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Talk about Pablo Neruda, who died on a day like today in 1973, is to speak of the most important male writer that Chile has had in its history. The National Prize (1945) and Nobel Prize for Literature (1971), in addition to the Golden Wreath (Golden Crown) of 1972 and dozens of international awards, are sufficient proof of this.
But today, his name is also synonymous with debate and controversy as a result of a new rereading of his work, this time through the prism of his biographical data and the accusations of sexual abuse and neglect that weigh against you.
The long mantra of praise and awards has given way to various criticisms and value judgments towards his figure, and specifically, towards how dealt with women and his own family in his private life.
It all started between 2017 and 2018, when the idea of renaming the country’s main international airport, current Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez (local aviation pioneer), with his name.
It was the deputy Carolina Marzán who most strongly supported this letter: “We want that when foreigners and tourists step on Chilean soil, the first thing they see is the name of the poet Pablo Neruda,” he said.
Protests from feminist groups and conservative groups were not long in coming. And among the arguments against, an extract from the autobiographical book acquired another value I confess that I have lived, where the author recounts the rape of a woman at the age of 24 and the diffuse (and at least debatable) relationship with her only daughter, Malva Marina, whom he abandoned in his childhood.
The first of these reproaches was exposed after the extract of his sexual encounter with a woman in Ceylon went viral on social networks, on days when the gender equality urges as a global urgency.
“One morning, determined to everything, I took her tightly by the wrist and looked her face to face. There was no language in which I could speak to her. She allowed herself to be led by me without a smile and was soon naked on my bed ”, says the poet.
“The encounter was that of a man with a statue. He remained the whole time with his eyes open, impassive. He was right to despise me. The experience was not repeated ”, he says.
The revisited case of Malva Marina, her daughter with hydrocephalus which she abandoned when she was a child, also contributed to the deterioration of her image.
Mark Eisner, author of the biographical book Neruda. The poet’s callHe told the BBC that that episode was more than questionable, given that Neruda was ashamed and decidedly denied his own daughter.
“There are several letters that are preserved in which the mother (Maryka Antonieta Hagenaar) He desperately asks for money, tells him to fulfill his father’s tasks, because Neruda ignored them, Many times the money was not passed on to them and they were going through a very tough situation due to World War II, ”he says.
Critics
For Grínor Red, director of the Center for Latin American Cultural Studies at the University of Chile (Cecla), the reasons behind this location to the poet date back to 1940, and respond to an effort of the “establishment” by minimizing their influence.
“Neruda is a figure of universal literature, he is not a South American poet, he is a world renowned one. The only place in the world where this nonsense happens is in Chile ”, he points out to BioBioChile.
In relation to the criticisms of his work based on the biography of the author of the Poem 20, is emphatic: “It is a theoretical stupidity to associate the literature of an individual with his biography. If we do that, we should eliminate three-quarters or more of world literature. It is ignorance, no more ”.
Along these lines, he provides an example: “With Madame Bovary, one of the most important novels of the 19th century, which is one about an adultery, its author Gustave Flaubert in his time he was the subject of a whole judicial process for the adultery of his novel. That is stupid, it is a consequence of the absurdity ”, he adds.
In his opinion, the intentions behind these “funas” hide a greater effort: “Neruda has been the object, in this country, from the 1940s onwards, of a systematic disqualification campaign that has come from the establishment, with the in order to downplay it ”.
The foregoing, in his opinion, is not limited only to the discredit of the writer, but also to the recognition of other names to his detriment. “Young people are willing to share this controversy,” he says.
For the academic and writer Macarena Urzúa, Professor at the School of Literature of the Finis Terrae University, Neruda goes beyond controversy, becoming a highly complex actor.
“He is a complex figure because today we have more antecedents to read and know his work. So we have more critical references, more studies. This reading of I confess that I have lived it has always been there, being from the 70s, and that from the perspective of feminism and vindication is something more recent, “he said.
“There is that repudiable part, but like any complex person there is also that side where he helped Republican immigrants, acting as consul, to bring them as exiles from the Spanish Civil War to Chile (…). Not only was Neruda the poet, but he always had a strategic position and was part of the intellectual world ”, he added.
According to Dario Piña, a book reviewer, literary critic and a BA in Literature from the Diego Portales University, “funas” or “cancellations” are not the most recommended paths for this case.
