A Companion to Pablo Neruda. Evaluating Neruda's Poetry (review)

Jason Wilson's Companion to Pablo Neruda is an up-to-date and detailed critical evaluation of Pablo Neruda's poetry. It contains a complete bibliography (on Neruda's poetry and non-poetry writings, biographies, and secondary sources) and three very useful appendixes: a concise chronology, recommendations for further reading regarding poetry and criticism, and a list of publications of Neruda in English translation.

Wilson's suggestion about what a 'small anthology of the best of Neruda's poetry would include' (230) and advice for further reading, are an indication of the contents of the book. It also indicates which of Neruda's works are analysed in depth, namely, the poetry written up to the 1940s. Wilson does not appreciate Neruda's political poetry (that is, most of the poems written after the 1940s) and is prodigal in value judgements about it that are not always supported by commentary: 'much of his [Neruda's] work from the politicised 1940s onwards is flawed' (2), 'all his work from 1945 onwards falls from its dazzling heights' (215).

The book has, in Wilson's words, an 'inevitable biographic approach' (2) and follows Neruda's 'main collections' to enable the reader to 'grasp the outline of his output' (12). As a companion, the most fruitful way to use this volume is having Neruda's poetry at hand. This may solve foreseeable problems caused by the sometimes confusing structure of the book, particularly when discussing the Residencia cycle and Canto general. Moreover, occasionally, Jason Wilson is not very clear or consistent about using the categories such as 'sections', 'cantos', 'poems', 'stanzas', or volumes, as happens when discussing Canto general (1950).

In the Introduction Wilson discusses Neruda as a reader, the influence other literary figures had on his works, and Neruda's poetic change from a romantic love poet to a socially committed one. The first five of the seven chapters of the book are devoted to Neruda's poetry written up to the 1940s, which in total takes up 151 pages. This stands in stark contrast to the number of pages (19 in total) dedicated to Neruda's poetry written in the 1950s (13 pages), and in the 1960s and after (6 pages). This means that, particularly the first two of Neruda's published poetry collections, Crepusculario (1923) and Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924), are analysed and critically appraised in great depth (50 pages). The Residencia cycle and Canto general (1950), with particular focus on Section II, Alturas de Macchu Picchu, are also discussed and analysed in detail, although to a lesser extent. The readers might arguably have greatly benefited from a discussion of Neruda's post-1950s poems of similar depth to the discussion of the poems up to this date. However, this would inevitably weaken one of the aims of the book 'to rescue Neruda from his complete works' (13) and 'to establish what should survive of his massive output' (blurb). Hence, as stated in the title, this is not simply a companion but also an evaluation of Neruda's poems.

A new and necessary aspect included in this companion is the discussion of the published English translations of Neruda's works. Wilson's evaluation of the published translations is not underpinned by translation theory, and many of the comments given are prescriptive and rather simplistic. Only occasionally does Wilson give examples that indicate the criteria behind the evaluation (e.g. in the case of Nancy Cunard's translation of 'España en el corazón').

Despite these caveats, this is a useful book, which may be considered essential for anybody researching, studying or interested in Neruda and/or Latin American poetry.