The Book of Questions: Revised and Updated

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Pablo Neruda, born in southern Chile, led a life charged with poetic and political activity. He was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the International Peace Prize, and served as Chile's ambassador to several countries, including Burma, France, and Argentina. He died in 1973. How would you justify your single word answers to questions that clearly only require one word answers? Follow-up questions: Does including questions that only request one word answers limit the value of this book? Does it seem like a cheap question to include when you can toss off an answer and move on? Or should you voluntarily put in a little bit more effort into your answers, like your brother does? Rate this book on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Why did you give the book the rating you did? Did any part of this book club discussion change your rating from what it would have been directly after finishing the book? During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende. There are some poems one must simply take in visually and revel in the imagery they invoke discarding their literariness.

I was first introduced to this book in the late 80s & have pulled it out many times throughout the years - both to get to know someone better & to revisit the questions myself as I mature.

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When Neruda died in 1973, The Book of Questions was one of eight unpublished poetry manuscripts that lay on his desk. In it, Neruda achieves a deeper vulnerability and vision than in his earlier work; this unique book is a testament to everything that made Neruda an artist. Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation. Neruda's pen name was derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda; Pablo is thought to be from Paul Verlaine. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. Did you highlight or bookmark any passages from the book? Did you have a favorite quote or quotes? If so, share which and why?

Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda, was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician.

About the Translator

But then you've read this far so I can't exactly deprive you, right? I just opened this book (for the last time) to pgs 162 an 163: Highly recommended. I dare you to tell me you did not answer at least one of the above questions automatically! Who was your favorite character? What character did you identify with the most? Were there any characters that you disliked? Why? This complete translation of Pablo Neruda's El libro de las preguntas ( The Book of Questions) features Neruda's original Spanish-language poems alongside William O'Daly's English translations. In his introduction O'Daly, who has translated eight volumes of Pablo Neruda's poetry, writes, "These poems, more so than any of Neruda's other work, remind us that living in a state of visionary surrender to the elemental questions, free of the quiet desperation of clinging too tightly to answers, may be our greatest act of faith."