海角大神

'Neruda' plumbs the man behind the legend

Although Eisner's fascination with the celebrated poet sometimes lapses into hagiography, he frankly chronicles Neruda鈥檚 dark side.

The Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, who lived between 1904 and 1973, is known to many readers as the inspiration for 鈥淚l Postino,鈥� the 1994 film, based on a novel by Antonio Sk谩rmeta, that fictionalized a portion of Neruda鈥檚 political exile in Europe in 1950.

Neruda was a Chilean political figure as well, serving in several diplomatic posts for his country throughout much of his life. He was an ardent Communist, which complicated his life as Chile鈥檚 political pendulum swung back and forth. Neruda died shortly after Augusto Pinochet, with US support, staged a military coup against elected Chilean President Salvador Allende. In recent years, suspicions that Neruda had been poisoned in the wake of the coup prompted officials to exhume his body and test it for toxins. Forensic scientists found no compelling evidence of foul play regarding Neruda.

Neruda鈥檚 presence in 鈥淚l Postino,鈥� as well as the bizarre speculation concerning his death, underscore the degree to which his life and work are shrouded in myth, especially in his native Chile, where his homes are venerated as shrines.

In his sweeping and exhaustively researched biography, Mark Eisner plumbs the man behind the legend, a task for which he鈥檚 well-suited. Eisner has spent the past two decades working on projects related to Neruda, including a documentary about the poet鈥檚 life and work. With such an extensive grounding, Eisner doesn鈥檛 so much document his subject as inhabit it. Although his fascination with the celebrated poet sometimes lapses into hagiography, he frankly chronicles Neruda鈥檚 dark side, including his rape of a servant.

As Eisner was writing "The Poet鈥檚 Calling," he couldn鈥檛 have known how Neruda鈥檚 sexual misconduct, which included a cruel criminal offense, would achieve heightened relevance in the midst of the #MeToo movement. Neruda鈥檚 actions invite the reader to revisit questions that rest at the heart of recent revelations about various figures in the film and television industry who have been accused of abusive behavior. To what degree can we separate a person鈥檚 work from his morality? Is it possible to admire the work while abhorring the deeply flawed creator behind it?

That dilemma looms over the legacy of Neruda, who wasn鈥檛 the benign old man of letters depicted in 鈥淚l Postino.鈥� In the most disturbing passage of Eisner鈥檚 book, he details Neruda鈥檚 time as a diplomat in Ceylon, where he raped a woman deemed an 鈥渦ntouchable鈥� by the caste system. She was responsible for cleaning out his latrine, and it鈥檚 obvious from his own account of the incident that Neruda felt he could commit the assault without legal consequences because the woman鈥檚 social status made it impossible for her to hold him accountable.

鈥淚n his and others鈥� writings, there is no evidence that Neruda ever committed another assault of this nature, but ... he describes his exercise of power and privilege with little shame,鈥� Eisner tells readers. Eisner documents other aspects of Neruda鈥檚 relationship with women that point to a pattern of misogyny.

Neruda鈥檚 political views present another moral quagmire. His embrace of communism wasn鈥檛 unusual among intellectuals coming of age in the first half of the 20th聽century, and it had particular currency among Latin American revolutionaries reacting to oppressive right-wing regimes. Even so, Neruda could be almost willfully blind to the depravities unleashed by Joseph Stalin, publishing a fawning poem about the Kremlin leader after he died. As Eisner points out, between 1936 and 1938, Stalin 鈥渉ad arrested over a million of his own party members in his Great Purge. At least 600,000 were killed, many from torture.... Estimates range from five to fifty million deaths caused by the famine that resulted from Stalin鈥檚 ill-conceived policies.鈥� Yet Neruda lionized Stalin effusively, hailing him as 鈥渢he noon, the maturity of man and the peoples.鈥�

Neruda鈥檚 poems could be memorably sensual, particularly in 鈥淥des to Common Things,鈥� a series of compositions in which seemingly prosaic household items such as scissors and soap, a table, chair or pair of socks achieve, through the power of language, a life of their own. Here, in a stanza from 鈥淥de to the Dictionary,鈥� Neruda reflects on the presence of a venerable volume in his childhood:

Ancient and weighty, in its worn

leather coat,

the Dictionary

held its tongue,

refusing to reveal its secrets.

Neruda鈥檚 odes to his 鈥渃ommon things鈥� reflected an abiding fascination with personal possessions, a passion expressed in his flair for kitsch. 鈥淚n a Neruda house,鈥� writer Joyce Maynard observed, 鈥測ou may find a taxidermied flamingo overhead, or a life-size bronze horse, or a 50-times-larger-than-life-size man鈥檚 shoe.鈥�

Perhaps the governing contradiction of Neruda鈥檚 life was his tendency to see humanity in objects while too often objectifying humans. Eisner earnestly tries to give his subject the benefit of the doubt, and there are times when he indulges gushing elegy, as when he writes that Neruda is 鈥渙ne great body, still, in all its fullness, stretching across the world, to all its famous and hidden corners.鈥�

Such flattering assessments aside, one finishes "The Poet鈥檚 Calling"聽with a sense that it was better to read Pablo Neruda than to be around him.聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽聽聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽 聽

Danny Heitman, a columnist for The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana, is the author of聽A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.