The Book of Questions

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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. 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." The NEPQ Questions are undoubtedly worth looking at if you want to enhance your sales abilities. But take heed—they are not for the weak of heart. It might be awkward to ask these questions since they are meant to delve deep into your prospects’ issues. Book of Questions,” written by beloved Chilean poet and Nobel Prize winner Neruda, was completed just months before his death in 1973, and is his last great work of poetry. By turns lyrical and cosmic, dreamlike and nonsensical, paradoxical and playful, each of these unanswerable questions asks us to set aside certainty and constraint and to enter into the vastness of the unknown. With riddles like “Where is the center of the sea? / Why don’t waves break there?” and “What do you call a flower / that flits from bird to bird?”, Neruda inspires us to unravel our assumptions and re-envision our relationship to nature. The only answer that is sure to arise from these questions is a closer observation of and reflection on the world in which we live, and a renewed sense of curiosity and wonder at our shared universe. Think about the other people in the book besides the author. How would you feel to have been depicted in this way?

What artist would you choose to illustrate this book? What kinds of illustrations would you include? Neruda’s Questions plumbs the depths of imagination, existence, earth and its life with a curiosity that is free-ranging and mind-expanding. 'Which is more difficult, to sprout or to reap?' 'How many questions are in a cat?' There’s much for any age to ponder in this lavishly illustrated English/Spanish anthology that relishes questions with uncertain answers." — Toronto StarThese questions will get you thinking about some of the things we can go through a lifetime avoiding; they’re deep questions, but then humans at our best and most real are deep people.” But our questions, besides having the power to civilize us, also have the power — perhaps even more needed today — to rewild us. If I wanted to attempt to answer questions to make me wonder how I've lived my life and how I treat people, would that make me a masochist? If I am a masochist, how do I effectively balance that with my sadism?

Some few of the questions I did find interesting and thought provoking. The majority however I found...well, pointless even silly. I see many don't agree with me but I looked at questions that made strange assumptions or gave an incomplete premise, or an absurd premise and mostly shook my head. Sometimes books start off strong, but have endings that fall a little flat. Then there are books that are a little hard to get into at first, but are enjoyable after a while. How did you find this one? I've known Pablo Neruda since my teenage years when his romantic love poems kept me awake at night. But this set of poems presented as questions touch me even deeper. It is just a statement that a human being do not stop to answer questions even after long long life.. It is published posthumously, and he died in a year i was born. So it is like an invisible thread between the times for me. Eternity...Complement the paper-cast enchantment that is this Book of Questions with Neruda’s love letter to the forest, his ode to silence, his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and a lovely picture-book about his life, then revisit artist Margaret C. Cook’s stunning century-old illustrations for Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Many are aimed at bodies of water, evocative of poet, painter, and philosopher Etel Adnan’s sublime meditation on the sea and the soul.

His Book of Questions ( public library) now comes alive in a stunning bilingual picture-book, illustrated by Chilean artist Paloma Valdivia, whose father grew up in the same coastal region that shaped Neruda’s boyhood and whose grandmother was friends with Neruda’s sister. What do you think the author’s purpose was in writing this book? What ideas was he or she trying to get across? Q#164: How many different sexual partners have you had in your life? Do you wish you'd had more or fewer? Why? Technology has become a part of us. Would you rather lose the use of all motorized vehicles, all telecommunications devices and computers, or one of your hands?” What a majestic way to end his last collection of the verses... And what a suitable poem for the picture outside my window at the moment...

If I were asked to describe the book in one word, it’d be wonder. It’s utterly wonder-filled. These questions marvel at the mystery of our world…Valdivia’s highly textured illustrations are mesmerizing dreamscapes in teals, vermilions, and yellows. They play with scale and perspective in visually rich ways. And the book’s thoughtful design includes more than one gatefold and endless visual surprises. It’s a book that young thinkers—deep thinkers—will savor. It’s a book that demands time in the best way. It yields big rewards for readers who linger, taking in the wonder and curiosity of it all.” —Julie Danielson, Seven Impossible Things