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A bilingual collection of 25 newly translated odes by the century's greatest Spanish-language poet, each accompanied by a pair of exquisite pencil drawings. From bread and soap to a bed and a box of tea, the "odes to common things" collected here conjure up the essence of their subjects clearly and wondrously. 50 b&w illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

I love Neruda, but...
Appears I am the contra voice on this one. Perhaps all the little poems mean something to the author, but most were either too obscure, silly or meaningless to me.. As it was at the end of his life/career, this is not what made Neruda famous, though it is clear it has a broad and deep appreciation in it's own right. Just didn't click for me, but i would absolutely encourage anyone to check it out for themselves.

Beautiful
I love his poetry. The translation is not as good as I expected but it's OK. The drawings are beautiful.

This is the quintessential Naruda tome.
I cannot be without this book.It gives one all there could be to know about love and life.It is well worth its cost and leaves the reader that much smarter about everything that matters in love (and life)

Delicious reading
Neruda's use of language is truly sensual, in both English and Spanish.I must read for word lovers.

Ode to the Odes to Common Things Book
WOW. I've never been so moved by this book. As I began to read it, I sensed so many different things. How can such wonderful feelings be sensed by such common things. Pablo Neruda is a master in poetry. Im only 16 years old and I've never been so moved by such poetry. what an amazing man he was. it takes real gift to be able and write like that. This book really touched me, that sense and feeling in every line was enchanting. read this book, and you'll appreciate almost everything in life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A compilation of Neruda's best
In length, breadth and height, Neruda's verses are vast. It is impossible that at least some of it wouldn't appeal to you.

This book is a compilation of his poems from several of his collections- his Odes, Love Sonnets and Full Powers, among others. The title of the book Full Woman... is one of the sonnets, and one of my favorites.
All of the Odes are delightful, a treat for the mind and senses. I wish I could see life like Neruda did. The world he spins out of words, is other-worldly, yet at the same time, common, back-yardly.
... Read more

Product Description
The atom, a tuna, laziness, love-the everyday elements and essences of human experience glow in the translucent language of Neruda's odes. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote three books of odes during his lifetime. Odas elementales was published in 1954, followed in subsequent years by Nuevas odas elementales and Tercer libro de las odas. Margaret Sayers Peden's selection of odes from all three volumes, printed with the Spanish originals on facing pages, is by far the most extensive yet to appear in English. She vividly conveys the poet's vision of the realities of day-to-day life in her trans-lations, while her brief introduction describes the genesis of the poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

If you can only afford to buy one Neruda book,
this one is a good choice. I particularly like his ode to my suit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

exceptionl experience
for those who love adventure and traveling, this is an amazing history from an exceptional writer

autobiografia poetica
Para los que gustan de un buen relato hecho por uno de los mayores literatos de nuestra epoca, no busquen mas.Neruda es sin duda un coloso en el mundo de la literatura hispana contemporanea. Para conocer mejor el periodo historico que describe en este libro sugiero que lean la historia de la guerra civil Espanola y conozcan bien el pensamiento de los intelectuales de la epoca. Es claro que Neruda romantiza el socialismo sovietico sin conocerlo bien pero eso no disminuye esta obra maestra que entre prosa ypoesia nos deja sedientos...... Hoy en dia cuando tenemos que satisfacernos con traducciones mediocres de autores cuasi-literatos sentimos la falta de estos genios de la literatura hispana.

Great writing and somewhat distorted view of reality
I enjoyed reading this extremely well written memoir by a leading poet. The book has greatly improved my Spanish and my knowledge of Hispanic culture. However, I cannot, for the life of me, understand Neruda's fascination with the Soviet regime. His perception is historically simply wrong and it is quite shocking to read, especially for people who grew up under that regime. Was Neruda completely deceived, was he so clueless, or was he not honest in his reporting? He doesn't come through as a person lacking the ability to perceive things clearly. How did he manage, as a diplomat, to forget so easily the fact that WW2 began from a treaty known as Ribbentrop-Molotov?
Yet, sometimes one has the impression that he is trying to get himself excused from confronting difficult issues by telling us he is just a poet. His idealistic, child-like communism seems to be just a poet's dream and, sadly, has nothing to do with reality.

An Extraordinary Poet - An ExtraordinaryHuman Being - A Life Well Led!,
Pablo Neruda's "Memoirs" is not a comprehensive autobiographical document. It is a personal memoir, recounted as if the author were sitting around a table, with good friends and a bottle of excellent Chilean wine, telling tales of the people, anecdotes and incidents that were so important in his life. "Confieso Que He Vivido," means I confess that I have lived. And Sr. Neruda certainly did that...with zest, zeal and so much talent. I read Neruda's book in Spanish, but feel more comfortable writing this review in English. The translation by Hardie St. Martin is a good one, but it does not do justice to Neruda's extraordinary writing skills. He romances the Spanish language, like no other, even with his prose.

Neruda was born, the son of a railroad worker, in the then frontier wilderness of Southern Chile in 1904. He led a bohemian lifestyle, dressing in black "like the true poets of the last century," during his university years in Santiago. His shyness, the "kink in the soul,"...especially of women, took him a while to overcome. He describes the people and places of that period with great 'carino' (love). His political ideology began to form at that time also, and politics became an integral part of his writing. The Student Federation, student demonstrations and the subsequent repression, had a great impact on the young intellectual.

Neruda led a rich and fascinating life. World traveled, he served as Chilean consul in Burma, Ceylon, and Java. He was the consul in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, and during this time "Nine Love Poems" from "Veinte Poemas de Amor y Una Cancion Desesperada" was published. It was at this time also, that his friend Federico Garcia Lorca was killed. Neruda was present in Paris to organize a worldwide anti-Facist congress of writers that would be held in Madrid. His writing about Spain during the war is heartbreaking. Returning to Chile in 1938, he found a burgeoning Fascist movement in his own beloved land.

I particularly enjoyed his account of the time he spent in Mexico, as consul. He tells of his encounters with the great Mexican painters there.

After returning home, Neruda ran for political office and was elected to Chile's Senate in 1945. He was later removed from his Senate seat after joining the Communist Party.

His friends included: Garcia Lorca, Ehrenburg, Picasso, Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Octavio Paz, Miguel Angel Asturias, Gandhi, Nehru, Mao, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and most sadly, Salvador Allende.

Pablo Neruda's death, just weeks after the brutal murder of Chile's President Allende, is something I will never forget. I was living in Colombia at that time, and remember where I was and what I was doing when I learned of Allende's death, and later heard of Neruda's passing. It called to mind, then and now, my recollections, as a young girl, when President Kennedy's assassination was announced. I always thought Neruda died of a broken heart.

This is an exceptionally good memoir, told with great charm, in a series of vignettes. I highly recommend it, especially to anyone who has read and enjoyed Pablo Neruda's poetry - to my mind some of the most beautiful in the world. It also gives us a glimpse of the politics of the left from the point of view of a Latin American - not the usual perspective, and well worth while.
JANA

muy hermosa prosa
Este es un libro de gran intensidad narrativa, lleno de fragmentos de una vida muy fructífera y muy poética. La vida que Neruda nos cuenta es fragmentaria y fragmentada, llena de elementos realistas de alto contenido poético. Como el mismo expresa, esa vida es muchas vidas, es la vida de todos los poetas. Este libro nos cuenta como vivió en su estadía por varios países en los cuales se sintió atacado de una aguda soledad que permeo su poesía y su vida, de como lo atrapo una guerra y de como llego a ser un comunista, buscando algo a que aferrarse, algo a que creer. Es un libro escrito en una prosa tremendamente hermosa, aunque a veces todas las descripciones que nos da nos cansan un poco y nos quedamos embobados en los detalles de una bella oración y no prestando atención al tema de que trata. Neruda es contagioso, me pasa igual que con su poesía, uno se deja llevar de esa dulce y empalagosa prosa y termina escribiendo como él. Creo que muchos que han leído a neruda han terminado escribiendo un poco como él. Es un libro intenso y hermoso y de ningún modo una biografía objetiva, que poeta lo es.?

