Unanswered questions
On Charles Ives, Pablo Neruda, and not writing a reader survey
Two of my favourite 20th-century artists, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the American composer Charles Ives, both created works that posed questions without expectation of a response.
Or at least no expectation of immediate responses. Certainly, there seems to be no sense of a “right” answer or response to either work.
The Unanswered Question
Ives’ The Unanswered Question, finished (though not answered) in 1908, is among his most popular pieces. "Haunting" is perhaps unavoidable as the word to describe it. Vaguely programmatic (the horns play “the Perennial Question of Existence”), it is in essence an “open text” that allows (or indeed incites) the listener to veer off in any direction as they ponder on profound questions—or even banal ones.
I remember very well the first time I heard it (on BBC Radio 3). I was in my tiny student room at university and had just made tea when it came on the radio. Wrapped in the moment as those deeply searching sounds beckoned towards me, I was rooted to the spot for the full six moments of the music’s duration.
I even, and quite uncharacteristically, let my tea grow cold.
Rather like its near contemporary, the “Book of Tea,” 1 I find Ives’ work to be a celebration of the empty spaces between the meanings we find assigned in the world; it’s a hymn to the interrogative that curls through those spaces and which forms indefinite shapes in the mind. You can listen to it here.
Libro de las preguntas
Although Neruda and Ives both entered my life before the end of my teens, the former’s Libro de las preguntas (Book of Questions) came a little later on the scene for me. I’d feasted on the poet’s love sonnets and wandered through the shifting contours of El Canto General (1950) before I stumbled on this teasing book of riddles.
If Ives’ work is self-consciously portentous, Neruda's feels more of a “jeu d’esprit.” In that sense, we could say that Neruda is playing the role of the composer Eric Satie with his humorous and ironic miniaturism alongside the vast and solemn philosophical introspection of Charles Ives.
The work was published posthumously; it’s a collection of questions that Neruda had jotted down during his lifetime. As far as I know, he didn’t attempt to answer any of them directly. Though perhaps all good poetry tries to solve the riddles of the universe in some way.
The opening question sets the tone (the translation is mine):
¿Por qué los inmensos aviones
no se pasean con sus hijos?
Why don’t huge aircraft
take their children for a walk?
It’s absurd and playful and scoffs at the very notion of an answer.
Other questions in the book touch on what one critic has called the “scars of history”—which Neruda knew something about—as well as a sense of impending ecological disaster.
There’s also a moody existentialism lurking here; for me, there’s an echo of Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa, or the work of painter Giorgio de Chirico.
Here, for your puzzlement, are a couple of extracts followed by my own translations.
III
Dime, ¿la rosa está desnuda
o sólo tiene ese vestido?
¿Por qué los árboles esconden
el esplendor de sus raíces?
¿Quién oye los remordimientos
del automóvil criminal?
¿Hay algo más triste en el mundo
que un tren inmóvil en la lluvia?
Tell me, is the rose naked
or does it only have that dress?
Why do trees hide
The splendour of their roots?
Who can hear the murderous car’s
whispered remorse? 2
Is there anything sadder in the world
than a motionless train in the rain?
LXXIII
¿Quién trabaja más en la tierra
el hombre o el sol cereal?
Entre el abeto y la amapola
¿a quién la tierra quiere más?
Entre las orquídeas y el trigo
¿para cuál es la preferencia?
¿Por qué tanto lujo a una flor
y un oro sucio para el trigo?
¿Entra el Otoño legalmente
o es una estación clandestina?
Who works the earth more,
Man or the cereal sun?
Between the fir and the poppy,
who does the earth love most?
Between orchids and wheat, 3
which one is most favoured?
Why such luxury for a flower
and dirty gold for wheat?
Does the Autumn enter legally
or is it an undocumented season? 4
If you would like to read the rest of this whimsically provocative work, there’s a published English translation available here.
This is Not a Questionnaire
My original intention for this post was to begin with Ives’ unanswered question, move through Neruda’s unanswerable ones, and then pose my own questions to you in the form of a brief survey about this newsletter.
It felt like a clever plan, but as I have been drafting this post, I’ve pulled back from it. This republic of letters is, after all, reluctant to issue homework to its friends and visitors.
And perhaps my natural inclination towards the gnomic and ineffable has asserted itself.
But don’t get me wrong: I’m always very interested in any feedback you may have about the English Republic of Letters.
Indeed, as I approach my third year on the platform, I’m asking myself such questions as how often I should publish, whether to use recordings more often, or whether to become more personal and “vulnerable” in my writing. 5
As I mentioned here, I’m still in the role of the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and I’m always grateful to hear from those who are more advanced alchemists or connoisseurs of writing (so that includes all of you) about how I can burnish my craft.
Alternatively, you might want to have a crack at your own Neuda-style questions in the comments...
But let me end by saying how much I appreciate your being here, for reading, commenting, and sharing, and for helping to keep the English Republic of Letters a modest but still independent state (the Belgium of Substack?), where the only passport you need is an open mind.
I offer my heartfelt gratitude to you all.
The Book of Tea (茶の本, Cha no Hon): A Japanese Harmony of Art, Culture, and the Simple Life by Okakura Kakuzō (1906).
Here’s a quote from it: “True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally completed the incomplete. The virility of life and art lay in its possibilities for growth.”
I’ve taken one or two liberties with the text, especially here, where I added “whispered.”
“Trigo”—wheat—was a favourite word of Neruda’s; he often used it as a colour.
“Clandestina” in the original would be covered by the perfectly good English word “clandestine.” But I suspect Neruda would have been tempted to write “indocumentada” (undocumented) now...
Ok, perhaps the last one is more of a wry joke at my own expense—it's unlikely I'll head far in that direction. As one of my favourite readers and writers,
, might say, I’m a little too English for that...
May I say, rather unhelpfully, that I treasure your Substack just as it is? What I most enjoy is your gift for making me see the subject in a new and beautifully surprising way.
And I love Belgium.
Jeffrey, just do whatever works better for you. Your newsletter is your castle, and you're the king. In my own newsletter, I'm an autocratic queen – a benevolent one, I hope, but still an autocrat.
I enjoy reading all these different Substack because I quite never know what to expect. My advice for you and all of our fellow substackers is "Surprise me!"