EXTRAVAGARIA

by Pablo Neruda ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 1974

Despite his award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and acclaim abroad as one of the towering poetic minds of the 20th century, Pablo Neruda's North American reputation rests on slight glimpses of his prolific creativity. Out of an immense obra spanning half a century, only half a dozen volumes have been published here within the last several years. This ""extravagance of vagaries"" lust appeared in Buenos Aires in 1958, and though some of them have previously been collected here, the book in its entirety is so long overdue that curiosity and impatience to have all of Neruda in English mix with gratitude for Alastair Reid's very just labors. Neruda is so much more than a maker: he is a great presence, a comforter, a teacher. Rejoicing is his particular poetry and his gift transforms words on a page into palpable pleasure. ""How ample is the world!"" that he invents for us. He bids us to ""forget the shadowy/ miscellany of those who wish us ill/ let us make a profession of being earth-bound/ let us touch the earth with our beings."" Life is good and though death is real, we need not be frightened. All the questions that mark our mortality can be alchemized into metaphoric riddles by this poet with ""a mind to confuse things,/ unite them, make them new-born"" into ""a generous, vast wholeness,/ a crackling, living fragrance."" He is moved by poverty, by hunger. He is the enemy of tyrants, of pomposity; he is depressed by false friends; scornful but indulgent to his personal enemies. He speaks simply and directly, without formal conventions, committed to ""hackneyed endearments."" Dreams of joy, of rebirth, of love, death as the confirming evidence that we once lived -- Extravgaria is an expansive allegory for being human in so many places, with so much time and yet so little time. And it's a cause for celebration.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION