Name: Pablo Neruda
Year Won: 1971
Read: The Lost Neruda Poems
Original Language: Spanish
Reason: "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams"
About: Do
you
like poems
written
like this?
If so
you
might
like
this collection
Add in some sentimentality (some of which I found almost mawkish), and this is at least this collection of Neruda poems. (I haven't read anything else by him, so can't say whether this is his normal style or something unique to this particular grouping. There may well be a reason these were "lost").
What I liked: There were some pretty images. I guess.
What I Disliked: I found these overly schmultzy, even in the original Spanish. They felt, to me, a bit too much like something that I saw back in the 90s on glittering Geocities pages. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I wasn't a fan.
Should it have won a Nobel: I didn't care for these poems AT ALL. (And I read them in the original as well as translation, so it's probably not *just* a matter of a bad translator.) I suppose taste is always a thing and a lot of people LOVE Neurda. I, most definitely, do not. So in my opinion, no. Clearly others felt very differently.
Next Up: "The Casuality" by Heinrich Böll
