruda: La biografía literaria, 207.
“One honest word from you”: Letter dated November 1925, OC, 5:908.
The rain covered the town: OC, 5:909.
Rubén had rented: Azócar, “Testimonio,” 216.
“a triumph”: La Nación, September 26, 1926. Quoted in Alone, Los cuatro grandes, 186.
“I’ve got a dramatic”: Translated by Megan Coxe. OC, 1:217.
“Now, my house is the last one in Cantalao”: Coxe, trans., OC, 1:219.
“It’s a story”: La Nación, September 26, 1926. Quoted in Alone, Los cuatro grandes, 186.
a dinner was thrown: Azócar, “Testimonio,” 217.
“The southern skies”: “Tristeza,” Anillos.
The room Neruda, Lago, and Oyarzún shared: Arrué, Ventana de recuerdo, 60.
One day Laura Arrué came: Ibid., 61.
“Autumn appears in the corner”: Ibid., 112.
“I’ve been through so much!”: Letter dated January 9, 1927, OC, 5:915.
“I’m bored of everything”: OC, 5:912–914.
It was a very serious composition: Letter to the Argentine writer Héctor Eandi, July 2, 1930, OC, 5:959. All correspondence between Eandi and Neruda cited in this book is found in OC, 5:936–975, identifiable by date.
“sense of a new reality”: Felstiner, Translating Neruda, 67.
Clarity comes only through: Part of this analysis comes from my work with Professor Michael Predmore at Stanford University, influenced by his analysis and lectures.
His singing—his poetry: Concha, Neruda (1904–1936), 262.
He is like that pumpkin: Wilson, Companion to Pablo Neruda, 127.
Valparaíso’s “magnetic pulse”: CHV, 456–459.
Álvaro’s example of discipline: CHV, 478.
Álvaro was also an important: CHV, 478.
The first time Neruda came: Thayer, Sylvia. “Testimonio,” Aurora, nos. 3–4 (July–December 1964): 241.
Neruda could walk for hours: Ibid.
“The Valparaíso night!”: CHV, 463.
“thinking about getting involved”: Loyola, El joven Neruda, 141.
On October 8, 1926, he wrote: OC, 5:797.
“Laura, I’m writing to tell you”: OC, 5:799.
Neruda kept visiting this department head: CHV, 467.
one of his friends, Manuel Bianchi: Schidlowsky, Las furias y las penas (2008), 1:120–121.
“Rangoon. There’s Rangoon”: CHV, 468.
CHAPTER EIGHT: AFAR
“Dawn’s Dim Light”: “Débil del alba,” Residence on Earth I (1933). Written probably in 1926, most likely just before or after he arrived in the Far East.
“While eating and drinking”: Muñoz, Memorias, 146.
Neruda gave him a copy of the book: Yates, Donald. “Neruda and Borges,” Simposio Pablo Neruda: Actas, ed. Juan Loveluck and Issac Jack Lévy (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1975), 240. Quoted in Wilson, Companion to Pablo Neruda, 109.
“a hopeless, clumsy language”: Chiappini, Julio O. Borges: La persona, el personaje, sus personajes, sus detractores (Rosario, Argentina: FAS, 2005), 241.
“Borges really seems to be a ghost”: Letter to Héctor Eandi, April 24, 1929, OC, 5:942–943.
In a 1975 interview: Borges, Jorge L. Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations, ed. Richard Burgin (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998), 139.
“Some people accuse you”: Guibert, “Pablo Neruda,” 67–68.
“This German ship”: CHV, 468.
“I’m a little scared of arriving”: OC, 5:803.
“When I arrived in Spain”: Cardona Peña, “Pablo Neruda: Breve historia,” 273.
Guillermo de Torre replied: De Torre, Guillermo. “Carta abierta a Pablo Neruda,” Cuadernos americanos 57, no. 3 (May–June 1951): 277–282.
“Panoramic Sketch of Chilean Poetry”: De Torre, Guillermo. “Esquema panorámico de la nueva poesía Chilena,” Gaceta literaria 15, no. 1 (August 1927): 3.
“two hundred meters”: CHV, 469–471.
profoundly impressed: Camp, André, and Ramón Luis Chao. “Neruda por Neruda,” Triunfo (Madrid), November 13, 1971.