Luis Mendez ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

perceptive and powerful picture-book biography for all ages
Pablo Neruda, winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize in literature, has been called "the greatest poet of the 20th century--in any language." But before Neruda achieved international acclaim, he was once a shy, stuttering boy in a pioneer town in southern Chile, South America.
This extraordinary picture book delves into Neruda's unique childhood. Author Deborah Kogan Ray seamlessly weaves together excerpts from the poet's poems, memoirs, and verse autobiography, along with her own perceptive and powerful narrative, to create a portrait of his early years. The author's evocative full-page watercolor illustrations underscore the magic and mystery of the text.
Growing up in the shadow of the volcano Mount Llaima, Pablo spent his days silently observing the people in his small town or exploring the wild and wonder-filled rainforest that surrounded his frontier home. He longed to express what he saw and heard and felt, but the words would not come out. Teased and bullied by his classmates, young Pablo retreated into himself. He "wore his silence like an overcoat." His words found an outlet only when the boy began to write poems in his math notebook.
Not until his teens, when the poet Gabriela Mistral arrived in his town as head of the girls' upper school and slowly coaxed him out of his silence, did Pablo share this notebook. It was Mistral who sent him off to university, where he flourished.
Pablo's time and place may be very different from ours, but shyness, bullying, and the need for self-expression will always exist. The shy, perhaps bullied reader may recognize a kindred spirit and gain courage and hope from Pablo's story.
Like a good poem, this rich picture-book biography can be appreciated on more than one level. It invites young readers into the world of poetry by bringing to life an ordinary yet extraordinary boy. Sharing Naruda's childhood may foster in readers a recognition of poetry as more than just an attractive arrangement of words on a page. Readers of To Go Singing Through the World will be led on to savor works by the poet himself.

To Go Singing Through the World
"I applaud this book for bringing attention to a great Latin American poet many children in the US may not already know about. Lyrically written. ... Read more

Product Description
Matilde Urrutia was the poet Pablo Neruda’s lover, muse, wife, and widow. The Nobel-laureate Chilean wrote "The Captain’s Verses" and "One Hundred Love Sonnets"—two of the most celebrated volumes of love lyrics in modern Spanish letters—for her. In "My Life with Pablo Neruda", Urrutia reveals her side of their famed romance. But her book is not simply a love story told by a muse; it is also a document of her life as the persecuted widow of a national hero. Her voice lifts out of the sorrow and violence of the military dictatorship that precipitated her beloved’s death in 1973, to reaffirm the power of Neruda’s own passionate voice.

"My Life with Pablo Neruda" opens with the dramatic events of September 11, 1973, with Augusto Pinochet’s overthrow of the democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Devastated by the coup, the sixty-nine-year-old Neruda dies a few days later of a heart attack. Grief-stricken, Urrutia takes refuge in her memories, reeling back through time to recount the heady early days of her twenty-two-year romance with Neruda. Here, she reveals the birth of "The Captain's Verses" and divulges the secrets of their illicit marriage in Italy. Urrutia then returns to the grim reality she faces in Santiago in the mid-1970s, to describe life under the dictatorship. Harassed by Pinochet’s henchmen, she becomes an exile within her own country, mourns the torture and disappearance of loved ones, and finally awakes from the stupor of sorrow and commits herself to using Neruda’s words to lash out against the bloody regime.

Reading "My Life with Pablo Neruda" is like spending a long afternoon with Matilde Urrutia. In a conversational style, she brings Neruda to life, and he emerges as a vibrant, playful, and impatient man driven by unbounded appetites. At once humorous and heart-breaking, Urrutia's story makes for a fine domestic complement to Neruda’s own lush memoirs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

My Life with Pablo Neruda
I got this book and have fallen in love instantly, within the first few chapters Ihad tears in my eyes. how wonderful to hear her side to this great love story.If you have read and loved Pablo Neruda's work, You should read this book written by the woman who was the muse for so many of his greatest works.

