Talk:Pablo Neruda/Archive 1

message: mention of the film 'Il Postino'? as it relates to pablo? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DennisDaniels (talk • contribs) 06:50, 22 October 2002 (UTC)
thread_title: First message

message: TDC various people are reverting you over multiple articles due to your POV-pushing.  Please conform to Wikipedia protocols. Ruy Lopez 21:02, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TDC 

message: I finally got this book and it is a singularly unimpressive volume dripping with arrogant condescension.  Not a footnote or reference to be found.  This is just a collection of op-ed hatchet jobs from mostly conservative newspapers and magazines.  When he discusses literary figures he judges their artistic work by their ideological purity: conservative writers are worthy, left-wing ones are overrated.  And then there’s the utterly priceless sentence: "As a friend of Albania and Albanians, I will never forgive [Christopher Hitchens] his assault on the outstanding Albanian personality of our time, Mother Teresa."  
Regarding the three citations from TDC
p. 10 "As documented in the memoirs of Gen. L. A. Sanchez Salazar, the chief Mexican police officer responsible for investigating the Trotsky case, the poet Pablo Neruda was suspended from his position in the Chilean diplomatic service for aiding the Eitingon network by providing Siqueiros with a visa that allowed him to escape from the Mexican authorities."  This quotation was previously provided by Anonip and has already been discussed. 
p. 17 "Siqueiros and Neruda, on whose services Naum Eitingon drew in the murder of Trotsky in Mexico, were, respectively, a painter and a poet."  When and where did Eitingon meet Neruda?  Where is the proof that Neruda was working on behalf of Eitingon?  Schwartz does not elaborate on this point here or anywhere else in the book.  (Note that the Siqueiros assassination attempt failed and the successful murder was committed by someone else.) 
p. 44 "Siqueiros had been the leader of the first, unsuccessful attempt on Trotsky’s life, in May 1940, and then escaped to Chile with help from the Chilean diplomat and poet Pablo Neruda, who was posted to Mexico City."  Nothing here we didn't already know. 
I do not feel like re-reading the talk page to see if anyone claimed this previously, but I thought it was worth noting that Schwartz does not mention Venona in conjunction with Neruda. 
What I think is going on here is that we have people making a leap of logic from "Neruda helped a would-be murderer escape" to "Neruda was working for the murder plot".  The latter conclusion requires proof that has not been provided, and I have seen nothing to disprove the motive that Neruda himself provided: he wished to help an artist he admired upon the request of the president of Mexico.  
Incidentally, tonight I photocopied an interview with Neruda from a Uraguayan magazine in which he discusses this stuff and perhaps I can translate a relevant quote if he says something we don’t already know. Gamaliel 02:14, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Intellectuals and Assassins" 

message: TDC, I now have a copy of Feinstein's biography, which you have also cited, and I have some comments on the version you keep reverting to:
:The Soviet Union through its control of the International Comintern used many sympathetic artists and cultural organizations under its control to spread Stalinist ideology around the world. Leon Trotsky and Andre Breton described this campaign and those involved "a twilight of filth and blood in which, disguised as intellectuals and artists, those men steep themselves who have made servility a career, of lying for pay a custom, and of excuses for crime a source of pleasure".
This questionable text does not belong in the article on Pablo Neruda.
:According to NSA archivist Robert Benson, Neruda was a part of the NKVD while serving as a diplomat in Mexico City. .
As has been pointed out above, this citation does not support your contention that Neruda beonged to the NKVD. Feinstein makes no mention of this either.
:Although Neruda is often praised for his work in securing the transportation of the refugees, many saw his actions as hollow and further evidence of his servitude to Stalin. Louis Stein states in Beyond Death and Exile that anarchists and anti-Communists were given a disproportionately small share of the available places. Federico Solano Palacio, a Spanish anti-Communist leftist, said that 86 percent of the applications for transportation by anarchists were thrown out and specifically cited the example of the Winnipeg. Catalan historian Josep Peirats wrote in 1993 that "Before World War II stopped all departures, three ships sailed to Veracruz, Mexico. Later on, the Winnipeg sailed to Chile. These trips were administered by the Communists and granted or denied passports, strictly screened passengers at points of embarkation. The same procedure applied to transport to Chile, where Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet did the screening."
On page 145 of Feinstein, it says that an agency established by the Spanish Republican government in exile to handle refugees, SERE, selected most of the passengers; Neruda picked "only a few hundred" and that the "vast majority" of the refugees let on board were not communists.
:Neruda never hid his great enthusiasm for Stalin, whom he commemorated in a poem the upon the death of the Soviet dictator in 1952 in which he called on Stalinists to bear the title with pride. That year, Neruda was also awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.
Your version is clearly more POV than the one you are reverting:
:Like many left-leaning intellectuals of his generation, Neruda came to admire the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin.  On Stalin's death in 1953, Neruda wrote an ode to him, which is now considered one of his least effective works and is the only one of Neruda's many poems that is about the Soviet leader. That year, Neruda was also awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.
In short, the Feinstein biography doesn't offer any support for your version. Of course, if you think that there are any scholarly resources that weren't available to him when the book was published (2004), do let us know. -- Viajero | Talk 16:11, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  TDC's version 

message: The following phrase was recently added: "… although the extent to which Chile was democratic under Allende is a matter of much dispute." The person who added it claims that it was added to advance NPOV. It seems to me to do quite the opposite. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV? 

message: The cited source on Neruda having written in praise of Fulgencio Batista is Alberto Acereda, Mitos Socialistas: Textos escondidos de Pablo Neruda on a web site called LibertadDigital.com. The piece is openly critical of Neruda's politics, though not nearly as hostile as this one fact gleaned from it would suggest. It's probably a decent source if used with intellectual honesty. Neruda's words in praise of Batista were published 27 November de 1944, when Cuba was one of the Allies fighting the Axis. Many people during World War II said things in praise of allies during that war that they might have found regrettable later; I'm sure there would be quite a trove of rather conservative U.S. politicians saying things about Stalin that they would come to regret (I even have in my music collection an African-American gospel song in praise of Stalin, "Stalin Wasn't Stallin'" by the Golden Gate Quartet). So if this is to be mentioned, the WWII context should be mentioned as well. I will add that context.
Another recent addition also has at least minor problems: "He also became a friend of the notorious stalinist assassin Vittorio Vidali ."
For starters, "notorious" is sheer rhetorical overkill: "notorious Stalinist assassin" as against "well-liked solid citizen Stalinist assassin"? I will remove that word.
The citation in this second case is a mess. It is a link to a Google cache of a deleted page. The page was http://trovamex.com/n/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4 as retrieved on Jan 26, 2005 22:48:10 GMT. It is entitled "Neruda sintió hasta el tuétano el influjo magnético del México florido y espinud", dated 13 July (it doesn't say what year). It is signed simply "maryel"; it's not clear that it is anything more than a blog, since Trovamex is, itself, apparently a search engine and Maryel Mendiola its webmaster. It has been cherry-picked for the one damning fact in an article that consists mostly of praise. Mention of his support for the young Luis Echeverría Alvarez and José López Portillo apparently doesn't intrigue our contributor, nor his friendships with León Felipe, Wenceslao Roces (the Spanish translator of Marx), Carlos Pellicer, Octavio Paz, Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Alfonso Reyes, Enrique González Martínez, José Mancisidor or General Heriberto Jara does not interest our contributor. Which is to say, he was moving in the circles of leftist Mexico City; the fact that Vidali was one of the many people who was also moving in those same circles is what is singled out.
In short, on this last, I imagine a better citation could be found, but I also think that it belongs in the context that this was a man who, during his time in Mexico City would have known a virtual Who's Who of the left, and while that did, indeed include assassins (probably more than just this one), it also included many of the countries (or in the case of Cardoza y Aragón, Guatemala's) leading intellectuals. This piece is supposed to give a rounded picture of Neruda, not to be a mere listing of his sins. I leave it to someone else to follow up on this front. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:17, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re: recent additions 

message: Why on earth does a passing reference on The Simpsons merit mention in the article? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:08, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sad to say, it's one of the only things a lot of people know about Neruda.  I support inclusion. Gamaliel 21:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia 

message: That section is absolutely unnecesary. If you want to create sections for every poem that neruda wrote... men, you will never end. Neruda was a communist, so it's obvious he have respect for Stalin, Castro and Mao. And a poet writing about something he cares and likes it's not a flash news. Also, the ode to Fulgencio Batista it's and old lie. Do you people really think that he wrote that, and months after one to Castro?. If you read the link to support that afirmation (also it's in spanish, not indicated in an english enciclpedy) you will see inmediately that it's an article with no impartiality and obviously destinated to put some louds on the Neruda legacy.
I think that section has to be removed. The other option is to create sections about all the "Neruda's themes" like America libertarians, Southern Chile places, climatic events, fruits, materials, etc.
It don't take too long to see it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bauta (talk • contribs) 27 Jan 2006
: The thing it, he wasn't just a poet, he was a diplomat and a senator, so this is more relevant than it might otherwise be. If the Batista thing is wrong it should go, but I'd guess that during WWII (the date in question) when most of Batista's crimes were still ahead of him and he was an ally against Hitler this seems likely enough. "Months later" is wrong: Castro was a child at that time. - Jmabel | Talk 00:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support to dictators 