“During those days I met”: CHV, 470.
He was crazy but kind: Diary entry after Cóndon’s death, October 22, 1934, in Morla Lynch, Carlos. En España con Federico García Lorca: Páginas de un diario íntimo, 1929–1936 (Seville: Renacimiento, 2008), 430–442.
After they unloaded Cóndon: CHV, 473.
“loaded like a basket”: CHV, 473.
composing love letters: CHV, 474.
imperialistic exploiters: Author interview with Aida Figueroa, 2003, among other sources.
“The women here are black”: Letter dated October 28, 1927, OC, 5:804.
“a woman to love, to bed”: “Rangoon, 1927,” Memorial de Isla Negra, in Neruda, Isla Negra.
“At that time, like now”: Triunfo, November 13, 1973.
“The women, indispensable material”: Letter dated December 7, 1927, in Neruda, Pablo. Epistolario viajero: 1927–1973, ed. Abraham Quezada Vergara (Santiago: RIL Editores, 2004), 49.
“This is a beautiful country”: Letter dated December 12, 1927, Archivo del Escritor, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile. (My understanding was later supplemented by Abraham Quezada Vergara’s annotations in Neruda, Epistolario Viajero, 51.)
“How difficult to leave Siam”: Written in February 1928; appeared in La Nacíon, April 8, 1928. Available in OC, 4:349–352.
“Life in Rangoon”: Letter dated February 22, 1928, OC, 5:806.
“Sometimes for long stretches”: OC, 5:937.
“Our friendship with Pablo”: Olivares Briones, Edmundo. Pablo Neruda: Los caminos de Oriente (Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2000), 152.
“I suffer, I’m so anguished”: OC, 5:1026–1027.
“It seems difficult to tell”: Letter dated February 22, 1928, OC, 5:806.
“that it will express”: Letter dated December 7, 1927, in Neruda, Epistolario viajero, 50.
He had created a new rhetoric: Schopf, Federico. “Recepción y contexto de la poesía de Pablo Neruda,” Del vanguardismo a la antipoesía: Ensayos sobre la poesía en Chile (Santiago: LOM Ediciones, 2000), 88. Schopf did not specifically mention that it was “quickly labeled.”
“Between shadow and space”: “Arte poética,” Residence on Earth I. Translated by Stephen Kessler in Neruda, Pablo. The Essential Neruda, ed. Mark Eisner (San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 2004).
The writer Jim Harrison: Harrison, Jim. Introduction to Residence on Earth, by Pablo Neruda (New York: New Directions, 2004), xiv.
“Whenever I’m feeling”: Author interview with Ariel Dorfman, 2004.
In June, he sent: Again, from Schidlowsky’s pioneering archival research in Las furias y las penas (2008), 1:140.
“Consuls like me”: Letter started on October 5, 1929, in OC, 5:945.
“seems to me still too provincial”: Letter started on October 5, 1929, this part from a section he wrote on October 24. He continued writing the letter into November before sending it, occasionally marking the date of new entries. OC, 5:946–947.
Their mutual friend Alfredo Cóndon: Morla Lynch, En España con Federico García Lorca, 430.
“Carlos Morla, about me feeling lonely”: Letter dated November 8, 1930, a photocopy of which appears in Macías, Sergio. El Madrid de Pablo Neruda (Madrid: Tabla Rasa, 2004), 24.
In her study “Chasing Your (Josie) Bliss”: Author interview with Roanne Kantor, 2015 and 2017, as well as from her article “Chasing Your (Josie) Bliss: The Troubling Critical Afterlife of Pablo Neruda’s Burmese Lover,” Transmodernity 3, no. 2 (Spring 2014): 59–82. Available at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5dv9d4jq.
“she glowered at the air”: CHV, 491.
The prototypical “Oriental Woman”: Said, Edward W. Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 180–190.
Or, in the words of Kantor: Published under her maiden name as Sharp, Roanne Leah. “Neruda in Asia/Asia in Neruda: Enduring Traces of South Asia in the Journey Through Residencia en la tierra,” master’s thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2011.
“The Night of the Soldier”: “La noche del soldado,” Residence on Earth I.
“The Young Monarch”: “El joven monarca,” Residence on Earth I.