AWESOME
Alex Giardino F-ing RULES! She is the SHlT! Best english teacher ever! READ THIS BOOK! she did a wonderful job of translating it!

Brilliant translation of an intimate portrait of Neruda
Several years ago a friend brought me back Matilde's book from Chile, her original version in Spanish. I was eager to read it, as Matilde and Pablo were one of literature's greatest couples, and I had only, and the only biography I had read of Neruda at that time were his own Memoirs.

Unfortunately, though,it seemed she learned nothing about writing from her husband. The prose was dry and the tale took terrible turns in chronology, tone, and even voice--switching from first to third. Though she does offer some very special intimate glimpses into the poet and their fabled relationship, the writing distracted from any good biographical information that she provided.

But I recently came across a review on the web of this new translation, talking about how Ms. Giardino had transformed the original faults and created a new version which engages, without changing what Matilde wanted to say. I am normally a stickler for translations being faithful to the original, while knowing that they do have to balance the artistic translation as well. Ben Bellet's translations of Neruda for instance take way too much literary license as he creates new poems, not translations, new poems which are not just anywhere close to being faithful to Neruda's original words, but are just awful poems themselves.

But what Ms. Giardino has done is, literaly, exceptional. Matilde needed her work to be edited, and Giardino has done a masterful job of that, besides creating a translation into beautiful English prose. And--importantly--the book does not hide the fact that it has made these changes--it is honest in what it tried to achieve, and she is very successful. The result is a delightful read and a special view into a special relationship of one of the most special poets of all times. This of course is not a complete biography of Neruda, but rather it is a lovely tale of a muse and her poet-lover.

I think a new version of the Spanish should be published with Giardino's edits (again, noted clearly that it has been edited.) For Matilde's own original is simply inaccessible, the writing is a turn-off from the great history she wants to tell.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book deals with Matilde's account of Augusto Pinnochet's September 11, 1973 military coup which killed Pablo's amigo President Allende and led to the assassination and torture of many of his friends. He died two weeks later, as Matilde says, "of a broken heart" (as well as cancer.) Matilde's accounts of how the military destroyed their home and how his friends braved the dictatorship to march with the coffin of their poet through the streets of Santiago to the cemetery is truly moving.

Highly recommended.

Beautiful history of one of literature's greatest romances
Matilde Urrutia, Neruda's third wife, was the subject of some of the greatest love poetry ever written. In this beautiful account of their life together, one gains gorgeous insight not only to their love, but to the character of the great poet Neruda, a view unavailable in other biographies. You also learn the tragic history of Chile and Neruda's involvment in it.

Having read the original in Spanish, I can say that Alexandra Giardino's adaptation is a masterpiece in literary translation. The book reads so much better, actually, with her work.

Highly recommended.

A lyrical, if understandably biased, tribute to a great poet
This translation of Matilde Urruita's memoir adds so much to the the canon of English language material about Pablo Neruda.Opening with the assassination of President Allende and Neruda's death, Urrutia in a series of flashbacks reveals her life with Neruda and his poetry. Indeed, there is a sense that the poetry had a life of its own; it certainly becomes a third "character" in this memoir.

There are moments when Uruttia threatens to overwhelm with overwrought sentimentality, but Uruttia (with no small assist from the translator, I'm certain) stops short. But all in all, it is a delightful book that chronicles a magic love affair. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

The wise romantic
Pablo Neruda is an extremely distinct poet.He sort of glistens and beams outward from the line of poets.He is unique and reaches down toward the pit of his soul and grabs life, and love and delivers it all through hisverse.We are priveleged to feast off the knowledge and genious of thisman.He is a wise man with a hospitable nature.His emotions he recordsdown on paper so that we may be of witness to a creation.His books arelike bibles for lovers and those who seek knowledge of life and will.Allof his books are complete genious and no one else can touch the hearts ofmankind like Neruda has.God rest his soul. ... Read more

Product Description
Extravagaria marks an important stage in Neruda's progress as a poet. The book was written just after he had returned to Chile after many wanderings and moved to his beloved Isla Negra on the Pacific coast. These sixty-eight poems thus denote a resting point, a rediscovery of sea and land, and an "autumnal period" (as the poet himself called it). In this book, Neruda developed a lyric poetry decidedly more personal than his earlier work.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

such beautiful language
Pablo Neruda writes in a style that is so accessible and yet so elegant..
Extravagaria is the first of his books of poems that I have read (having only read some selected poems of his before) - to read the poems as they were meant to be read in this collection is a delight.. I only wish I could read them in Spanish - I guess I will have to hit the books...

