The Book of Questions [Paperback]

This is a collection of short questions in poem form. The questions deal with finding the purpose in life, the meaning in nature and even what hell is like for Hitler. The poems are very simplistic and at the same time incredibly deep and reaching.

You will laugh and think and feel and be totally absorbed and inspired. I have read it three times already.

These poems, though written just before his death in 1973, should be required reading before any other work by Neruda. These poetic, and sometimes surreal, questions provide an insight into his work and soul that cannot be found anywhere else. And if you have read Neruda before this, you will want to re-read everything else!

The translation from the Spanish is absolutely perfect. Every nuance is captured completely.

Read this book!

Neruda asks questions about a dizzying range of topics--the natural world, religion, literature, history, food, the technological world, language, time, truth, justice, perception, and even his own legacy. Some of his questions are funny, some are disturbing. But all are thought-provoking, and the best of them display Neruda's dazzling ability to use words in surprising and illuminating ways. Who but Neruda would ask, "And at whom does rice smile / with infinitely many white teeth?" (section XII).

Reading "The Book of Questions," I had the sensation of reading some strange work of scripture--the writings of a prophet who had transcended the normal boundaries of perception and who challenges us to do the same. Although Neruda's prophetic voice varies greatly in mood--sometimes angry, sometimes playful, sometimes melancholy--his mastery of his poetic instrument is consistent, and the breadth of his vision is amazing. He is one of those poets--like William Blake, Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson--whose writings constitute a modern equivalent to the poetic legacy of Buddha, Lao-Tzu, or the author of Ecclesiastes.

It's impossible to pick out just a few questions with which to give the reader a full sense of the power of "the Book of Questions." This is a book which one can read at one breathless sitting; it is also a book that, like an inscrutable sage, invites us to return again and again. Neruda muses, "What did the tree learn from the earth / to be able to talk with the sky?" (section XLI); his words strike me as a text which, like that rich, primal earth, could also be a source of wisdom.

In section X, Neruda asks, "What will they say about my poetry / who never touched my blood?" I believe that those who read and ponder "The Book of Questions" will say that the poetry of Pablo Neruda is one of the great treasures of world literature.

My favorite questions include:

Why do leaves commit suicide
When they feel yellow?

and

When the convict ponders the light
is it the same light that shines on you?

--ross saciuk