Can't say it better than this (starred) Library Journal review that first drew me to this title:
"Pablo Neruda (1904–73) received the 1971 Nobel Prize "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams," to quote the Nobel Committee. Now Eisner (editor, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems) brings alive Latin America's greatest poet. Sensitive analysis and vibrant storytelling infuse the hundreds of pages forming this second major biography of Neruda published in English (the first, by Adam Feinstein, came out in 2004). Neruda was a Chilean diplomat and left-wing activist whose poems pulse with amorous passion and radical politics. His whole self emerges here: the romantic whose marvelous poemas de amor have enthralled generations, the Communist politician who persisted in a rosy view of the Soviet Union, the narcissist whose trysts sometimes sound disturbingly like sexual assault, and the humanitarian who helped anti-Fascist refugees from the Spanish Civil War escape to Chile. Empathetic but unflinching when occasion calls for criticism, Eisner weaves his subject's stanzas that resonate with the poet's personal stories. A real treat is the who's who of intellectual luminaries who make cameos throughout, revealing the synergistic interconnectivity of Latin American, North American, and European literary and leftist traditions. VERDICT A definitive biography and instant classic."
This review authoritatively touches on everything that made this book so important to me: it widened my knowledge of Neruda, poetry and the world in such a compelling read--at times I was so engrossed it was like I was reading a novel, not a "comprehensive biography." It is Aa poetically written book on a poet. And thrilled to have people such as Isabel Allende,and Lawrence Ferlinghetti give direct quotes as part of those "luminaries who make cameos throughout."
Perhaps most importantly, Eisner raised an awareness of Neruda's more troublesome side: disturbing misogyny to at times such a super ego and hypocritical acts that test what he exposes polically. But as the Library Journal review says, Eisner is "Empathetic but unflinching when occasion calls for criticism." And it often does. Yet there's the way he ends the book:
Using a beautiful poem to bookend the book, he concludes (to paste from my kindle version):
"The poem’s melody of innocent thoughts and imagery conveys that Neruda’s work doesn’t always have to be raw with politics or love; that, at the heart of it all, his poetry is about the wonder of being human. This is what keeps people coming back to Neruda, the essential poetic expression of what we are at our core, the elementary within the complex, the ordinary and the infinite, the true and the unknowable."
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