Beautiful!
A wonderful collection of Naruda's work.There is a sense of settling down in these collection of his work that is really quite beautiful.I also find Alastair Reid's translation more beautiful than others I've seen.The original spanish text on the opposite page is also nice and handy to have.

Touching this world and the next and loving and hating both
Pablo touched me as no poet that I have read in the last 25 years.His lines particularly sees the world with wisened eyes, writen in his later days.He embraces his past occationally crushing it with bittersweetenergy.At the same time he looks forward to rest and what's next.Henever stopped Becoming, as Sarte would say, through the years. "Her" declares the need and joy of loving and working lifetogether with his spouse."Larnyx" chills with news from thedoctor that all of humanity dreads.

The spanish on the facing page letsone glimpse at hidden meanings, reaching back for our Spanish 101 orElementary Latin, a treat.If you buy one poetry book this year, thisshould be the one.If you are silver haired, as I, then this is the poetryof the decade for you.

THE MOST PROLIFIC AND INFLUENTIAL POET OF SPANISH LANGUAGE.
One of the most interesting books I have ever read. It taught me that there's poetry in every movement we make and every moment we live. ... Read more

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1-20- POEMAS DE AMOR 21- LA CANCION DESESPERADA LOS VERSOS DEL CAPITAN 22- LA CARTA EN EL CAMINO 23- EN TI LA TIERRA 24- LAS MANOS 25- TUS PIES 26- LA PREGUNTA 27- LA NOCHE EN LA ISLA 28- EL VIENTO EN LA ISLA 29- EL INCONSTANTE ... Read more

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20 Love poems and a Desperate Song ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Pablo Neruda
This is a book I read during my teen age years and it brought back good memories, I suggest reading the Spanish version.I'm not to crazy about the illustrations.

My mom loves the book!
My mother was looking for this book everywhere and I got her the best christmas present with this. She cant put it down! ... Read more

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The sound of ships' bells, sea waves, and migratory birds fuel Neruda's longing to retreat from life's noisy busyness. These poems, some of the last Neruda ever wrote, are stripped to essentials and include a final lovesong to his wife, where he writes in the past tense: "It was beautiful to live / When you lived!" Bilingual, with introduction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Best Poetry Collection I've Ever Read
The Sea and The Bells is the best poetry collection I've ever read. Uncompleted at the time of Neruda's death, only 1/3 of the poems in this collection were titled. However, the wisdom and eloquence with which Neruda worked in the last year of his life is without peer in the canon of 20th century poetry. His "Finale" written on his deathbed to his wife, Matilde, is devastating.

Neruda's balance of humor, power, spirituality, compassion and love is so clear in a few of these poems, you may find these poems like little prayers on which you can meditate. For example:

If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.

Maybe it's just me, but this kind of poetry reads like the wise words of a Buddhist monk high in the mountains of Nepal, man. This collection is the deaf, dope jam.

The only criticism I have is with the translation. William O'Daly makes several unusually bland decisions in translating from the original Spanish. For example, Neruda literally writes in We Are Waiting "o para asesinarnos de inmediato" where the verb "assassinate" is pretty darn clear. The phrase literally translates "or to immediately assassinate us." Given the political tension Neruda was writing under having won the Nobel Prize and having returned to Chile, it is reasonably clear why he used the word "assassinate." O'Daly's translation reads: "or to instantly murder us" opting for the bland general word "murder" rather than the clear, stronger word "assassinate." O'Daly makes similarly odd decisions throughout the text. Fortunately, the original Spanish appears alongside O'Daly's translation so you can read what Neruda actually wrote.

