نيرودا من علوّ الحب يكتب لماتيلدا مائة سوناتة حب .
ما قرأته ليس محدوداً بعمر معين و متى كان الحب كذلك ؟ هناك قصائد للصباح للظهر للمساء و الليل و تتفاوت المعاني و الالتقاطات اليائسة حيناً و الغارقة في الحب أحياناً فهاهو يخالف العشاق قائلا : " أما أنا فلا أريد سوى أن أكون مزيّن شعرك " و هاهو يشكو " حين رفعنا الحب فوق موجة هائلة و حطمنا فوق الصخور فقد جعل منّا طحيناً متفردا " و هاهو يتحدث عن الغياب و يصفه بالمنزل الفضفاض " يمكنك السير فيه عبر الجدران و تعليق الصور على الهواء " و هاهو يناقض نفسه المغرمة - كحال المغرمين دائماً - حين يجمع أمنياته الواحدة تلو الأخرى لماتيلدا " ليت حتى الحب لا يعكر صفو ربيعك الدائم " آه كم هو جميل هذا النيرودا .

I feel so guilty giving four stars to this classic because it’s probably the effect of poor translation, but it didn’t feel like a five star book. There are absolutely fascinating sonnets, no doubt about that but not majority of them.

Adnan Özer’in çevirisini okumamanızı tavsiye ediyorum, çok kuru ve zorlama olmuş. Hatta mümkünse direk İngilizce okuyun çünkü çeviri kalitesi farkı çok belirgin. Ancak tüm dikkati vererek, farklı kombinasyonlarla okunduğunda zevk alınıyor.

شاعرية تمس القلب المرهف، سُعدت لاختيار قرائتها في الخريف.

n  listen... a hundred is a lot.n
༄⋆
note: as i usually do whenever i complete a read that took me a while, i did a tiny bit on research on neruda because i assumed that the portrait painted by every-spanish-teacher-who's-ever-taught-highschoolers of this man was slightly restrictive. i know i should separate the art from the artist since "blablah picasso made masterpieces even though he was the most disgusting man who ever walked this earth" but the fact that neruda wrote a poem about his experience r*ping a woman is something to consider. i'm glad i knew that after i got throught 100 poems on the beauty of love. nonetheless i can't pretend this information didn't taint my vision of this poetry collection, hence the three-stars-rating. please forgive me.
༄⋆
so. i'm obviously unmarried. i've never even been in love.... i couldn't relate to any of these poems. howEVER i guess pablo neruda's talent shows in the way his words made me feel.
i've always been exceptionally bad at describing or critiquing poetry and i doubt this will change today. so HERE'S MY FAVOURITE POEM HEEHEEH ENJOY (and yes it's in spanish because i am incredibly pretentious).

n°59
pobres poetas a quienes la vida y la muerte
persiguieron con la misma tenacidad sombría
y luego son cubiertos por impasible pompa,
entregados al rito y al diente funerario.

ellos -- oscuros como piedrecitas--, ahora
detrás de los caballos arrogantes, tendidos
van, gobernados al fin por los intrusos,
entre los edecanes, a dormir sin silencio.

antes y ya seguros de que está muerto el muerto
hacen de las exequias un festín miserable
con pavos, puercos y otros oradores.

acecharon su muerte y entones la ofendieron :
sólo porque su boca está cerrada
y ya no puede contestar su canto.

This collection is mesmerising. I feel I need to read it again and again to absorb all the nuances of each sonnet. Favourite few lines:
"You and I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness."

This is from the Nineth Sonnet. Favourite Sonnet the 90th.
Absolutely wonderful!

در توصیفش همین بس که ظریف و عاشقانه بود

«ای عزیزترینم!
ما مگر چه میخواستیم که حقمان نبود؟
تنها عشق
تا که دوست بداریم یکدیگر را
۰۰»

«عشق من !
تو را دوست میدارم به خاطر هر آنچه داری
و نداری»

«ما
من، تو و عشق
از لطافت
ابدیتی خواهیم ساخت
جایی که امواج
بر صخره های بیقرار میشکنند.»