“ended up killing me”: CHV, 491.
“two months of life”: Letter to Héctor Eandi, January 16, 1929, OC, 5:939.
“Calcutta, 1928”: OC, 1:1182.
“a shock down my spine”: Vargas Llosa, Mario. “Neruda cumple cien años,” El País (Madrid), June 27, 2004.
“Oh Maligna”: “Tango del viudo,” Residence on Earth I.
“As she thought that rice”: CHV, 501.
There’s a natural urge: Discussed as part of author interview with Roanne Kantor, 2017.
CHAPTER NINE: OPIUM AND MARRIAGE
“Nocturnal Collection”: “Colección nocturna,” translated by Jessica Powell. Loyola dates this as the first poem in Residence on Earth written outside of Chile, begun in 1927, if not 1928, and revised in 1929 to be part of Residence on Earth (1925–1931), first published in 1933 (El joven Neruda, 163).
Someone took a posed: Among other places, this photo can be seen in Olivares, Edmundo, ed. Itinerario de una amistad: Pablo Neruda–Héctor Eandi: Epistolario 1927–1943 (Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2008), 87.
“Have I told you about Wellawatta”: Letter dated April 24, 1929, OC, 5:942.
“Caught between the Englishmen”: CHV, 493.
“If you, my dear mother”: Letter dated March 14, 1929, OC, 5:811.
“I never read”: “Sonata con recuerdos,” OC, 5:162.
The potato sacks contained: OC, 5:162.
synthesis of European modernist innovations: “George Keyt,” artist bio, Christie’s, http://artist.christies.com/George-Keyt-29852-bio.aspx.
wrote a review: George Keyt, a Centennial Anthology (Colombo: George Keyt Foundation, 2001), 4.
“idealism and mysticism”: Bradshaw, David. “The Best of Companions: J. W. N. Sullivan, Aldous Huxley, and the New Physics,” Review of English Studies 47, no. 186 (May 1996): 188–206. Quoted in Sexton, James. “Aldous Huxley’s Three Plays, 1931–1948,” in Aldous Huxley Between East and West, ed. C. C. Barfoot (Amsterdam; New York: Rodopi, 2001), 65.
“An aunt of mine remembers”: Ondaatje, Michael. Running in the Family (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 79.
“I’m alone”: Letter dated April 24, 1929, OC, 5:942.
“taking out everything”: Author interview with Rosa León Muller, 2014.
“I’m very tired from”: Letter dated December 17, 1929, OC, 5:916–917.
“In those days, more than”: Quoted in Poirot, Pablo Neruda, 144.
“Madrigal Written in Winter”: “Madrigal escrito en invierno,” Residence on Earth I.
“Oh heartless lady”: From the poem “Tiranía” [“Tyranny”], Residence on Earth I.
“Female friends of various colorings”: CHV, 504.
“She walked solemnly”: CHV, 505.
“elevating the exotic Other”: Žižek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times (London; New York: Verso, 2011), 25.
“magical Malay Archipelago”: Letter dated February 1, 1930, OC, 5:950.
“I smoked one pipe”: CHV, 492.
“inspired to ecstasies”: Abrams, M. H. The Milk of Paradise: The Effect of Opium Visions on the Works of De Quincey, Crabbe, Francis Thompson, and Coleridge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 3.
there is a disjuncture: Sharp (Kantor),“Neruda in Asia/Asia in Neruda.”
“I had to experience opium”: CHV, 492–493.
“Pablo sleeps, pulls”: Hinojosa’s postscript is contained and transcribed in Olivares, ed., Itinerario de una amistad, 45. The letter seems to have been written as they crossed the Bay of Bengal from Calcutta to Ceylon.
“A Day in Singapore”: Published in La Nación, February 5, 1928. Available in OC, 4:341.
In the end, the only community: Much of this discussion of Neruda’s relationship with opium was informed by Chilean professor Francisco Leal at Colorado State University, through correspondence and conversations during the spring and summer of 2015, in addition to his work “Pablo Neruda y el opio (del pueblo). Reflexiones en torno a la ‘metafísica cubierta de amapolas’ de Residencia en la tierra” (unpublished manuscript, 2013). Discussions with Roanne Kantor and her work “Neruda in Asia/Asia in Neruda” helped to inform this area as well.
opium’s “exercising effect”: Leal, “Pablo Neruda y el opio.”
