Pablo Neruda’s CHILE : The poet’s three houses are open to visitors and, like the hit film in which he’s a character, they are a feast for the senses

In a poet’s house, anything can happen. Paintings tell time, red birds hang from the ceiling, 27 devils dance on a shelf. There are even seashells that massage your feet.

A poet’s house can hold the entire globe, and maps and telescopes too. Objects of desire, a Brazilian beetle pinned to a board: Everything is in a poet’s house--if the poet is Pablo Neruda.

Pablo Neruda is Chile’s most beloved literary figure. And, thanks in part to the charming Italian film, “The Postman” (“Il Postino”), in which he is a character, Neruda is becoming known in the world beyond literature classrooms and coffeehouses.

Born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in 1904 to a poor family in frontier Chile, Neruda was a man of enormous political, as well as poetical, passions. He was a consul and ambassador; he joined Chile’s Communist party and spent time in exile. He helped socialist Salvador Allende win Chile’s presidency in 1970, and died only 12 days after Allende was overthrown in a 1973 military coup. In between, he wrote more than 40 books of poetry and won the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature.

But Neruda wasn’t quite as austerely imposing as all that sounds. He was also a well-known bon vivant rogue and a flamboyant, overgrown kid.

The best evidence for that side of the poet is found in his three houses: La Chascona, in Santiago, the Chilean capital; Isla Negra, on the coast about 70 miles west, and La Sebastiana, in the port city of Valparaiso. Neruda’s homes are open to the public now, and I toured all three during a trip to Chile earlier this year. This trip’s roots extended back 20 years, when a friend gave me a collection of Neruda’s poems called “Fully Empowered” (“Plenos Poderes”). I thumbed through it and, because it was so skinny, stopped at a poem titled, “Thistle,” which began:

In

the

summer

of the

long

shoreline,

along

dust-parched

miles

and

thirsty

back roads,

explodes into being

the blue thistle of Chile.

I’d never heard of Pablo Neruda. But after chugging down Eliot and Pound, reading him was like sipping champagne. He was effervescent. With Fred Astaire feet, his poetry danced across gaps of culture and language to tap my fancy. Neruda collections became my pals. They hiked with me to the Grand Canyon and flew to Costa Rica.

Like me, that copy of “Fully Empowered” is showing its age. The front cover has torn off; the back is the color of bad teeth. But its appeal is undiminished. When my girlfriend and I decided to visit South America, the itinerary was easy. Peru has Machu Picchu, Brazil has the Amazon, but only Chile has Pablo Neruda.

Our poetry pilgrimage starts in a chichi part of Santiago called La Providencia. We are searching for cafe lattes on Pio No No street when a sign appears--magically, I like to think--pointing to La Chascona. Until then, Isla Negra was the only Neruda house we were planning to visit. We look at each other. There are others?

La Chascona is at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. From the street, it’s distinguished only by a sky-blue paint job. It’s a hazy, hot January day--summer in Chile. The big city buzzes in the background. We buy tickets and follow English-speaking guide Pablo Antunez to a shaded courtyard. “This is the love nest,” he begins.

Passion was one of Neruda’s passions too. He became a sensation at age 19 with the publication of “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair,” a book that still woos Chilean women today. He was profoundly sensual, and not just in print. “He had three houses and three women--a typical Chilean man,” is what one Santiago native told us. Neruda began building La Chascona (The Medusa) in 1953 for Matilde Urrutia, his secret lover and, eventually, his third wife. He named the place for Matilde’s “rebel hair.”

“The Postman,” which has been nominated for five Academy Awards, captures the passionate side of Neruda a bit. In it, he tutors a shy, inarticulate Italian postman in the art of poetry and helps him woo his love. Though “The Postman” is fictional, Neruda did stay in a villa on the Italian island of Capri with Matilde--as the movie depicts--during part of his exile that lasted from 1948 to 1951.

La Chascona is my first poet’s house. I don’t know what to expect, but certainly not an explosion of whimsy. The rooms are jammed with music boxes, signs, carvings, masks, polished stone “eggs,” tables from Spain, desks from China. Knickknacks, gewgaws and thingamajigs from a life of travel and fame line the walls. It’s like walking into the crowded attic of a poet’s mind. The nature images of Neruda’s poetry become real in La Chascona: A ceiling seems to be held up by tree trunks; wrought iron handrails undulate like waves.

