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NERUDA

Name: NERUDA
Author: Mark Eisner
ISBN: 978-0-06-269420-1

THE POET'S CALLING

by Mark Eisner ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 2018

Perceptive readings of Neruda’s poems are contextualized by an absorbing historical, cultural, and political chronology.

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An empathetic biography of the Chilean Nobel Prize winner.

For more than 20 years, Eisner (The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, 2004) has steeped himself in the life and works of Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), resulting in a newly translated edition of his poetry, a documentary film, and this thoroughly researched, respectful, and evenhanded biography. Born Ricardo Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, the poet began to use his pen name in 1920 in order to hide his publications from his father, who vehemently disapproved of his son’s vocation. Fame came early: by the time he was 19, “such was his stature,” Eisner writes, “that he had disciples who would dress like him, copy his metaphors, and…follow him around the city.” Neruda’s reputation and popularity grew with his prolific output, and he became “the public poet, a people’s poet.” As a young man, though, needing to earn more than poetry could provide, he joined the Chilean diplomatic corps, taking assignments in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Buenos Aires, and Spain. His outspoken political liberalism was contradicted by a “pattern of disturbing misogynistic behavior” and sense of entitlement and superiority. In his memoirs, for example, he admits to raping a Tamil servant, whom he perceived “as inhuman, a piece of stone.” Sexually, “he was comfortable with the role of aggressor—even predator,” and he often juggled more than one lover at a time. Lauded for his humanitarian views, he nevertheless neglected his first wife and their daughter, who was born with a birth defect and died at the age of 8. As a senator representing the Communist Party and champion of Stalin, Neruda finally “saw the errors of Stalinism and was emboldened enough to reject them.” Some detractors criticized him as a “Champagne Communist,” who enjoyed luxury; admirers praised his fervent opposition to Franco. Beginning in 1949, when Neruda denounced Chile’s president for his oppression of workers, he was forced into hiding and, finally, exile.

Perceptive readings of Neruda’s poems are contextualized by an absorbing historical, cultural, and political chronology.

Pub Date: March 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-269420-1

Page Count: 608

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | HISTORY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- PROFILES
Mark Eisner

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.