“the action of opium”: Hayter, Alethea. Opium and the Romantic Imagination (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), 334.
“Nocturnal Collection”: “Colección nocturna,” Residence on Earth I.
As Roanne Kantor: Sharp (Kantor), “Neruda in Asia/Asia in Neruda,” 14–15.
“Contradicted Communications”: “Communicaciones desmentidas,” Residence on Earth I.
“Nocturnal Establishments”: “Establecimientos nocturnos,” Residence on Earth I. Analysis of the poem guided by the insightful points in Leal, Francisco. “‘Quise entonces fumar’: El opio en César Vallejo y Pablo Neruda, rutas asiáticas de experimentación” (unpublished manuscript, 2013).
“Opium in the East”: “El opio en el Este,” Memorial de Isla Negra. Translated by the author and Jessica Powell.
“opiate for the exploited”: The idea from Leal, “‘Quise entonces fumar,’” among others.
“never again”: CHV, 492.
city of Pagan: Teitelboim mentions that Neruda visited Pagan while in Burma in Neruda: La biografía, 153.
“mysterious Sinhalese”: Neruda, Pablo. “Ceylon espeso,” La Nación, November 17, 1929. Available in OC, 4:354-356.
“strange hungry Buddha”: Letter dated September 8, 1928, OC, 5:939.
blend of curiosity and skepticism: Triunfo, November 13, 1971, 18.
toward the end of 1929: OC, 1:1183.
“vital, speedy wings”: “Significa sombras” [“It Means Shadows”], Residence on Earth I. Translated by Stephen Kessler in Neruda, The Essential Neruda.
“Never lost”: Neruda, Pablo. “Orient and Orient,” La Nación, August 3, 1930. Available in OC, 4:356–357.
The crux of Neruda’s problem: Author interview with Roanne Kantor, 2015.
“Religion in the East”: “Religión en el este,” Memorial de Isla Negra.
“Sometimes I’m happy here”: From entries dated October 31 and November 21 as part of a letter he started on October 5, 1929. He continued writing the letter into November before sending it, occasionally marking the date of new entries. OC, 5:947–949.
“good servant Dom Brampy”: Letter to Héctor Eandi dated April 23, 1930, OC, 5:956.
“my Sinhalese boy”: “Boy” was written in English. CHV, 506.
“extremely friendly”: Letter to Héctor Eandi dated April 23, 1930, OC, 5:956.
She did adore him at first: As seen in a letter to Neruda from The Hague, November 18, 1938, APNF.
“soon, tomorrow even”: Letter dated October 5, 1929, OC, 5:946.
A week later he wrote: OC, 5:817–818.
“I’ve married”: OC, 5:1028.
“extremely close”: OC, 5:959–960.
“Some years later, my biographer”: CHV, 515.
CHAPTER TEN: AN INTERLUDE
“Maternity”: “Maternidad,” Residence on Earth II. Written in 1934, though not published until 1938, this poem is unique because there was an unusual amount of time between the year of composition and when the book was published, and also because so much had changed in his life and the world during those years.
“The Ghost of the Cargo Ship”: “El fantasma del buque de carga,” Residence on Earth I. Translated by Stephen Kessler, using the title “The Phantom of the Cargo Ship,” in Neruda, The Essential Neruda.
Finally, on April 18, 1932: Loyola, El joven Neruda, 254.
Neruda’s telegram to his parents: Teitelboim, Neruda: La biografía, 67.
“She was a hostile being”: Muñoz, Memorias, 182.
Neruda remained calm: Ibid.
“Now he wasn’t the somber”: Ibid., 180.
“with a melancholy air”: Souvirón, José María. “Pablo Neruda,” ABC (Madrid), December 4, 1962. Quoted in Schidlowsky, Las furias y las penas (2008), 1:205.
“You know by now”: Letter dated May 1932, OC, 5:924–925.
“My telegrams, my letters”: Letter dated May 15, 1932, OC, 5:925.
“My dear Albertina”: Letter dated July 11, 1932, OC, 5:925.
Through a fellow writer: Olivares Briones, Pablo Neruda: Los caminos de Oriente, 430–431.
