The Book of Questions

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Was there any part of the plot or aspects of the characters that frustrated or upset you? If so, why? How would you justify your single word answers to questions that clearly only require one word answers? Follow-up questions: Does including questions that only request one word answers limit the value of this book? Does it seem like a cheap question to include when you can toss off an answer and move on? Or should you voluntarily put in a little bit more effort into your answers, like your brother does? In contrast to the first two questions, the subject of the third question is an artificial object: a car. But it is also personified. It’s a criminal automobile, a thief—but with regrets. The speaker is concerned not so much with the car itself, which sounds pretty interesting. (What does it steal? Gasoline?). No, the poem is concerned with who has sympathy for the car. The speaker sees the car with animist eyes, as a living being, and wonders who else does too. Who lends an ear as a friend, or absolution as a priest? The question isn’t about whether something is real or not—unlike in the others, here the automobile's reality is taken for granted—but about community and imagination. Because the speaker has implied sympathy for the car, we are made to wonder if the car is doing something against its will. And since cars usually do the bidding of humans, it may be a victim of human desire. Perhaps it regrets stealing resources from the earth. It takes a poetic imagination to grant the respect of personification to a car, to see the complex ethical relationships that we ignore in ordinary thought. Neruda was accomplished in a variety of styles, ranging from erotically charged love poems like his collection Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair, surrealist poems, historical epics, and overtly political manifestos. In 1971 Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a controversial award because of his political activism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez once called him "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language." But then you've read this far so I can't exactly deprive you, right? I just opened this book (for the last time) to pgs 162 an 163:

The subject of the question is a rose, a common symbol of beauty in poetry. The poem personifies the rose, imagining her as a woman. Then we are to consider the rose’s appearance: is she naked or wearing a dress? This is a question about beauty and appearances. If the rose is naked, she is concealing nothing. Her beauty is intrinsic to her being, and she simply is, without mystery. What if she is wearing a “dress”? It would have to be her “only” dress, as roses don’t change their petals to suit different occasions. If she is wearing a dress, the implication is that she is hiding something under the surface—that reality is concealed. This could also be a question about human perception. What do we see when we see a rose? Do we see the real rose "itself," or only the appearance of the rose? Is the beauty of the rose intrinsic to it, or something that we humans create? In this seemingly simple question, the poem poses one of the most profound questions about the nature of reality and beauty, placing it in the realm of philosophy, of metaphysics and aesthetics. It may also be an indication that Neruda read the Critique of Judgment by the philosopher Immanuel Kant, which considers the rose as a subject to explore human judgment of beauty. The Nobel laureate’s poems evoke pictures that make sense on a visual level before the reader can grasp them on a literal one. The effect is mildly dazzling… O’ Daly’s translations achieve a tone that is both meditative and spontaneous.” — Publishers Weekly Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda, was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician.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. Pablo Neruda is one of the world’s most beloved poets, and The Book of Questions is one of the best-selling volumes of his poetry. Composed of 316 unanswerable questions, these poems integrate the wonder of a child with the experiences of an adult. By turns Orphic, comic, surreal, and poignant, Neruda’s questions lead the reader beyond reason into realms of intuition and pure imagination. In his introduction, O’Daly 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.” Some of the problems aren’t all that bad, but they reveal a lot about you I would think. Take Question 001 for example. It goes like this: Cryptic and intriguing, these brief answerless riddles… ask the sophisticated question of the innocent child—’Is the sun the same as yesterday’s / or is the fire different than that fire?’—and probe what it means to be human.” — Library Journal 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... How thought-provoking did you find the book? Did the book change your opinion about anything, or did you learn something new from it? If so, what?

