The Original "Your Body is a Wonderland"

Though Pablo Neruda has dabbled in Communist poetry, the Chilean is predominantly a romance poet—which is usually a sure-fire way to get me to stop reading whatever you write. One whiff of sap and I’m running the other way faster than you can cry, “Mark Twain!” But I always make an exception with Neruda’s works. There’s just something about his writing that makes me not only tolerate, but enjoy murmuring his words beneath my breath—even the Communist vocabulary! The guy wrote 100 love sonnets! He should be my worst nightmare of a poet. But, he’s not. What keeps me reading Neruda, I have come to realize, is his imagery. “One Hundred Love Sonnets (V)” is a great example of Neruda’s craftsmanship and why I devour his poems.

Neruda fertilizes “One Hundred Love Sonnets (V)” with primal images of earth and of thriving life. In the first quatrain, the speaker notes “the clay and resins” of his beloved and the “sweet water” that gives so much life to apples, they swell. “The truth of the fruit in clusters” suggests overabundance and excessive life. Neruda only supplies images that are tangible; note that in the first line of the poem, the speaker rejects considering anything intangible about his lover: “I did not touch your night, or your air, or dawn: only the earth...” The speaker, and ultimately the reader, only cares about the palpable aspects of the woman, which makes sense as his “place” is best defined and most easily recognizable by its physical appearance. In essence, the first quatrain functions to aid the audience in understanding how elemental and innate the speaker perceives his lover, his “place” to be.

In the second quatrain, the speaker begins to unveil a more personal connection with his lover. He uses imagery and possessives to insinuate a sort of ownership. He goes so far to say that “your feet were made for me” and, shortly after, “you are my dark familiar clay.” Now not only is Neruda giving images of nature but also of intimacy. He furthers the connection between personal intimacy, nature, and life with the image of touching her hips and touching “the wheat in its fields” at the same time, as wheat and hips are symbols related to giving life. With these connections made through imagery, the speaker can further the concept of his “place” in the third and fourth quatrains.

In my mind, I warp the third quatrain and the first line of the last bit of text into one group and form a couplet with the last two lines. I think it’s odd that Neruda grouped the two quatrains the way they are grouped because lines 8 - 12 are the only lines in the poem that don’t revolve around images of earth and life. The grouping may work out better in Spanish, but I don’t really know. Anyway, those lines drastically deviate from the previous images in the poem. There is nothing natural about the image of a heart remembering a mouth and the earth has very little to do with “a man wounded.” There is nothing about intimacy or thriving life in those images. But because of the first two quatrains, the audience can make what, upon inspection, seems like a leap into more of a little hop. The first two quatrains, through their imagery, give the third quatrain and line 12 meaning. The poem has become wholly personal. We the audience are taken from admiring a lover from afar to understanding the source of the speaker’s love without feeling much of a bump. The last two lines return to the predominant imagery of the poem while adding in the new personal perspective the audience has learned. Intimacy (“kisses”), earth/life (“volcanoes”), and the speaker (“my place”) are rolled into one spot.

Neruda uses imagery to take the audience step by step through a complex idea without losing it along with way. With each image, Neruda takes your arm and shuffles you just an inch or two at a time into the idea as if you were an old lady crossing a street. And, I’ll be honest, I’ve never been so happy to be an old lady.

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Zombies, Zombies!

Okay. So. Mr. Coon, you may be wondering, “Why on Earth would a student want to tackle another Faulkner novel—this time on her own?” I wondered the same thing for the first couple of pages of Absalom, Absalom! “Jess, what a bad idea. What a terrible, terrible idea. What were you thinking?” I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

And then I realized that Absalom, Absalom! is a prequel, not a sequel, to The Sound and the Fury.

Things make sense now. For a quick mental breakdown and a good cry session, try reading Absalom convinced that Quentin has already committed suicide. After a few minutes trying to figure out how Quentin could be both alive AND dead, I concluded that he had to be a ghost—which made the novel even better! You should also try reading Absalom with Quentin as a ghost just once. I haven’t read the entire novel yet, but ghost characters make any novel better. Yes, I was a little disappointed when I realized that Quentin wasn’t actually the undead (I toyed with the idea of him being a zombie for a little while—but Miss Rosa’s lack of terror dissuaded me) but the novel does make a ton more sense now, which is always nice.

I was really excited to see that Quentin is a key narrator in this novel too. I felt like I didn’t learn enough about Quentin in S&F to satisfy my taste. He’s such a complex character. When his narration ended in S&F, I was pretty depressed. Quentin’s Absalom narrations stay pretty close to his voice in S&F. I’ve read 1.5 sections and when he speaks (i.e. when that Rosa lady isn’t yapping her lips off) his narration is still rife with religious allusions and confused rhetoric. I can’t wait to get to the section where he’s telling the story—I hear it’s killer! (I really hope someone dies in that section because then that add-on is totally worth it!)

I don’t know how to feel about this Rosa chick. First off, her name puts me on edge. Rosa. Rosa. What’s a Mexican doing in the South? Even an Italian? Sounds like a scam to me. Secondly, she just keeps talking and, while I understand she’s telling a story, what she says is rarely relevant. For some reason, reading the first section left me out of breath. The sentences just went on and on and on. I kept thinking, “Geeze, Rosa! Take a siesta, ‘kay? Just for one second.” Quentin’s few lines were a blessed relief, a siesta for this reader. Her story was confusing (Of course. God forbid Faulkner make anything simple) but intriguing. I’ll definitely have to re-read it, but from what I can tell, there’s a whole lot going on with this family! I loved that she was so young when whatever story she’s relaying happened. It gives her so much bias. Of course, it also gives her a ton to whine about—which she does incessantly. I also find her obsession with Sutpen’s lack of roots fascinating.
I’m hoping there’s someone with a god complex coming up. Those are fun.

Maybe I’ll hold my breath for a ghost/zombie too? (536)