Pablo Neruda, part 2

I don't really know about other people, but when I am reading something, whether fiction or non-fiction, and they mention an author that intrigues me, but which I don't know much about, I frequently go about trying to read something by that author.  I have heard Neruda's name frequently, associated with politics as well as poetry, but I had not picked him up yet.  Too many other books currently sitting around half-read is the most likely excuse, or that I wasn't currently in a poetry mood.  Whatever the excuse, I did finally get around to reading a bit, and I liked it, though I did not pick up his love poems, and mention of his love poems is what prompted me to grab a collection as well as one of his long poems.  (A Boy and His Dragon by R. Cooper is the book that referenced Neruda this time.)

Thinking back, when I read Anais Nin's diaries ages ago, and there were so many writers mentioned, so many that I did pick up and read, Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell chief among them.  In the case of Nin, she opened up a collection of literature that I hadn't previously known about, since American writers in Paris during the twenties get so much more press than those that followed.

At least I am still exploring and following my curiosity, though I sometimes feel I am not doing a good job there, getting lost in whatever other activities that I have going on.

Pablo Neruda, part 1

Aum, VI

Pardon me, if when I want
to tell the story of my life
it's the land I talk about.
This is the land.
It grows in your blood
and you grow.
If it dies in your blood
you die out.

                             -Pablo Neruda (translation by William O'Daly)

This poem caught me off guard, but I liked it, though I know I have not the relationship with my land, country and people that Neruda had with his.  Then again, perhaps I am not viewing it with the proper lens.  Old glasses may be familiar, but they don't always improve your vision appreciatively.

Fiction

I have been reading a lot of M/M fiction lately, some of it mainstream (Nightrunner series), and some of it not so much (The Last Pure Human).  While those are just two examples, I have read several more, and maybe with time I am not so critical, or maybe I have just been lucky with what I have picked up, but this seems to be better written than what passed as "gay" lit when I was coming out.  That isn't to say that I like all that is out there.  For whatever reason, I started The Last Herald-Mage series, but was so put off by the main character that I could not continue, though the series ranks high on some Goodreads lists.  While the Pure Human tale is seems more of a stranger in strange land sort of comedy (set in the future on another planet), Alec and Seregil in the Nightrunner series have a relationship that actually develops over the course of the books, and, in truth, I don't really think you could change the sex of either of them without some major rewriting of the books, so it doesn't really seem like the author wrote a M/F love story and changed it to M/M just for the sake of it standing out.

I probably did have something else I wanted to say, but my ancient lap top is acting up, so I needed to use my desktop, as I have no intention of trying to type blog entries on the virtual keyboard of a tablet.