All the Odes: A Bilingual Edition

Pablo Neruda, All the Odes: A Bilingual Edition.Pablo Neruda has always been one of the most extraordinary literary figures of Latin American letters, comparable in stature to such luminaries as Walt Whitman in America and Victor Hugo, in France. As Ilan Stavans clearly delineates the history and publication of the odes in his informative introduction, I will only mention the fact that to have all the odes in one splendidly bilingual edition is more than a lover of poetry can ask for. Neruda, i must admit, is one of my favorite poets and as a devotee of his poetic oeuvre i can only celebrate and praise such a magnificent edition. To say anything at all of the poetic splendor of Neruda's odes, i will have to write a more lengthy review, instead i choose to be brief and only point out the fact that this book could very well change the way you think about some of the objects that Neruda chose to immortalize in his odes. Take the "Ode to the Onion" where Neruda beautifully writes: "The fragrance of earth is alive / in your crystalline nature". and now think of the fact that such a " crystalline nature" can be savored in a nourishing dish. This is indeed splendid in every sense, and confirms Pablo Neruda as one of the most compelling and sonorous poets of the 20th Century.

At over 800 pages, this beautiful collection of Neruda's odes is a fitting celebration of the work of this great poet. For the first time, we have all the odes together in one book. Eighteen translators are at work here. The poems are offered alphabetically by subject and provided in bilingual format.As Edward Hirsch writes in _How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry_, "The list of Neruda's subjects in the odes is dizzying. Nothing ordinary was alien to him, or ordinary for that matter--everything was magical in an inventory that celebrates a great physical absorption in the world."I'm a bit sorry that the Spanish is set in a lighter, slightly italicized font that is harder on the eyes than the English translation. And I do wish there were an index of translators. But those complaints are minor in the context of this important offering--close to seventy of these poems have not been translated into English until now, Stavans tells us in his introduction. And the odes have never before been collected into one volume, in any language. Thank you FSG!

I mainly got it so that I could read the originals to my wife, who is a native-speaker, while she is cooking breakfast. ( She does not allow me to help ) One expects the mantic - & one obtains it; trouble is, the poet missed many things that one would have expected to find in here ... no use looking for an ode to June, or an ode to Rain - although there is one to Sri Lanka & a charming one to Moscow ! Came upon the Pablo Larrain movie "Pablo" at almost the same time - which made reading the ode to Leningrad & the one to Stalin bearable. Still feel that the odes to Clothes, to Envy & to The Book most powerful - which I owned in a separate edition already.

I am teaching my daughter Spanish, and this has been a great resource for family readings. I have always loved these poems in Spanish, and this translation makes them accessible to her while she is learning. Overall, I like the translations, but of course any translation has to change things like the cadence. I think having this side by side translation and original text would help even beginning Spanish speakers get a sense of that cadence and the feel for the poems which is missing if you read it only in English.

I give the book an A+ for containing all of Pablo Neruda's Odes, but Ilan Stavan's translations are often so non-literal (where he could have translated literally AND produced a more poetic translation) that I wonder why he was chosen to translate these poems. A poet should have translated the poet, not a literary critic, in my view. But for those who cannot read Spanish, Stavans' translation is certainly better than nothing. I'm sure some poems will be better translated than the dozen or so I've read thus far and have been disappointed with due to their non-literalness (e.g. words and sentences belonging in one line of poetry in Neruda's original version appearing in another line in the translation when the Stavans could have preserved the original syntax of Neruda and actually produced a more poetic, and more literal, translation). In one first line, Stavans translates "Y a ti..." as "You,..." when the more poetic "And to you..." (which is a form of direct address by Neruda's narrator/speaker in the poem) was also the more literal choice that Ilan Stavans' side-stepped for whatever mysterious reason. But again, if you can't read Spanish, this is a fine book, which I recommend you purchase anyway due to having all of Neruda's Spanish odes extant in one volume. Kudos to the publisher for producing such a worthy collection.For those who lament that the earlier edition had the original Spanish encased in some hard-to-read gray background, never fear, that problem does not exist with this subsequent 2019 edition, which seems to have resulted in large part to correct that earlier reading problem. I bought a used copy of this book from a third-party seller here on Amazon, but clicked on it when it was in my cart to make sure the cover did not change to the earlier 2016 edition that had the Spanish with the aforementioned gray background that many Amazon reviewers cited here was difficult to read. Thanks to them, I'm a happy camper with this subsequent/newer 2019 edition.

An amazing compendium. Best read out loud! Gorgeous translations. I love this book.

I use it for college and it is heavy but is a good bilingual book

This collection of odes by Pablo Neruda should be in the hands and on the shelves of any serious Neruda lover.The translations are excellent. Am very pleased to have this large grouping of works by Neruda.

Love love love Neruda! What a treat to have the complete odes in one place. It's a great volume, useful to have the Spanish as well. I curled up right away on the couch with it.

Fantastic poems by one of the greatest poets of the 20th century's odes are a homage to all that surrounded Neruda. This collections has multiple accomplished translators at work.

Cadeau

I bought this book soon after it came out; and, though Neruda is one of my poetry heroes, it’s mostly stayed on the shelf. Other reviewers have commented on its importance as the only complete English version of these marvellous poems, and this could have been a wonderful volume. A pity, then, that it’s seriously spoiled by its dreadful design.Neruda was a master of the short line, and in these poems his lines are short enough that it’s possible to have the Spanish and English side by side on a single page. It’s in the layout of the page that the publishers have got it so very wrong.The English translations are printed in black, in a rather dull and dreary textbook typeface, left-justified to the centre of the page. Neruda’s originals occupy the remaining space to the left. They’re printed in a completely different, and smaller, typeface, in a kind of mid-grey that sinks into the page and makes them hard to read even in a strong light (and I don’t have defective vision.) And the poems are arranged in alphabetical order of the titles - in English. In other words, the originals are sidelined by the translations and treated as if they don’t really matter that much. This is, frankly, an insult to a man who was one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets and a Nobel laureate. He deserves better, and one can only speculate as to why a US publisher has chosen to do it this way.All this makes the book almost painful to read. If you read Spanish you’ll want to get the Odes in better-produced collections, even if it means buying several books. If you want a complete version of the Odes in English, then this is the only way you’re going to get it; but if you just want a selection of the best, either in English or in a parallel text, that you can read without getting eyestrain, then there are other and far better options out there.