How many churches does the sky have?

July 20, 2012 2:40 PM

Answers to the Book of Questions?

As he was dying, Pablo Neruda wrote his Book of Questions. Very strange questions. Questions like:

Por qué los inmensos aviones
No se pasean con sus hijos?

(Why don't the huge airplanes walk with their children?)

So my question is at two levels:

1. What is the best English scholarship explicating this very strange book, and the best translation of this, since my Spanish is bad?
2. Did anyone write answers to any of the questions? They seem to be designed to be unanswerable, but that never stopped anybody.

posted by curuinor to Writing & Language (1 answer total)

When I was in 11th grade, we did a project in English class where we taught poetry to Freshman, and my idea was to hang up sheets of paper with some of Neruda's questions on them (in english translation) and have the kids go around the room and answer them, and then write poems based on the answer.

Just to answer your #2. I do think they're meant to be unanswerable though, in that there's no "right" answer, anyway.
posted by sweetkid at 6:35 PM on July 20, 2012