Bold biographies of legendary artists.

Borges: A Life, by Edwin Williamson. New York: Viking, 2004.

With the publication of Stephen Greenblatt's monumental life of Shakespeare, Will in the World, this is becoming the decade of the biography. One after the other, biographies of the giants of Western culture have appeared--Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Borges, Neruda, Goya--enabling us to know better some of the leaders who have helped to shape our world. Edwin Williamson's Borges: A Life is one of the most fascinating of these biographies.

Best known as a writer of short stories, essays, and poetry of profound metaphysical reach, Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was also a complex and intensely emotional human being. Scholars tend to portray him as a blind bard of staggering intellect, a man concerned with universalities, with timeless ideals. And yet, as Williamson shows, Borges was also a political man, a man in context, a man deeply touched by relationships. Drawing on Borges's writing as well as on first-rate research, Williamson attempts to humanize Borges: "from this biographical study," he writes, "there emerges a fuller, more human, more richly faceted Borges than the anemic bibliophile of legend would suggest." Borges himself cultivated that image of the "anemic bibliophile," sometimes rejecting the notion that he actually had a biography. However, Williamson constructs his study on the notion that much of Borges's writing is, in fact, autobiographical.

An Oxford professor, Williamson pieces together testimonies, correspondence, and fragments of information from Borges's writing to produce an image of a sensitive, shy man whose quest for love is at the core of his creativity. For Williamson, a frustrated love relationship and unsettling sex life are primary elements in Borges's story. In 1926, Borges had "discovered a new poetic order capable of reaching beyond the coteries of the avant-garde and speaking to his countrymen as a whole." His criollismo, criticized at the time by the avant-garde as absurdly nostalgic, drew on traditional Argentine themes and was meeting with increased approval among young writers. He was still a timid, stammering young man, but his literary success, together with the attention of his lovely young muse, Norah Lange, was giving iron a degree of self-confidence. Norah was a published poet and known as Borges's protegee. She accompanied Borges to parties and at one of them fell in love with Oliverio Girondo, a man whom Borges disliked both on literary and personal grounds. Norah's subsequent rejection of Borges had nearly disastrous consequences, plunging the young writer into a severe depression characterized by nightmares and insomnia. In fact, the episode brought him to the brink of suicide. This early failure, according to Williamson, colored the rest of Borges's life and much of his writing. In the chapters that follow, the biographer explores Borges's search for romance, his brief marriage, and the satisfying love relationship of his later years.

Another key issue is Borges's conflictive feelings for his father. According to a well-known story, Borges's father took him to a brothel for his sexual initiation, but Borges failed in the attempt. For Williamson, this was a traumatic incident in the life of the young Borges, and he explores in depth the psychoanalytic ramifications of the father-son relationship. Other important themes in the book are Borges's participation in Argentine politics (in particular, his fierce anti-Peronism), his evolving attitude toward religion, and, of course, his involvement in literary life.

Williamson has written a brilliant, readable, and thoroughly absorbing biography. Both Borges scholars and general readers will find a lot to love in this book.

Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life, by Adam Feinstein. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.

Pablo Neruda (1904-73) burst onto the literary scene when he was only twenty with his Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada [Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair] and became one of the most beloved Latin American poets of all time, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Published to coincide with the centennial of his birth, Adam Feinstein's excellent, new biography tells Neruda's story with verve and precision, yet without getting bogged down in minutiae.

A certain amount of detail is necessary, of course. As Feinstein's subtitle proposes, Neruda had a passion for life and led an extraordinarily active one. He wrote numerous books, had countless friends, traveled constantly, occupied important diplomatic posts, participated in politics, married three times, and had scores of affairs. Feinstein gleans much of his material from Neruda's memoirs, but wisely concludes that "these are not to be trusted," and so verifies, alters, and expands the poet's version of things through careful research. He is clearly enthralled by Neruda's poetry and returns repeatedly to the central issue of Neruda as poet.

Neruda's mother died shortly after his birth, and the young Pablo was raised in Temuco, at the time a frontier town in southern Chile. At sixteen, he left for Santiago--by comparison, a metropolis--where he immersed himself in the literary scene and became familiar with some of the new currents in Latin American and European writing. He also fell in and out of love with a number of women. His first collection of poems brought him instant fame. However, he found Santiago too restrictive, and so, desperate to travel, he wound up taking a diplomatic post in Rangoon. En route to the east he met scores of fascinating people, including the poet Cesar Vallejo. His letters to the Argentine writer Hector Eandi provide important clues regarding his state of mind during this period, one of the most melancholic of his life. Neruda's Asian travels took him to Japan, China, Ceylon, and Java, where he met his first wife, Maria Antonieta Hagenaar, "Maruca." He returned to Chile in 1932, and by the time he reached home, he had fallen out of love with her. The voyage fed much of his writing; Feinstein cites "El fastasma del buque de carga" [The Phantom of the Cargo Ship], "one of Neruda's bleakest--and greatest--poems about the sea."

The situation in Chile was inhospitable. Neruda's friends and family disliked his new bride, and the poet, unhappily married, sought solace in the arms of other women. His financial situation was disastrous. He was dissatisfied with the Chilean literary world and with the dictatorship ruling the country. When Maruca gave birth to a baby girl, the child turned out to be sickly and would eventually die. In spite of his depressed state, in 1933 Neruda published two books: El hondero entusiasta [The Ardent Slingsman] and Residencia en la tierra [Residence on Earth].

It is around this period that Neruda's social conscience awakens, thanks to his relationship with the Argentine Delia del Carril, a militant Communist then approaching her fiftieth birthday. Neruda had taken a post in Madrid, where Delia was studying art. Now in love with Delia, Neruda leaves Maruca "dutifully singing lullabies in Dutch to her sick baby daughter," to embark on a new life. In Madrid he works on a new cultural magazine, Caballo verde para la poesia [Green Horse for Poetry], which publishes surrealist poems by Garcia Lorca, Luis Cernuda, Miguel Hernandez, Vicente Aleixandre, and Jorge Guillen. Delia persuades him to become a Communist, and when he returns to Chile, he has evolved from a romantic lyricist to a poet of political activism.

One of the most difficult issues with which Feinstein has to deal is Neruda's loyalty to Stalin, even after the Communist tyrant's atrocities come to light. When Mexican intellectual Octavio Paz becomes disillusioned with Stalin over the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact, Neruda becomes even more Stalinist. (This, and a conflict over poetry journals, leads to a rift between the two men that divides the Mexican literary world between Nerudistas and Anti-Nerudistas.) Even when, in 1956, Khrushchev reveals the extent of Stalin's crimes, Neruda seems reluctant to speak out against him. However, Feinstein argues: "In one of the most significant sections of Memorial de la Isla Negra, "El episodio" [The Episode], Neruda welcomes humanity's return to reason. In a clear allusion to Stalin's crimes, he laments the fear which had ruled people's lives and condemns the statues erected to a man of terror whose police spelt danger for everyone. A few years earlier, these statues would have earned his unstinting praise--an indication that Neruda had moved away from idolizing Stalin after the Khrushchev revelations in 1956." Feinstein does not attempt to justify. Neruda's political position, but simply presents the facts as he sees them and lets readers come to their own conclusions.

Eventually Neruda tires of Delia and begins a new relationship with Matilde Urrutia, with whom he goes to live in Capri. However, he is as untrue to her as to his other women, embarking late in life on an affair with her niece.

Adam Feinstein's book is a stunning achievement. Filled with interviews, letters, fragments of memoirs, and poetry, it paints a vivid picture of a complex and contradictory man. The book is enhanced by a collection of black-and-white photos that bring to life many of the characters and moments Feinstein mentions.

My Life with Pablo Neruda, by Matilde Urrutia. Trans., Alexandria Giardino. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Matilde Urrutia was Pablo Neruda's muse, inspiration for The Captain's Verses and One Hundred Love Sonnets. Both from the south of Chile, they met in a park in Santiago in 1946 and then again in Mexico City. After attending the funeral of painter Jose Clemente Orozco, Neruda fell ill, and Urrutia, a teacher at a conservatory in Mexico, nursed Iron back to health. An affair ensued. Back home Neruda, an avid Communist, had run afoul of the government, and Matilde offered a respite from political persecutions and the stress of public life. At the time, Neruda was married to his second wife, Delia del Carril--although unofficially, since his first wife, Maria Antonieta Hagenaar, was still alive, and Chilean law did not permit divorce. Delia was some twenty years Neruda's senior and a political activist. Matilde, quieter and more domestic, contrasted dramatically with the dynamic, forceful woman who stood by the poet's side at political rallies and literary events. Neruda and Urrutia kept their affair secret for years. When del Carril finally discovered Neruda's unfaithfulness, a scandal erupted, with some of their friends defending the poet and others censuring him with vehemence. Urrutia continued her silence about her relationship with Neruda. This memoir, written shortly before her death in 1985 and now published in English for the first time, gives voice to Neruda's muse--the lover who would, after Neruda's definitive split with del Carril, become his wife in a secret ceremony in Capri, Italy.

Part I of Urrutia's story begins immediately after the events of September 11, 1973, which toppled the socialist government of Salvador Allende and brought Augusto Pinochet to power. On September 18, Chilean Independence Day, Neruda and Urrutia, at their home in Isla Negra, received news from Santiago that some of their friends had been imprisoned or killed. Devastated by the brutality of the coup, Neruda developed a fever, but Matilde was unable to get an ambulance before the following day. When it came, Neruda was forced to confront the reality of the situation, as national police intercepted the vehicle and searched him. Matilde tried to keep bad news from turn as much as possible, remaining silent about the destruction and looting of their house in Santiago. Soon, Neruda's condition worsened. For a while, Matilde managed to fend off morbid thoughts, but on September 23, Neruda died.

Part II describes happier times--the period in 1951-52 when, after Neruda's split with del Carril, the lovers embark on a romantic escapade and make a lifetime commitment to each other. They are first supposed to meet in Paris, but because of Neruda's political affiliation, he is denied entry to France. After traipsing around Europe, they settle in Capri, which Urrutia describes as a gorgeous, magical paradise. In Capri, everything is perfect. The people are kind, the weather is divine, Matilde is pregnant. They decide to marry--not officially, because Pablo is still legally married to his first wife. Instead, they are married "by the moon." (In 1966 they were finally able to wed legally.) It is here, in this blissful setting, that Neruda writes The Captain's Verses. But soon tourists come looking for tire famous Chilean poet, disturbing the couple's peace and quiet, and politics intervenes as well. Eventually, the idyll comes to an end, and the couple returns to Chile.

Part III deals with Matilde's life under the dictatorship. As Neruda's widow, she is harassed by the Pinochet government. As her friends are tortured and disappear, she finally begins to lash out, often using Neruda's own words. She manages to smuggle his memoirs out of the country and works to expose the abuses of the dictatorship.

The drama with which Matilde tells her story makes it clear that she was a literary artist in her own right. The poignant descriptions of her vigil by Neruda's deathbed, her exuberant portrayal of their life in Capri, her use of vivid, engaging dialogue and of flashbacks within flashbacks, transform this book into something beyond a simple memoir. At times, it reads like a novel, a carefully crafted historical romance. It is an intensely personal book, written with passion and commitment. For that vein reason, it is probably not the most accurate depiction of the last part of Neruda's Me. But wine the details may be open to question, there can be no doubt about the authenticity of Urrutia's love of her subject.

Francisco Goya: A Life, by Evan S. Connell. New York: Counterpoint, 2004.

Francisco Goya is one of the most revered painters of the Spanish-speaking world, and as such, deserves a better biography than this one. In spite of the effusive praise heaped on Connell on the book jacket, his prose is jerky, self-conscious, and a bit precieuse. The author seems more interested in impressing readers with a cute turn of phrase than with telling them much about his subject. You finish the book without feeling you've learned anything of substance.

Connell starts his story with a description of Maria Teresa Cayetana de Silva, the beautiful and headstrong Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was rumored to have had an affair. However, instead of completing the story, he jumps to Goya's childhood and education, and then to a host of other subjects. He won't return to Maria Teresa until nearly halfway through the book. Connell actually focuses vein little on Goya or his art. He seems more interested in the painter's lovers and consequent scandals.

Connell breezes through the political developments of the period. Much of the book is devoted to gossipy accounts of people who crossed Goya's path--the neoclassical painter Raphael Mengs, the influential Count Floridablanca; King Charles III; Princess Mafia Josefa, the Duchess of Osuna--none of which the author describes in depth. About a third of the way through the book, he mentions Goya's deafness and suggests different theories to explain it--mumps, botulism, typhoid fever but does not explore sufficiently its consequences. Likewise, he treats Goya's troubles at the end of his life with inappropriate superficiality.

One of the most annoying characteristics of Connell's writing is his tendency to skip from one topic to the other, often including entirely superfluous information. For example, he interrupts a description of Goya's wife, Josefa Bayeu, to comment, "When I was a child our family employed a housekeeper like Josefa: a placid, expressionless, devout, overweight farm girl." And when discussing the chitchat that circulated around Madrid regarding Goya's activities, he suddenly cuts short the commentary to remark that people often sensed the arrival of Theodore Roosevelt before they actually saw him.

Equally irritating is his tendency to dismiss earlier commentators offhandedly without describing in depth their observations. In his discussion of Madrid in the eighteenth century, for example, he notes the Theophile Gautier thought that the inhabitants of the city had practically depleted the Manzanares for drinking water and that Hugh Stokes once commented that madrilenos were called ballenatos, whaling men, because they had once mistaken a saddle floating downstream for a whale. Connell cracks: "Gautier and Stokes sound like a couple of comedians." But he never tells us what else they had to say about Madrid. If he finds their remarks so inconsequential, why mention them at all? His own historical observations are usually no more profound than theirs. At one point he wanders onto the subject, of the Inquisition and cites Bartolome de las Casas as a source for Spanish abuse of Indians. But the accuracy of De las Casas's more vivid accounts was discredited long ago. And besides, what does De las Casas have to do with Goya? Connell doesn't tell us, and the subject of the Inquisition doesn't become relevant until much later in the book.

Readers with a serious interest in the artist would be well advised to look at Goya, a serious biography by Robert Hughes, published in 2003. Hughes is a serious researcher with a real passion for his subject. He traces Goya's career from the early paintings commissioned by the Church to the dark, disquieting works of his later years. At the same time, he offers all in-depth look at Goya, the man, and at the Spain that gave him context. Hughes, like Goya, brings to life the horror and violence of the period and shows how these factors helped shape the artist.

Connell's book is not meant to be a true biography, but rather, an impressionistic commentary. But light prose is insufficient for such a heavy and complex subject.