“How?” Neruda asked, somewhat dubiously.
“By establishing friendly relations with writers and intellectuals. Your job is culture. Myself and another functionary will deal with all the diplomatic bureaucracy,” he explained.
These new, direct relations not only would help Neruda’s country to shine, but would brighten his own disposition.
The concrete experiences of fraternity that Neruda had upon his return to Chile and now in Argentina breathed new life into his sense of self and well-being. It allowed him to become an active participant in what would soon be an intense Buenos Aires social life and engage more fully in the world.
It started with Héctor Eandi, no longer just a sympathetic person on the other side of the world whom Neruda had never seen, connected only by pen or transcontinental cable; now they were face-to-face, tangible friends. Neruda was free of the disconnectedness he felt in Asia, where most of his fleeting social interactions were with people for whom he felt little more than disdain.
Two years earlier, shortly after getting married, Neruda and Maruca had sent a package of gifts to Eandi and his family from Batavia, including a pair of pajamas for his young daughter, Violna, and a Javanese hand fan for his wife, Juanita. Now all five sat in one another’s company, delighted to be together, the adults conversing for hours. (However, when the conversation turned to children, and the Eandis asked the Nerudas about their plans, they answered silently, through vague smiles followed by blank faces.)
Eandi was a literary critic at heart. Neruda first became aware of him after Eandi wrote an adulatory piece on his poetry. Now he wanted to do what he could to assure that Neruda would be well received in Argentina, at least by those concerned with literature. Neruda was already a familiar name among poetry readers on the eastern side of the Andes. An edition of Twenty Love Poems, the first book of his to be published outside of Chile and the one that would help catapult him to international fame, had recently been released in Buenos Aires. And just upon his arrival, the legendary Argentine magazine Poesía published four of his Residence poems. Eandi promoted these publications in the Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación on October 8, 1933, two months after Neruda’s arrival.
Neruda’s four major books, The Book of Twilights, Twenty Love Poems, venture of the infinite man, and Residence bring together works of great maturity, in which a profoundly lyrical nature is evident, served by an astonishing technique . . . His language is so deep, so rich and involved with humanity; there’s a violence of passion in his words; he knows how to get to the root of emotion, that his verses powerfully create their own ambiance.
Besides Eandi’s companionship, Neruda rapidly made new friends in Argentina; Maruca’s and his large, modern apartment quickly became a social hub for the Buenos Aires literary world. It looked out over the “Broadway of Buenos Aires,” Corrientes Street, an artery of the city’s life and culture that never slept. It was a sparkling spine of the city where people forgot about the financial crisis and enjoyed themselves with abandon.
The panoramic views from their twentieth-floor apartment were fantastic, such a striking contrast to the walled gray confines around their Catedral Street apartment in Santiago. Yet even in such cheerful surroundings, despite all the advancement he had made, Neruda was still not impervious to depression. He became despondent again, his mood disordered despite the fact that he was meeting new and old friends in the cosmopolitan city, all eager to spend time with him.
Two of the renowned figures with whom Neruda, and sometimes Maruca, spent a great deal of time were the poets Norah Lange and Oliverio Girondo, a legendary couple who would eventually marry. Sara “La Rubia” (the Blonde) Tornú, an important progressive promoter of literary and artistic culture, also became a close confidante, as did José González Carbalho, lyrical poet, journalist, and principal founder of the influential magazine Martín Fierro.* Borges was in Buenos Aires during this period as well, but he was noticeably absent from Neruda’s social scene.†
The first month in Buenos Aires was taxing for Neruda. One thing weighing on him was the failure of Residence to take off. Nearly half a year had passed since that first printing of a hundred copies in Santiago, and despite the generally good reception, despite his idea that the print run would be enough only for friends and influential readers, there turned out to be plenty of copies to spare; they just weren’t really selling. That heavy negative feeling he had felt in one shape or form for so much of his life descended on him once again, just as it started to seem that he had risen above it. He couldn’t pretend he’d completely escaped it. He had to have felt a sense of helplessness as he looked out from his enviable apartment with Buenos Aires throbbing at his feet, as he recalled the intimate, direct connections with such stellar new friends. This despondency is articulated in one of his true classics, “Walking Around,” one of three morose poems written during the first month or so he was in Buenos Aires: “Comes a time I’m tired of being a man.”
The original title for the poem was in English, not out of snobbery or affectation, but to tie it to James Joyce’s Ulysses, in which the main character, Leopold Bloom, walks around Dublin, free-associating throughout the course of an “ordinary day” in 1904. The Irishman’s influence on Neruda had grown; Neruda had read Ulysses in Sri Lanka and now translated some of Joyce’s early poems for an Argentine magazine.
“Walking Around” shows Neruda at the height of his skills. The poem’s power comes from Neruda’s