It is very difficult to review a poetry collection. Neruda is undoubtedly a genious. This book contained diamonds of conception, yet the poets' occasional verbalisms and repetitive descriptions of the same subject - or should I say the same person - became tiring at times. My favourite sonnets were by far number 44 and 89.

Vale a pena ler e sonhar que tais sentimentos um dia possam ser também sentidos por nós, já que escrevê-los não é possível com tamanha paixão e doçura.


"No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño."

...
Sepasang napas cintaku, sebab aku harus mencintaimu:
itu sebabnya aku mencintaimu saat kau tidak mencintai,
dan aku mencintaimu ketika apa pun yang lain kucintai.

Iseng membaca 100 Soneta Cinta karena tergeletak di meja ruang tamu rumah. Hanya adik dan ibu saja yang memiliki koleksi buku-buku puisi. Dan melihat nama Neruda, aku merasa wah tidak ada salahnya untuk mencoba membacanya. Lagipula, aku sudah ribuan kali mendengar pujian akan puisi-puisi Neruda tetap belum sekalipun membacanya.

Seperti yang tertulis jelas pada judul serta deskripsi, buku ini berisi 100 soneta cinta dari Neruda untuk istrinya, Matilde. Diterjemahkan dengan indah oleh Aan Mansyur, pembaca masuk ke dalam bagaimana cintanya Neruda kepada Matilde. Setidaknya itulah yang aku rasakan selama membaca 100 Soneta Cinta. Dibagi ke dalam tiga bagian: Pagi, Siang, dan Malam, senota-senota ini seakan memiiki nuansanya masing-masing.

Dalam kisah ini akulah satu-satunya orang yang akan mati--
semata aku. Aku mati oleh cinta karena aku mencintaimu, karena mencintaimu, Kekasih, dalam kobar darah dan api.

Ada perasaan mengharukan sekaligus ingin merasakan bagaimana hebatnya rasa cinta sehingga bisa menghasilkan soneta-soneta indah itu. Matilde pasti adalah wanita beruntung.

Melalui 100 Soneta Cinta, aku ingin menjadi Matilde dan ingin menjadi Neruda: jatuh cinta dengan teramat sangat kepada orang yang tepat.

Σ' αγαπώ καθώς κάποιο φυτό που δεν ανθίζει,
μα που μέσα του κρύβει το λουλουδόφως όλο,
και ζει απ' τον έρωτα σου σκοτεινό στο κορμί μου
τ' άρωμα που σφιγμένο μ' ανέβηκε απ' το χώμα.
Σ' αγαπώ μη γνωρίζοντας πως, από που και πότε,
σ' αγαπώ στα ίσια δίχως πρόβλημα ή περηφάνια :
σ' αγαπώ έτσι γιατί δεν ξέρω μ' άλλον τρόπο,
παρά μ' ετούτον όπου δεν είμαι μήτε είσαι,
που το χέρι σου πάνω μου το νιώθω σα δικό μου,
που όταν κοιμάμαι κλείνουν και τα δικά σου μάτια.

I really sometimes wonder if I love right, love correctly, or if I love at all and am not just miming what I think, what I want, I feel. For me I love all at once, I fall very fast, but rarely. I will go long loveless periods through life, happy and unthinking of what passions I am missing, unenvious of people paired in love, like a bright new boat at sea not thinking at all of the harbor. And suddenly in a lightning flash (un coup de foudre), I am whipped up into a maelstrom of passion and anguish. I am battered on all sides, forced always to maneuver at the helm and can think of nothing else, whatever. I am tormented in waiting out the storm, waiting for the dawn, the exchanged "I love you" or just a sign or symbol of reciprocation. I wait by the telephone, always checking messages, or finding myself reading through old messages. I am mad in love, always. But I think it may be better to be mad than never to feel that madness ever, always to love on a level plane.

What I love in poetry is that it is always, when done right, an attempt at saying what can never be said. Death, love, grief, loss, these things are common material, for what truths can ever be said in language about them? We all feel them every day, but words diminish them. To Love is golden in all its glister, but to speak of love is only to wear gawdy jewelry, paste diamonds and pyrite. It is a poor imitation to describe love, language is an ill-fitted coat for it, it hangs loose and leaves unfitting folds. But poetry, though not all of it, comes close to representing Love. Not every poem, nor maybe even not any whole poem, but lines, phrases, words on the page, somehow strike me and I think "yes, that's just it! that's just the way it is!" And there are a few poets who really strike me as troubadours of love, Love in a meaningful way, meaningful to me. Pablo Neruda (with Edna St. Vincent Millay, and at turns Ronsard, Akhmatova, Plath, Secton, Whitman, sometimes Catullus and Roethke...) stands out as feeling how I feel, writing what I feel abstractly and without words. Many of the sonnets in this collection I do not love, and many I do not like and make me feel nothing. But there are a few which feel infinite to me, which burn in me like my own loves. And my favorite from Neruda, maybe my favorite-ever love poem, "If you forget me" I return to often, maybe every time I feel that pang of love.

n  You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists:
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.n

To me this is what it is to be in love. It is that everything becomes a messenger, a sign, a whisper of Love, even ugly and insignificant things, small things and silly trifles, and also big things that shake you, everything becomes a little boat which carries you off in a flash to that feeling of longing, of loving, of that person which you love which is absent. Time becomes measured in time-with and time-without, and always there is a feeling of lack in the former, and unending excess in the latter.

Neruda knows, and writes of in his Love Sonnets, that love is an ache. Though love adds an infinitude to life, though it brims over everywhere on everything, it too makes one want more than enough, more than is possible or conceivable. To love someone is to want them so bad and so frequently that you would ruin yourself, like a child over-indulging in sweets. And the worst, the most painful but maybe the most wonderful, too, part of love, is the persistent mystery.

n  I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving.n

To love someone because they are beautiful or kind or generous or smart is an affront to love. While these may spark an initial attraction they are insufficient to inspire love. While attraction may be slave to Love's Dictionary (what is "beauty"? what is "intelligence" or "ambition"?), love is a slave, rather, to it's gesturary. One's love is impinged upon by that smile they wear when you look at them a long time, or the way they carry themselves into the room, or bend over to remove a shoe, or grab a pen and think a moment before writing; it is that flash of confusion on the face when they are surprised, or the tension which builds in their brow when they are stifling despair, or when they are worried and they fidget just a bit. There can be no pride nor complexity in love, because to be in love is to be completely vulnerable to loss. While love adds to everything, it is a constant threat of losing everything, and having to build up from the ruins alone. It is so simple, excruciatingly simple "to love and be loved; to not love nor be loved; to love and not be loved; not to love but be loved" - it is the unnecessary things, the petty superficialities which interfere and threaten love, which make it seem complicated. When the brain and the heart are in discord, when one lies to oneself about what they want, what they love, what they need.

Like in Roland Barthes' Lover's Discourse, I am moved by Neruda's understanding that to love is also to wait.

n  so I wait for you like a lonely house
till you will see me again and live in me.
Till then my windows ache.n

For one feels in love that before love their life was an empty house, unlivable. And they maintained it, washed the windows and unclogged the gutters and kept the paint fresh from chipping, but inside it was always empty, perhaps only filled in the corners but subtle things in shadows. But when you are in love, it seems that suddenly all your house is busy with new furniture and decoration for some imminent party, and there are things that you love but don't need, and things which are needed but not loved, and all over there is activity, and everyone (for now there seem so many guests) is thinking of one thing. And when you are with that person you love, it is not the party which you were waiting for, it seems like you are living in the house and it is some anonymous Sunday morning (you drinking your coffee, them reading the paper, feeding the cat), and everything is calm and quiet. But when they leave, there is the rush in the heart to make them stay. Your whole body aches to make them stay for ever, to keep them prisoner. What if they go away and they stop loving you? Your mind is again aflutter with worries and anxieties, and when it is about to give up, it is re-nourished by a fleeting memory of their smile, or a kind word, or an unexpected message. But always the windows ache, and inside the boiler cries.

Whoa, I meant to add Exile to my list, but this was right underneath it, and I accidentally gave this four stars. I hope this can be deleted. If not, this will be my review. If so, this makes for a funny story kinda.