Some are researchable questions in a scientific sense: If the rivers are all freshwater, how does the sea get its salt? Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean writer and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Neruda assumed his pen name as a teenager, partly because it was in vogue, partly to hide his poetry from his father, a rigid man who wanted his son to have a "practical" occupation. Neruda's pen name was derived from Czech writer and poet Jan Neruda; Pablo is thought to be from Paul Verlaine. With his works translated into many languages, Pablo Neruda is considered one of the greatest and most influential poets of the 20th century. William O’Daly’s fine translations of the Nobel winner Pablo Neruda’s posthumous books… are gently astonishing, the way good poetry should be.” — Crossroads During his lifetime, Neruda occupied many diplomatic posts and served a stint as a senator for the Chilean Communist Party. When Conservative Chilean President González Videla outlawed communism in Chile, a warrant was issued for Neruda's arrest. Friends hid him for months in a house basement in the Chilean port of Valparaíso. Later, Neruda escaped into exile through a mountain pass near Maihue Lake into Argentina. Years later, Neruda was a close collaborator to socialist President Salvador Allende. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 10 years old, and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, overtly political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems, such as the ones in his collection: Twenty Love Poems, and a Song of Despair (1924). He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.When Neruda died in 1973, The Book of Questions was one of eight unpublished poetry manuscripts that lay on his desk. In it, Neruda achieves a deeper vulnerability and vision than in his earlier work; this unique book is a testament to everything that made Neruda an artist. Surrealism/magical realism? Unanswerable, paradoxical, the logic of a child’s ever-expanding universe of curiosity, which continues in those who remain artists and writers and scientists and children forever. Why only include roughly 217 questions, Gregory? Doesn't that seem a little limited in terms of effort, or is this really all of the questions you could think of? Did you know I read this on the toilet in one sitting? Did I just gross you out? How does one apologize in question form? Could I be any sorrier? Would it disturb you much if, upon your death, your body were simply thrown into the woods and left to rot? Why?" Pablo Neruda is one of the world's most popular and famous poets, and in The Book of Questions, Neruda refuses to be corralled by the rational mind. Composed of 316 unanswerable questions, these poems integrate the wonder of a child with the experiences of an adult. By turns Orphic, comic, surreal, and poignant, Neruda's questions lead the reader beyond reason into the realms of intuition and pure imagination.

Coming prepared with good discussion questions is only the first step to a great book club conversation. Bookclubs also has all the club organizing tools you’ll need to keep your book club running smoothly. In the second question, the speaker asks “why”; this could be either a direct question to the reader, or a rhetorical question. As in the first stanza, the subject is botanical (here, trees), and personified. The question about the rose wondered if she was revealing all, or hiding something. This question about the trees claims to know what they are doing—concealing—but asks: why? The speaker sees “splendor” in tree roots. The Spanish word, from which this is translated, is very similar: “esplendor.” It comes from the Latin word, meaning “shine, be bright.” So, there a is paradox in the language of this question: roots grow underground, yet the speaker sees them as bright and shiny, which are attributes of light. Trees bring in light through their leaves, converting it along with water into energy. So in a way, light is stored underground in the roots of trees. Trees conceal their roots because they have to. If they are uprooted, they can’t live. My kneejerk reaction is to lose the use of one of my hands. However, if I can’t drive, I could bicycle to a lot of places. The question needs to be more clear though. Would this scenario eliminate ALL motorized vehicles or would I only be unable to operate one? Other questions are disturbing and encroach on our basic liberties as consumers. Take Question 002 to illustrate this point. The gist of that one is that your 6-year-old daughter’s favorite toy starts telling her that she needs to buy a new toy from the same company’s line. There are some poems one must simply take in visually and revel in the imagery they invoke discarding their literariness. 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?Pablo Neruda was one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. His late-career and playful Book of Questions is a terrific book of poetry, probably not intended exclusively for children. I’ll call it an “all ages” book of poetry, which means that children can also read it, which illustrator Paloma Valdiva recognized in creating this book. The hardcover book is beautifully designed, and the mode of illustration is collage, accessible for kids, translated for this bilingual edition by Sara Lissa Paulson Did you highlight or bookmark any passages from the book? Did you have a favorite quote or quotes? If so, share which and why? Rate this book on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Why did you give the book the rating you did? Did any part of this book club discussion change your rating from what it would have been directly after finishing the book?