message: During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!
* http://www.uchile.cl/neruda/
** In Pablo Neruda on Mon Jul 17 14:39:44 2006, 404 Not Found
** In Pablo Neruda on Thu Jul 27 00:34:04 2006, 404 Not Found
----maru   (talk)  contribs 04:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I substituted the link from the Internet Archive, but this was a rather image heavy site (including for navigation) and lacked "alt" texts for the images, few of which seem to be archived; I'm not sure how useful it is. - Jmabel | Talk 06:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I just noticed that an older version was more fully archived, I'll use that. - Jmabel | Talk 06:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: Hi! i'm a spanish user, and I think you must add some information about the burial of Neruda. When he die in 1973 he was buried in a little and horrible tomb in the Santiago "Cementerio General". For 18 years his tumb was visited by hundred of persons, who leave messages. When Patricio Aylwin start in office, he order two state funerals, the first one of presidente Salvador Allende (sep. 4th, 1990) and Neruda's in the same year. Rakela 17:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds correct; can you offer a citation on this? - Jmabel | Talk 06:54, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funeral 

message: Gamaliel, could you explain the reason for your revert? 71.212.31.95 19:55, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gamaliel's Revert 

message: Neruda has now penetrated my life permanently. Never again (and nor have I for the past 2 years) looked at an onion in the same light. For me, now, the onion represents so much more. As Neruda says: "matas el hambre".
The celestial description Neruda gives the onion in the opening of Oda a la Cebolla, serves to remove this everyday object out of the ordinary and turn it into something unrecognisable, powerful and awe inspiring. This technique of defamiliarisation works wonderfully along with the use of the apostrophe to cause the reader/hearer to readdress their own definition of what an onion is. Neruda lifts the status of the onion to the heights of the "Birth of Venus" by Boticelli and certainly impacts upon the reader the important role such an ordinary foodstuff can hold. The relief it provides to the hardworking "jornalero" and its magical appearance next to "los hemisferios de un tomate" make me reminisce each and every time that I find myself chopping the cheap, humble and delicious onion.82.41.66.5 10:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What does this have to do with the article at hand? Biruitorul 17:29, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Onion! 

message: Its not necessary to mention the term "communist politican" in the first paragraph to the article about this Poet - known in many parts of the world as the Poet of Love. In chile from whence neruda came, the term communist and politician are never used together. Communists themselves don't consider themselves politicians; they are revolutionaries. Was Danton Rousseau a politician? Before turning to Marxism Neruda had been an Anarchist, and he also admired Jan Neruda who was very nationalistic and anti-semitic. I don't know if the anti-semitism of Jan Neruda was known at the time Neruda adopted his name. Suffices to say that Neruda politically was very inconsistent. Neruda is best understood as a great poet, it is only in poetry where his brilliance was consistent and constant. Another thing, Like Picasso in Spain, Neruda was never really active in the Communist Party of Chile, great figures like Neruda never were, they subscribed to the ideology of the party at a given point in time. In the main it was the red army's defeat of Nazi Germany that appealed to intellectuals like Neruda, and the subsequent support the USSR gave to poor countries struggling for National Liberation. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.221.31.142 (talk • contribs).
* Given that the most of the last few years of Neruda's life were lived in a time when a Marxist (Allende) was president (and had several times before been a serious candidate), "communist politician" is hardly an oxymoron. 
* Who the heck is "Danton Rousseau"? A weird amalgam of Georges Danton and Jean-Jacques Rousseau? The former was both a revolutionary and a politician; the latter was neither, though he inspired many people to be revolutionaries.
* For what it is worth, I am sure that when Pablo Neruda took the name "Neruda", he was either unaware of or oblivious to Jan Neruda's antisemitism. There is, as far as I know, not a shred of evidence that Pablo Neruda was an antisemite. 
* You write "In the main it was the red army's defeat of Nazi Germany that appealed to intellectuals like Neruda, and the subsequent support the USSR gave to poor countries struggling for National Liberation." This is anachronistic: he became a Communist during the Spanish Civil War (also the time of Picasso's strongest association with the party, by the way). But Picasso never held political positions. Neruda by this time was nearly a decade into a diplomatic career. And can you really imagine Picasso on the floor of the Chlean Senate speaking out against González Videla?
* Pablo Neruda is certainly, deservedly, most famous as a poet, but he was also an ambassador and a senator. Admittedly, he initially backed into his diplomatic career, but taken all in all, diplomacy and politics occupied enough of his life that he would be a notable political figure even if he had not been a poet. We certainly often place less significant facts about someone in the lead paragraph (e.g. that Céline was a physician). - Jmabel | Talk 00:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "communist politicians"

