Recent Events and Neruda

So I have been out of blog commission for some time, mostly because I’d had a rolling series of busy weeks. In review, since the last time I wrote:

I had been in San Pedro de Atacama, blissfully soaking up the sunshine and clean air and the fresh start I recaptured while there.

Then I got sick. Thankfully, I was off of work for the next three weeks, so I spent the week making soup and watching movies and generally feeling a little bit sorry for myself. (Note: Regression whilst sick is shockingly easy. I believe I regained my San Pedro confidence upon return to normal health.)

Then Mom and Dad came, which was great. We spent the first five days or so puttering around Santiago, and checking things out slowly, which was nice. We saw the Pre-Columbian museum (lots of cool art and even some mummies and also some Maoi –the big Easter Island statues) www.precolombino.cl, climbed San Cristobal and Cerro Santa Lucia and had a tour with the Risopatróns of the Las Condes neighborhood. Then came the pivotal moment of the trip. We visited Pablo Neruda’s house, where I will digress.

Now, I’ve always APPRECIATED Neruda and fallen into his web of imagery and intimacy – I’ve seen Il Postino, read the Captain’s Verses, but I had no idea that he was artist in every sense of the word.

Neruda had three houses which he built piece by piece over the years (Lexington folk, it reminded me a bit of Kitty and Ron’s house that was years in the making). His house in Santiago is called La Chascona, which loosely translated means “crazy-haired one.” Think bad bed head. However, he used it as an affectionate term for his wife Matilde who apparently had crazy hair. Sweet.

La Chascona is tucked away in Bellavista and I’d passed it several times without ever realizing what it was. The entrance is just a door in a white wall. You enter into the gift-shop area and then head upstairs for the start of the tour. All of a sudden, you are in the middle of a bizarre “yard” surrounded by different house parts, all built onto a steep hill. Neruda designed all three of his houses to look like ships. The doors are all narrow, the halls narrow with low ceilings, and every space is intimate. Even if it has an open feeling, such as the living room in this house, the room itself is a circle so it’s all connected and revolves around itself and an incredible fireplace. (All three have fantastic fireplaces. And bars.)

Neruda was a collector and each room in the house has collections – of colored glasses, flatware, silverware, pictures of watermelons, seashells, etc. However, my favorite part about La Chascona was the design concept itself. You can have other people “in the house” and never see them all day long. And it’s not because it’s a massive house, but because each room is its own separate section, completely disconnected. One has to walk outside to get to the living/bedroom section, library, kitchen/guesthouse, etc. It’s a brilliant plan to be able to work at home and still feel as though you could be anywhere. We were all quite inspired and impressed by Neruda’s ingenuity in this design. Not to mention he has a beautiful view of Santiago and the mountains on clear days… (Ah, the tragedy of smog.)

Then we got out of town. And on the recommendation of our Neruda guide Gonzalo, rented our car and headed to Isla Negra, the second home of Neruda. Despite its name, Isla Negra is not an island, but a very quiet beach town about an hour and a half south of Valparaiso on the rocky Chilean coast. The wind blows quickly off the water and the waves relentlessly pound the rocks. Neruda was clever to buy some of the only coastal property in Isla Negra that also had a bit of sand, so one could swim if one dared to.

Neruda’s house in Isla Negra is filled with everything maritime – ship masts, paintings of ships, ships in bottles, navigational maps, TONS of seashells, a pipe collection, and more colored glasses. It is his burial place as well of that of his third wife, Matilde. To me, this house had much more solitude, with the sea in front and large evergreens behind. It is open and free, but also his nooks and crannies provide a safe haven and intimacy. The house in Isla Negra is an ode of love to the ocean. He even turned his bed at an angle so as to see the sea from as many points as possible.



We then moved towards Valparaiso to see his third and final house. His house in Valparaiso sits on one of the twenty or more hills (cerros) that rise above “el plan,” the flat section of town that runs into the ocean and port. These hills are literally covered with houses of every imaginable color, shape and size. At night, their lights outline the curves of the cerros and gaze down upon the flat streets and the boats docked, rocking in the waves. I felt as I had in Venice, where I never knew where I was going to end up, or what awaited me around the corner. Magical.

Neruda’s house, La Sebastiana, also known as La Casa en el Aire, (The House in the Air), sits quite near the very top of one of these hills. Not only is its location impressive, but also the house, unlike the spread of his other two, is stacked four floors one on top of the other. However, though it’s not spread out, it creates the same effect, as one has to go to a different floor for the living room, dining/kitchen area, bedroom, and finally, his library. (It seems as though I’m not the only one to have the idea to design a house like a lighthouse, building a different room at each turn of the stairs…). From the study, one can see all of Valparaiso, and also a bit around the bend to Viña del Mar. It’s reported that Neruda also watched the New Year’s fireworks from his house in Valparaiso. It’s easy to see why.

We fell in love...