But the house doesn’t have a theme. A merry-go-round horse rears in the middle of the living room; whimsical glass bottles fill the windows (a boot-shaped one wears a spur); mobiles dangle; paintings march up the walls; postcards paper a staircase. The dining room table is set with Mexican glasses, Japanese cups and English willow-pattern plates. Nearby is a built-in cupboard with a hidden door.

“He was just a big kid!” Antunez says.

Antunez has been a guide at La Chascona for four years, but his connection goes back much further. His parents were longtime friends of Neruda and named him after the poet. Antunez visited La Chascona as a child. “It seemed like the house was full of treasure,” he says. He remembers raucous dinner parties where Neruda dressed his distinguished guests--everyone from politicians to painters--in playful costumes. We pester Antunez with personal questions until he runs out of patience and shoos us along.

*

La Chascona consists of three buildings connected by stairs and playful walkways (the steps are of different heights and widths). The hillside lot is only 5,000 square feet, but the jumble makes it seem bigger.

Neruda appears avuncular in photos. He has a fleshy, bland face with prominent features (not unlike Philippe Noiret, who plays Neruda in “The Postman”). Matilde looks forceful. “Neruda was unpredictable and full of surprises,” Antunez says.

After Neruda died, Matilde stayed at La Chascona until her death 12 years later. The Neruda Foundation, which runs all three houses, established an office there in 1985. A year later, La Chascona was the first of the houses to be opened to the public. However, the love nest is not Neruda’s most important home.

In 1939, Neruda bought a little stone house on a rocky spit of coast about 45 highway miles south of Valparaiso. For 30 years he added to it, using profits from each new book. He called the place Isla Negra (Black Island) because it was isolated and the shoreline was splashed dark by elemental forces.

As at La Chascona, Neruda designed Isla Negra’s rooms and much of the furniture. He salvaged its windows, doors and other material from demolished buildings or old ships. His ownership of all three houses overlapped, but while he was a frequent visitor to La Chascona and La Sebastiana, Isla Negra was home.

We arrive at Isla Negra around 10 a.m. after a 90-minute drive from Santiago, where we are staying at the Hotel Principado Santiago. The sun is pushing through the morning gray, and the joint is rocking. This is the Graceland of poetry, with all the accouterments of fame: cafe, tour buses, souvenir shop, kids racing about. A film of Neruda’s life loops endlessly in a 40-seat theater. In summer, 700 to 800 visitors shuffle through here every day. If La Chascona is a quiet showroom of Neruda’s imagination, Isla Negra is the boisterous warehouse.

Neruda called himself an “armchair sailor,” and Isla Negra is sea-obsessed. A huge iron anchor outside seems to secure the place to its promontory. Carved ship figureheads crowd the living room like weather-beaten partyers. We could de-mast a dozen model ships with our outstretched arms. There is a riot of other stuff too: grinning African masks, devil figurines from Mexico, wood stirrups, canes, butterflies, beetles, costume hats, his Nobel tux, globes, astrolabes, telescopes.

There’s no particular order--carved frogs squat next to exquisite crystal--but caught up in the extravagance, everything, even a collection of cockroaches, resonates poetically and magically.

Some things at Isla Negra, like the glass bottles, are familiar to us. In the turmoil following the 1973 coup and Neruda’s death, La Chascona and La Sebastiana were ransacked and vandalized. Both have since been replenished with extras from collections at Isla Negra, which is little changed from Neruda’s time.

The tide of tours pushes us quickly through the rooms. Too soon we’re outside in the salt air. For a few minutes, we amble the grounds trying to keep out of family photographs. We decide that Isla Negra would be a great place to live. Ocean views, fireplaces, lots of nooks and crannies.

By now we’ve heard of Neruda’s third home, La Sebastiana, and we’re determined to visit them all. So that afternoon we drive on to Valparaiso. The coastal fog has burned off; it’s clear and blue. In the harbor, five navy ships are docked at a long jetty.

There’s a lot about this big port in “Fully Empowered.” In one of my favorite poems, Neruda describes a typical scene:

. . . the sheets stitched together,

the ancient undershirts,

the long-legged drawers--

and the sea sun salutes the emblems

while the white laundry waves

a threadbare good-bye to the sailors.

In La Sebastiana’s neighborhood, we look for undershirts flapping in the breeze and are not disappointed.