message: Does that section Examples of Political Verses (one verse, in Spanish) really belong in this article? - Jmabel | Talk 01:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Canto general Jespinos 03:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I've added an English translation and a better citation — the given link was to what looked like just a giant concatenation of all of Neruda's work, unorganized, so I changed it to a PDF of Canto General. (I'm not sure whether that work is in the public domain, but a number of Spanish-langage book archive sites, such as the one Jespinos links to above, seem to imply that it is.) Pmdboi 21:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Only the Neruda's Parliamentary speeches are in the public domain, all the rest is copyrighted. The Neruda's work published on the Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library is authorized by the Pablo Neruda Foundation. Jespinos 01:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples of Political Verses 

message: Anyone who has a basic biographical knowledge of Neruda's occupation will know that apart from poetry Neruda's more formal occupation was his work as a diplomat. He was a diplomat for most of his adult life. Neruda translated some books - some very poorly that were never published. He translated Bakunin, tried to translate shakespeare, but "translator" was not his occupation. Pablo Neruda was also a political figure not a political activist. A political activist is someone who attends a political manifestation informally. Neruda was a political figure for most of his adult life, during the 30s in Spain and Europe he was one of the most famous political figures who organized safe passage to the Americas for thousands of Spanish refugees. Then he was a famous member of the Chilean Communist Party, a close friend of Allende. Moshe-paz 10:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: he was one of the most famous political figures who organized safe passage to the Americas for thousands of Spanish refugees - indeed, he organised. He picked up Communist Party members or people he liked, though.Constanz - Talk 10:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "He picked up Communist Party members or people he liked, though."
What an insipid comment. "In 1939, a more sympathetic Chilean Government sent Neruda to Paris as consul for Spanish Emigration, with the mission of aiding refugees from the beaten Spanish Republic by finding countries that would take them. It was a bitter time, darkened by the gloom of defeat and by the impending European war. Fascism, victorious in Spain, was also on the march in italy and Germany. Hundreds of European artists and intellectual emigrated to the New World." - Jack Schmitt Moshe-paz 18:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  correction (my apologies): previous cited paragraph is not by Schmitt but by Roberto Echevarria. Moshe-paz 18:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neruda's Occupation: Translator and Political Activist

message: Wikipedia currently lists Neruda's birth name as Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto.  The Nobel Prize Foundation lists his name as Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto.  Any sources on which one's right? JordeeBec 22:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The birth name was taken from Feinstein's biography. Gamaliel (Orwellian Cyber hell master) 22:41, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I've confirmed with many sources, from Neruda's half-brother's grandson Bernardo Reyes and the librarian at the Neruda Foundation that Neruda's birthname is Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basolato. Eizmarcos (talk) 08:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birth name? 

message: I'd like to put this blog entry up for consideration for the Neruda page as it highlights a critically acclaimed film about Neruda in the process of post production, as well as an interesting discussion about Neruda's place in Chile's artistic scene.  
http://c.hileno.com/2007/08/pablo-neruda-documentary-film-chile.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.161.145.53 (talk) 01:13, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New External Link 

message: Is branding Neruda as a Communist Politician ok? Timothy Garton Ash writes somewhere that those who never liked communism cant think. And Allande was no 'communist'. Appropriate people may please edit that part in the first line!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.212.160.101 (talk) 02:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  'communist poltician' 

message: There seems to be considerable doubt that  Neruda's pen name derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda. Apparently Neruda never agreed to reveal the origin of his pseudonym and it seems that a journalist forced that theory. There is an interesting hypothesis published on the web by a Spanish physician. According to that the name derives from the violinist Wilma Neruda which he admired a lot. Unfortunately the following article by Enrique Robertson is only written in Spanish.
 Article by Enrique Robertson --Moroderen (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neruda's pseudonym 

message: Substituted at 15:31, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment