The messy, brilliant life of Pablo Neruda | Hacker News Reader

The messy, brilliant life of Pablo Neruda

washingtonpost.com

59 pointsflannery22 comments

When talking about Neruda's life, don't leave out the fact he had a mentally challenged daughter. He had her institutionalized to never visit again in her entire life. He was a great poet, lived a lavish life, had many women and an eccentric lifestyle. But he was no role model, in fact, he was far from it.

You can say the same about Jobs, but people still go on and on about him on this site.

Jobs was a shitty parent between the ages of about 23–30 (between a few years before that and the middle of that period he had gone from being a broke unemployed college drop-out traveling around India and then living in a commune to a workaholic world-famous celebrity and gajillionaire), after which he apologetically reconciled with his former girlfriend and their child. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Family

He also screwed over his friend Steve Wozniak for money before Apple was formed. He has a history of being a terrible person. No reason to pretend this was the only thing.

I maybe wrong in this assumption but I think very few know about a rape[0], at least that's what I think it was (from his memoir[1]), that he committed in Sri Lanka (Ceylon back then). It was a native Tamil woman. Doesn't at all read like a consensual act or an act of a transactional nature (which could be considered consensual).

I loved his love poems and I think I would still like them (maybe) but for some reason I don't think it's going to be the same after knowing about this incident from his life. Maybe I need to work on separating the art from the artist, if at all that can be a thing.

[0] https://globalvoices.org/2015/10/05/portrait-of-nobel-litera...

[1] http://tamilwoman.tumblr.com/post/79412843312/tw-rape-pablo-...

Nah, I don't think you _need_ to do anything but what you feel is just and right. I personally enjoy my art in context. Same when I make a purchase or cast a vote.

It is not clear if Neruda died from cancer as his death certificate indicates. Most likely got killed by the regime because of his political affiliations.

True. There was an investigation last year (in Spanish)[0] and they are expecting results later this year to possible confirm that it was killed by Pinochet's regime (which, tbh, it would not surprise me at all).

Edit: found a link with a similar article in English: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41702706

[0]: http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2017/10/20/peritos-e...

Wrong, he died from Cancer. Only in the past few years this conspiracy theory surfaced. It is well known he was very ill way before the military coup. In fact, the left wanted him to be the candidate instead of Salvador Allende, but he didn't go for it, because he was involved in medical treatments.

This is just the left trying to rewrite history, and please don’t cite journalists as sources. It is said that journalists have a bast amount of information but an inch of depth on it.

Wrong, forensic doctor Aurelio Luna, Director of the external service of forensic science of University of Murcia found traces of a cultivated bacteria in the exhumed body of Pablo Neruda. This is enough to raise suspicions about his death.

Remember that assassinations in hospitals during this period were not uncommon. It is also suspected that former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva was killed by the regime during a hospital stay.

I'm sorry, traces of bacteria in an exhumed body?! This less surprising than find bacteria in shit.

cultivated bacteria (suggesting a laboratory was involved)

Only one forensic doctor backs those claims. Not enough for me, sorry.

He spoke on behalf of team of doctors he represents.

Just concede the point. It is a known fact that the regime killed people for much less and Neruda had already provoked them enough by then.

All I know is what I've just read in the Wikipedia article, but nobody seems to be claiming that he didn't have cancer. In fact it's part of the story, with his doctor injecting him with some sort of poison instead of treatment. So "you guys, he totally had cancer" doesn't actually disprove anything. It's entirely possible to murder a cancer patient.

wapo typo: "Neruda’s funeral be came a spontaneous public demonstration of defiance against the new regime."

“Poetry is like bread, It should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity.”

And yet, do the vast majority of humans actually read poetry? Perhaps they access it tangentially in Bob Dylan or The Beatles, but more likely than not, they're consuming Netflix or cable TV or much less high art than poetry. What are the top most sold books on Kindle, for instance? So many are romance novels, not Earthy, gritty, brilliant poetry like Neruda's.

You don't have to shit all over romance novels, "the kids the days", or (through omission) music made in the last half-century to encourage people to appreciate poetry more.

Incidentally, many forms of poetry are fairly popular these days. The Hamilton musical is one of the most successful pop culture phenomena of our time. Tons of artists like (recent Pulitzer Prize winner) Kendrick Lamar are shoving poetry into the ears of millions of people constantly.

Edit: I'll put this here as an example, and since it's a cover it shows the widespread enthusiasm that's out there for the material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqGGmfDZsWU

You must be trolling. This is not poetry.

I don't enjoy Poetry directly... but I think I still enjoy its benefits.

As long as the discipline exists, writers who study and learn it, will let it subtlety influence their writing.

Ursula K. Le Guin was supposedly a brilliant poet. I don't have to read books of poetry, to enjoy her Fantasy series.

Authors like Dan Brown I'm sure would be more palatable if they devoted some time to studying poems.

There's a big spoken-word scene in most major metro areas.

Obviously related, among the dross, hiphop has some excellent writing.

Let's celebrate a return of poetry as performance, instead of a purely written form.

I think that school ruins poetry for most people.

It took me about 5 years after finishing high school to begin to enjoy poetry again.

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