Beyond the translation, this is the best poetry collection I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates language being used at its absolute finest. The Sea and The Bells raises the bar for all of us. Read it, and enjoy!

Stacey

"One returns to the self as to an old house..."
I have to disagree entirely with the reviewer below. If he is pining forthe wild exuberances characteristics of earlier stages in Neruda'swritings, he should not look for it here: for all their wordplay, theselast books of Neruda's (the handful he worked on simultaneously during thelast year of his life) are about preparing for death. I've noticed here andthere some nuance which seemed not to have caught the translator's eye, butotherwise he has made a remarkably rewarding transation of the ruminative,supple-then-lurching tone of PN's Spanish. "The Sea and theBells" is a crockpot of mystery, a book to read and learn slowly overyears.

Translator lacks emotion
Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets of all time, however, William O' Daly does not do Neruda justice. His translation is flat and unevocative, and unable to invoke those true emotions that Neruda is famous for. I wouldrecommend checking out translations by W.S. Merwin if you want the fullecstatic experience that Neruda usually so eloquently conveys. ... Read more

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Pablo Neruda is known first as a poet, but the prose pieces in this collection reflect the enormous hunger he demonstrated throughout his career for new modes of expression, new adventures, new challenges. Passions and Impressions is both a sequel to and an enlargement of Neruda's Memoirs, recording a lifetime of travel, of friendships and enmities, of exile and homecoming, of loss and discovery, and of history both public and personal. Above all, it is a testament to Neruda's love for Chile-for its citizens, its flora and fauna, its national identity. His abiding devotion pervades these notes on a life fully lived.
... Read more

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A monumental prose testament by a great poet
"Passions and Impressions" brings together more than 100 short prose writings by the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The collection has been edited by Matilde Neruda and Miguel Otero Silva. The pieces have been translated from Spanish into a wonderfully inviting English by Margaret Sayers Peden.

These essays and prose poems cover many topics: Chilean politics, history, and geography; the work of other creative minds, such as poet Walt Whitman, sculptor Alberto Sanchez, and painter Nemesio Antunez; and the art of poetry itself. Many of the selections are important historical documents of Neruda's own political struggles in Chile. Also included is his 1971 Nobel address, "Poetry Shall Not Have Sung in Vain."

I was particularly interested in Neruda's words of praise for other Latin American writers, such as Gabriela Mistral, the "magical" Julio Cortazar, and the "extraordinary" Mario Vargas Llosa. I was moved by his reflection on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. And I was delighted by such personal memories as a feast of onion dishes on the island of Capri, or an emotional poetry reading in Temuco. There are also moments of humor, such as a priceless anecdote about Federico Garcia Lorca (in the essay "Latorre, Prado, and My Own Shadow").

In the essay "It Is Worthwhile to Have Lived, Because I Have Love" (included in this volume), Neruda declares, "Poetry will water the fields and give bread to the hungry." The writings of Pablo Neruda, both poetry and prose, have been both bread and water to the souls of people all over the world. His expansive vision truly embraced what he called the "universal struggle" of all women and men. He is an enduring poet/prophet, and "Passions and Impressions" is a magnificent testament. ... Read more

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Pablo Neruda at work and breathlessly so!
William O'Daly's translation of Pablo Neruda's book-length poem, //Fin de mundo// (or, //World's End//) is a veritable poet's companion and guide to the twentieth century. This is Pablo Neruda at his best and most honest, the Chilean poet-activist with a powerful message. His message is that for one to live and give life to our precious planet, one must speak up and pierce the silence of our world and troubled times. One must do whatever one can to break the cycle of violence that muffles the song of love that is the birthright of our planet and its inhabitants.

Neruda's poems are a quiet but potent celebration of the resilience of the human spirit. Poetry is Neruda's weapon. His battles are fought in the war of love. He fights with the soft but firm touch of true words and images of century that saw an endless stream of massacres and bloodshed. Mankind has moved into the twenty-first century, but the tragedy of war continues. Neruda's poems plead that we do not repeat the mistakes of the last century, that we steer ourselves, our nations, our communities, and our lives toward a place of healing. William O'Daly brings Neruda's deserving Spanish poems into English with the careful eye and impeccable hand of a master poet.

Reviewed by
Viola Allo

A fine volume
This is not the best of the late-Neruda books -- I recommend "The Book of Questions" or "The Yellow Heart" -- but it's another fine translation from William O'Daly and another worthy volume from Copper Canyon.

I would give it four stars, but I need to counteract the earlier review. Mr. Marcelo Igonda: Neruda wrote in Spanish. "Fin de mundo" is Neruda's original title. O'Daly translated the book INTO ENGLISH. Your comment makes absolutely no sense.

I hope the remainder of the translation is correct
I just received the book, I have the complete works of Neruda, my favorite poet. I have several bilingual version of his work. Some are very good, some catastrophic (the translation only, of course).
I hope this is not the case with this one. (Spanish is my native language).
Well, to the point: you just can't translate "World's End" as "Fin de Mundo". It sounds horrible.
The options are:

"Fin del Mundo"
"Al fin del mundo"
or,
"El Fin del Mundo".

You just can't say in Spanish (no matter what country in the world) "de mundo". Totally unacceptable. Period.

Please, please let it know to the translator that he/she should be more careful, especially with the title of the book.

Thanks,

Marcelo ... Read more

Product Description
Descripcion en espanol:Este libro cuenta la historia de amor del poeta Pablo Neruda y la cantante Matilde Urrutia. El era ya un reconocido poeta cuando la conocio, y ella una cantante con gran teson y relativa fortura. Fue amor a primera vista, y cuando, despues de encuentros furtivos y periodos de distancia, pudieron convivir, ya no se separaron hasta la muerte del poeta. Este libro narra esta relacion sin idealizarla pero reconociendo su peculiar fidelidad y pasion.Description in English:Matilde Urrutia was poet Pablo Neruda's lover, muse, wife, and widow. This is the story of this romance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Epic poetic narrative
Neruda's Canto General is a poetic retelling of the history of South and Central America from the late pre-Columbian era to the middle of the twentieth century.The book is set up like a novel, with chapters and subheadings, a straight-line narration, and a cast of characters.Neruda's communist ideology is visible throughout the work and is a major theme.Canto General leaves the reader with an interesting impression of American history seen through the eyes of the impoversihed people of South America, as well as an idea of how third-world communists perceive reality.This is truly an excellent work, and should be read by everyone.

Truly the American Bible.
This is one of Neruda's greatest books. It is a jorney through the history of the American Continent, from its creation, to its conquest until the present day. Most readers will know it from its chapter 'Hights of Machu Picchu' but it is certainly more than that.

It is a review of 500 hundred years of history, of war, of love, of betray. Obviously the book is a reflection of Neruda's left wing inclination, but that only adds to the book.

In Chile and other parts of Latin America this book is called "The American Bible" and it truly is. Along with Residencia en la Tierra, it is probably Neruda's finest. And is probably the book in which Neruda became what he though his role as a poet ought to be "a voice for all who had no voice". ... Read more

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A handsome collection of never-before-translated poems by one of the great poets of the century features two lovely pencil illustrations for each poem and includes the original Spanish poem opposite each translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pablo Neruda is the best poet of love in the world.
So happy to own this little set of books.Really enjoy them.

A gorgeous work
The Neruda poems are wonderful.I mean his work is usually stellar but these odes are among the most accessible.I was given this book a number of years ago on my birthday and consider it one of my most treasured books of poetry.The binding is exceptional.I appreciate having the poems in both Spanish and their (very good) English translation.But the standout for this book are the marvelous line drawings.There is a creative spark at work in this book and you are left knowing that it was a labor of love on the part of all involved.If you are looking for a book for the Neruda or poetry fan in your life (or yourself) you can't go wrong with this book.When I have pulled it out for readings people want to hold it and look at it.Its that beautiful.

neruda's style is refreshing
neruda's odes to opposites capture beauty and deep meaning.he inspires us to compare thoughts, feelings and the real world against their foils.he's more than an imagination floating in space. ... Read more