Summary of the excerpts from memoirs by pablo neruda
Answers
Memoirs of Excerpts by Pablo Neruda is a fascinating description of author’s meetings with world famous celebrities.
In this book the Nobel prize winning author has given elaborate details of world famous figures like Gandhi, Che Guevara, Mao Tse Tsung etc.
He has picked the most interesting incidents of his long career as a diplomat and politician.
Answer:
Neruda begins by saying that words can manifest vivid expressions whether, in poetry or prose, words sing and descend and the poet even bows to them. He expresses his intense love for words. He always clings to words and tries to tame it while writing. Sometimes, he waits greedily for words and all these acts of life are closely associated with words. Like all poets, he searches for the most beautiful and the most suitable words to be used in his poetry. He makes necessary alterations to the words and organizes them in the most suitable and attractive ways in his poetry. Sometimes, words come like unexpected rain and he waits for them greedily to drop down. He loves vowels and compares them with vivid objects in nature like glittering coloured stones or jumping silverfish or foam, thread, metal or dew. The beauty of all these things could be expressed through words. While writing poems, he often runs after beautiful words to make them fit into his poetry. He compares words to honeybees which fly through the mid-air and imagines himself trying to catch these flying words from the air. He compares his encounters with words to everyday activities in human life. He deals with words like a cook preparing delicious food, for he says he cleans them, peels them, and makes them his meal. By chewing, drinking and mashing these words, he makes necessary changes and appropriations in them and then applies them in his. He compares these words used in his poems to all beautiful things in nature, like stalactites or like slivers of polished wood or coal or pickings from a shipwreck. He calls pickings from a shipwreck as gifts from the waves. For a shipwrecked man who is lost himself in an uninhabited island, everything that washes ashore from the wrecked ship are of exclusive value, So, like that for a poet, Words are of exquisite value. Neruda finds everything in the world existing in the word. So he says that “everything exists in the word”. Words have the ability to change the meaning of an entire idea. So, the application of accurate words for the expression of a certain idea is of great importance. Words have all kinds of features like shadow, transparency, feathers, and hair. Just like the pebbles in the riverbeds which change their shape through so much rolling down with the flow in water, the words have gathered their meanings through long journeys from one land to another. Some words stay rooted in time and place for a longer period and this carried inheritance of ancient culture and history. Neruda says that words exist everywhere from the bier to the budding flower. He feels so proud of the language that they have inherited from the merciless and greedy Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru. He uses the term conquistador in the poem. Actually, it is a term that refers to Spanish conquerors. The Spanish conquerors had invaded the Latin American countries crossing the rugged mountain ranges in the borders of Latin America. They destroyed everything and looted all their wealth and natural resources like black tobacco, gold, corn, etc. Neruda called the Spanish invaders as people with a voracious appetite who swallowed everything in Latin America. Wherever they went, they razed the land. The only thing they left behind was their language which later became the language of Chile. Neruda comes out with a beautiful image of glittering words falling out of the boots, beards, helmets, and horseshoes of the barbarous invaders. Thus the invaders took away every precious thing they had but gave them their precious language, the golden language in return. Neruda comes out with a beautiful image of glittering words falling out of the boots, beards, helmets and horseshoes of the barbarous invaders. Thus the invaders took away every precious thing they had but gave them their precious language, the golden language in return. Neruda offers some domestic images in the passage by comparing the words to delicious dishes. Just like food tenders energy, vitamins as well as taste to one’s body, words give energy and enthusiasm to a poet’s mind. In the last section of the passage, he made some critical remarks against the colonization and foreign invasion. He describes how a foreign invasion destroyed the wealth, heritage, culture, and monuments of a land and how they loot valuable things from a nation.