Neruda bought La Sebastiana unfinished from Sebastian Collado, a builder who constructed the narrow, hillside house to take advantage of the spectacular view. He shared ownership with artists Francisco Velasco and Maria Martner, and only used the top three floors, each little more than a single room.

We aren’t forced to join a tour at La Sebastiana. So, reading from English-language brochures, we wander leisurely. “ We’re immersed again in memorabilia.

In the living room, a mummified Venezuelan caracara bird hangs from the ceiling. Three graceful Chinese women decorate the bedroom’s closet doors. The study offers maps, paintings of ships, historic photos of Valparaiso, Neruda’s first typewriter. In a side room, a big stuffed lion--a gift from Matilde--crouches in a glass case.

Nearby, this passage from his memoirs appears: “In my house I have put together a collection of small and large toys I can’t live without. The child who doesn’t play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and he will certainly miss him. I have also built my house like a toy house and I play in it from morning till night.”

I copy it down and we walk out, talking about the three toy houses we’ve visited in the past two days. The afternoon is translucent. Eight huge container ships float in the sea. It would seem to be the closing scene for this story. But it’s not.

That night at our hotel in Santiago, I pick up “Fully Empowered” and read again the wondrous words and the odd tangents. I realize I shouldn’t have been surprised at Pablo Neruda’s houses. The man who created them also created these poems.

In these poems anything can happen: Time can turn into a butterfly; a boy can find seaweed on the moon, and a fish can swim in the water of dreams.

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GUIDEBOOK

Chile’s Poetry Retreats

Getting there: Direct service from L.A. to Santiago on Lan Chile and the Costa Rican airline, Lacsa; connecting service on United and American; there is no nonstop service. Fares start at about $1,045 roundtrip on Lacsa, including taxes and fees; about $1,450 on United and American.

Where to stay: Hotel Principado (Arturo Burhle 015, Santiago; telephone 011-56-2-635-3879, fax 011-56-2-222-6065), $71 per room, double occupancy, includes breakfast. Modern rooms, friendly service, convenient to metro, the Parque Metropolitano and the trendy Bellavista neighborhood.

Santa Lucia (Paseo Huerfanos 779, Santiago; tel. 011-56-2-639-8201, fax 011-56-2-633-1844), $49 for a double room and does not include breakfast. Somewhat more budget-minded hotel with a great location; near quirky downtown park, Cerro Santa Lucia.

Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza (Ave. Bernardo O’Higgins 136, Santiago; tel. 011-56-2-638-1042, fax 011-56-2-633-6015), $196 per night, double occupancy, does not include breakfast. This a huge modern hotel on Santiago’s main street; shops, offices, all the amenities.

Neruda’s houses: The three house-museums are run by the Pablo Neruda Foundation, which is headquartered in La Chascona. Guided tours only in La Chascona and Isla Negra (English tours available).

La Sebastiana is self-guided.

There are frequent buses to Isla Negra and Valparaiso from Santiago.

Tours can be booked through the Foundation or at the larger hotels. One popular tour company is Andina del Sud, tel. 011-56-2-697-1010.

La Chascona (Fernando Marquez de la Plata 0192, Providencia, Santiago; tel. 011-56-2-777-8741, fax 011-56-2-737-8712), just off Pio No No Street; nearest metro stop, Baquedano. Museum hours: Tues.-Sun., 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 3-6 p.m.; $4.25 admission.

Isla Negra (Camino Vecinal, Isla Negra, El Quisco; tel. 011-56-35-461-284). Buses for Isla Negra leave from Santiago at Terminal de Buses Sur, Ave. Bernardo O’Higgins 3800 (metro stop, Universidad de Chile). Museum hours: Tues.-Sun., 9 a.m.-7 p.m., Dec. 25 to mid-March (Chile’s summer), 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 3 -7 p.m. (in winter); $4.25.

La Sebastiana (Calle Farrari 692, Cerro Bellavista, Valparaiso; tel. 011-56-32-256-606). Buses for Valparaiso leave from Santiago from Terminal de Buses Sur, Ave. Bernardo O’Higgins 3800 (metro stop, Universidad de Chile). Museum hours: Tues.-Sun., 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 3:30-7 p.m.; $2.50.

For more information: Sernatur (the national tourism organization), Ave. Providencia 1550, Santiago; tel. 011-56-2-236-1416, fax 011-56-2-236-1417.

--J.M.