Books: Conversations with a Donkey

PLATERO AND I (218 pp.)—Juan Ramón Jiménez, translated by Eloïse Roach—University of Texas ($3.75).

PLATERO AND I (159 pp.)—Juan Ramón Jiménez, translated by William and Mary Roberts—Duschnes ($3.75).

When Juan Ramón Jiménez won the 1956 Nobel Prize for literature (TIME, Nov. 5, 1956), most Americans hearing the news wondered who on earth he was. The greatest living poet of the Spanish-speaking world had hardly been translated into English, and. except for students of Spanish literature, even the literarily enlightened only vaguely knew his name from anthologies. In Spain Poet Jiménez had kept aloof from political life, in 1936 had exiled himself to America, eventually settling in Puerto Rico. Now one of his most memorable works is available to U.S. readers, largely thanks to a teacher of Spanish and French in the Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas.

Tenuous Transition. More than a quarter of a century ago, Eloïse Roach fell in love with Poet Jiménez’ best-loved book, Platero and I, determined to translate it. Many experts in Spanish literature (including Jiménez himself and his late wife), thought that the book’s 138 prose poems were too delicate to make the transition to English. But in 1935 Teacher Roach traveled to Madrid and begged the shy, ailing Jiménez to look at the beginning she had made. Sitting on a couch together, the poet and his wife began to read. The translation, recalls Teacher Roach, moved them to tears. She finished her work, but then could not find a publisher willing to take a chance on so special an item. Not until Poet Jiménez won his Nobel Prize did Translator Roach get her publishing break. In the meantime. Professor William Roberts of Nashville’s Vanderbilt University and his wife Mary had translated about three-quarters of the book and found a British publisher. The Roach translation holds two solid advantages: completeness and literary distinction.

Who is Platero? He “is a small donkey, a soft, hairy donkey: so soft to the touch that he might be said to be made of cotton, with no bones. Only the jet mirrors of his eyes are hard like two black crystal scarabs.” He is the constant companion of Poet Jiménez as he walks along the streets of his Andalusian town of Moguer and revels in the beauties of the dramatic Spanish landscape that surrounds it. Sickly and reserved, Jiménez talks to Platero, pours out his poetic cries of delight and despair as he witnesses the beauties of nature and groans at the human condition.

In form, the book follows the cycle of the year, and Jiménez is at his best when he evokes the look, the sound, the colors of each passing season. Before he finishes, he has sketched for Platero and the reader a charming and shrewd picture of Spanish life that has the delicacy of a pure lyric, the relentless candor of a reel of film. At the end, Platero is dead, victim of some poisonous root, and it is plain that Jiménez has lost a friend no human can replace.

Descriptive Magic. Published in 1917, the book is still a beloved classic from Barcelona to Lima. For children it holds the place that Alice in Wonderland and Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit hold in the affections of English and U.S. moppets. For adults it has not only the nostalgia of childhood but deeper hints of pleasure and pain. With its unashamed lyricism, its admixture of sentiment and sentimentality. Platero and I will hardly please admirers of realism in prose and verse. But it will charm those who do not mind being caught out in moments of simple humanity. Sentiment aside, few readers will be able to resist the sheer descriptive magic of a passage (from the Roach translation) such as this:

I have told you, Platero, that the soul of our town is wine, have I not? No; the soul of our town is bread. Moguer is like a loaf of wheat bread, white inside like the crumb and golden on the outside like the soft crust.

At noon, when the sun is at its warmest, the town begins to smoke and to smell of pine wood and warm bread. The whole town opens its mouth. It is like a huge mouth that eats a huge loaf of bread. Bread is life. It goes with everything: with the oil, the stew, the cheese, and the grapes, giving its flavor of kisses; with the wine, the soup, the ham, with itself, bread with bread. Also it may be bread alone, like hope, or bread with an illusion . . .

The bakers’ boys come on their trotting horses and stop before each closed door. They clap their hands and call out:

Bread! Bread!

Baskets are held tip by bare arms; one hears the thud of the quarter-loaves as they fall against the buns, the large loaves falling against the rolls . . .

And poor children immediately ring the bell at iron gratings or knock at heavy doors and cry, sending plaintive echoes down the corridors:

“A little bit of bread, please!”