“More than promulgating a culture of cancellation, I like the culture of reflection more”, He says. “It is not very convenient to read Neruda with the eyes of the present, but that does not mean that we cannot enter the discussion,” he explains.
For Piña, the “texts of his autobiography, the treatment of his wives, his political dealings or even that of his own daughter” can also be the object of analysis.
For his part, along with repudiating these two facts, Urzúa emphasizes that this mundane phase of the writer was something that he dealt with his literary work for many years. “It is very difficult to separate the work of life in the case of artists like Neruda. If that worldly part did not exist in him, neither would his stories exist. In his case, this thing of art and life is like one ”, he clarifies.
“I think that worldly figure can be judged as something that erased the figure of many other poets of that time, because he was kind of too omnipotent, and therefore exhausting today, ”he adds.
But, Is Neruda’s legacy in question in today’s Chile? According to Urzúa, “These facts make one read it from another place, any repository always has this ability that whoever reads it can resume it and redo a reading from there. That can happen with the Neruda legacy just as it happened with the Mistral legacy ”.
Chilean authors
For this article, some of the most important scholars and theorists in Chilean literature chose to subtract themselves from the debate around Neruda.
From the pool Chilean authors, which brings together various female voices from the local circuit, did not want to refer to the issue either, arguing about the diversity of views of its members.
Someone who did want to share her opinion was the local writer Arelis Uribe (Quiltras, let everything explode), for whom the figure of Neruda is not of particular interest.
“The only thing I can say about Neruda is that I read it out of obligation at school. I am curious and I love reading, it is also part of my work as a writer, but as time is limited and it is impossible to cover everything, I prefer to read Violeta Parra or Gabriela Mistral than Pablo Neruda ”, she summarizes. “I prefer to read women”he adds.
In the personal case of Romina Reyes, Neruda’s image swarmed since she was a child in her family ideology. “He was always very present as a writer figure,” he acknowledges.
In his opinion, this is not a particular debate about Neruda, but rather it is extrapolated to other referents and authors from various branches.
“It’s about going deconstructing them. One is sold as part of the mythological character of the author: his being a womanizer, his being flirtatious, having many wives; It is part of what they sell you as charm. By having a feminist perspective, at least in my case, one goes into that detail, and I think it is good not to make the fact that he is a great writer, which I do, erase the crimes that he could have carried out against women ”, he argues.
Regarding these controversies, Reyes warns here “as a writer and feminist, the perpetuation of this story of the sexuality of men who are overwhelming, where women’s bodies are at the disposal of what they want, and I think that is very questionable ”.
“We must begin to oppose the figure of the great writer, the Nobel Prize winner, the great communist, the abuser, or perhaps even the rapist”he adds.
For Claudia Apablaza, researcher and director of the independent label Los Libros de la Mujer Rota, Neruda is a firm that must be read and questioned. “The context and the figure of the author, today is evaluated as a whole, but it is a very personal opinion”, sentence.
For the publisher, work and author are definitely indissoluble concepts: “There have been moments in the history of literature when the text is important. In the 20th century, the subject of the author was quite questioned, but now, with the rescue of works, text and context, it is relevant and it is a question that one has to ask when reading an author. Everything is more complex than a single text, it is not separable ”, he argues.
“What has happened with the Neruda theme has led us to read an author in a more complex way. It removes me as a researcher. For me, it is very important that this new variable has been taken up by critics and readers. As a result of this perspective, we are going to read more critically ”, he proposes.
In any case, the authors agree on the totemic character of the poet: 47 years after his death, his acts and writings continue to divide waters, reaffirm positions and stir up the intellectual debate of his time.
What to do with it
For the writer and journalist Roberto Rivera, president of the Society of Writers of Chile (position that Naphtali Reyes Basoalto occupied in 1958), the reason for its omnipresence lies clearly in its verses.
“You cannot judge history backwards with current eyes, it is absurd … With the 20 Love Poems and a Song of DespairIn another macho world, women melted with that, ”he says.
“It is their context. By judging the writers out of context, there is no standing puppet. And neither will we in 200 more years ”, predicts the head of Sech, who today is preparing a virtual discussion in honor of the vate.
From her sidewalk, Piña proposes a contemporary rereading, with lights and shadows at the reader’s disposal, although that even has indelible personal consequences.
“When rereading Neruda, the interesting thing is to put these elements on the table: read that Neruda from the last century and see what makes sense to us, what we can learn from it. I am not in favor of founding him, because that is to downplay his work ”, he emphasizes.
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