#The book of Disquiet

[metamorphesque]

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[wedarkacademia]

My God, my God, whose performance am I watching? How many people am I? Who am I? What is this space between myself and myself?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[iindex]

The Book of Disquiet / Fernando Pessoa / 1982

[marejadilla]

“I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.” ― Fernando Pessoa, "The Book of Disquiet"

From @journalofanobody & @anetteva

[dysphoresque]

— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[funeral]

All it would take to make a catalogue of monsters is to photograph in words the things the night brings to drowsy souls unable to sleep. These things have all the incoherence of dreams without the alibi of sleeping. They hover like bats over the soul’s passivity, or like vampires that suck the blood of submission.

They’re larvae from the debris on the hillside, shadows that fill the valley, remnants left by destiny. Sometimes they’re worms, loathsome to the very soul that cradles and breeds them; sometimes they’re ghosts that sinisterly skulk around nothing at all; sometimes they pop out as snakes from the absurd hollows of spent emotions.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[bookmania]

To kill our dream is to kill ourselves. It is like mutilating our soul. The dream is what is most truly, impenetrably, ineradicably ours.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet 

[mybruisedankleneedsakiss]

What are those people who wake up from dreams? Where else do they go?

Fernando Pessoa, The book of disquiet / Call Down The Hawk Maggie Stiefvater / artwork by Ram Han / We Should Be Well Prepared Mary Oliver / Dreams tonite by Alvvays / unknown / Bastille / The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater /Sleeping Beauty / Dreams by The Cranberries

[amicus-noctis]

“I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted.” ― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

Painting: "Twilight" by Sergey A. Tutunov

[embeccy]

"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

- Fernando Pessoa

[uaravsh]

"I am overwhelmed by a vague sadness about life, an inner anxiety that makes me nervous and uneasy."

- 𝙵𝚎𝚛𝚗𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚘 𝙿𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚊 , The Book of Disquiet

[leologs]

Which is that one book that you pick up when you want to ignore life?

[Blog, Quotes, Literature, Fernando Pessoa, The Book Of Disquiet, Reading, Solitude]

[marejadilla]

“...the painful intensity of my sensations, even when they're happy ones; the blissful intensity of my sensations, even when they're sad.” ― Fernando Pessoa, "The Book of Disquiet"

[prosa-verso-e-poesia]

I don't know how to feel or think or love. I'm a character in a novel as yet unwritten, hovering in the air and undone before I've even existed, amongst the dreams of someone who never quite managed to breathe life into me. I'm always thinking, always feeling, but my thoughts lack all reason, my emotions all feeling. I'm falling through a trapdoor, through infinite space... in a directionless, empty fall. My soul is a black maelstrom, a great madness spinning about a vacuum, the swirling of a vast ocean around a hole in the void, and in the waters, more like whirlwinds than waters, float images of all I ever saw or heard in the world: houses, faces, books, boxes, snatches of music and fragments of voices, all caught up in a sinister, bottomless whirlpool. And I, I myself, am the centre that exists only because the geometry of the abyss demands it; I am the nothing around which all this spins, I exist so that it can spin, I am the centre that exists only because every circle has one.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[funeral]

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa (1888 - 1935), is a remarkable work in modernist literature. Written in Portuguese and published posthumously in 1982, this collection of fragments and reflections spans around 544 pages in the Penguin Classics edition. Richard Zenith's 1991 English translation captures the essence of Pessoa's introspective musings and is considered by many to be the definitive translation (at least for now).

I read The Book of Disquiet over a few days in mid-July of this year, and I have to admit, the book was not a quick and easy read. I found myself reading brilliant sentences or paragraphs that expressed keen insights, but I often could not recognize how the sentence had been introduced, so I had to skim backwards through Pessoa’s prose filled with “post-Symbolist flights … diary-like musings, … maxims, sociological observations, aesthetic credos, theological reflections and cultural analyses (p.g. xv R. Zenith). Despite these complexities, or perhaps because of them, The Book of Disquiet is on my list of top books that I’ve read in the last few months. 2024 so far has been a time of reflection for me, and one of Pessoa’s passages is especially poignant at the moment. He writes:

“How much I’ve lived without having lived! How much I’ve thought without having thought! I’m exhausted from worlds of static violence, from adventures I’ve experienced without moving a muscle. I’m surfeited with what I’ve had and never will, jaded by gods that so far don’t exist. I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided. My muscles are sore from all the effort I have never even thought of making (p.g. 309)”

Pesso was an early twentieth century Portuguese poet, philosopher, and intellectual as well as a genuine person of letters. The book is really a collection of his thoughts and ideas collected and put together by the translator, Richard Zenith. The loosely knit text unfolds under the narration and from the perspective of one of Pessoa’s seventy five different heteronyms that he used throughout his oeuvre, the imaginary flâneur Bernardo Soares.

Classified within the genre of existential literature, the book eschews the notion of a traditional plot. Instead, it presents the musings of Soares, an assistant bookkeeper in Lisbon. The setting of Lisbon plays a crucial role, reflecting the protagonist's internal world and his philosophical explorations. Soares often reflects on the tensions between life and death, dreaming and action, or the act of creating and somnolence. Soares reflects:

“I weep over my imperfect pages, but if future generations read them, they will be more touched by my weeping than by any imperfection I might have achieved, since perfection would have kept me from weeping and, therefore, from writing, Perfection never materializes. The saint weeps, and is human. God is silent. That is why we can love the saint but cannot love God (p.g. 65).”

Pessoa's writing style is characterized by its stream-of-consciousness approach. This technique immerses us readers in the protagonist's thoughts, offering a direct glimpse into his reflective and often melancholic mind. The prose frequently employs metaphors and similes, which add depth to the philosophical observations. Imagery and symbolism are prominent, enhancing the thematic elements related to identity, solitude, and the passage of time. Again, Soares muses,

“Everything slips away from me. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and all it contains, my personality: it all slips away. I constantly feel that I was someone different, that a different I felt, that a different I thought, I’m watching a play with a different, unfamiliar setting, and what I’m watching is me (p.g. 186).”

Despite its unconventional structure, The Book of Disquiet has garnered significant acclaim and is considered a pivotal work in modernist literature oft compared to Joyce and Kalka. Much of the writing found in The Book of Disquiet was left behind by Pessoa in a trunk filled with his unfinished and unpublished writing, but despite the challenges of bringing his thoughts to the published page, the book’s influence on contemporary literature is profound.

The book's impact lies in its ability to resonate with readers on a deeply personal level. Pessoa's reflections on the human condition, captured through Soares' introspective lens, challenge conventional narrative forms and invite us the readers to engage in our own self-exploration. The absence of a linear plot is compensated by the richness of the thoughts and emotions conveyed.

For readers interested in existential and philosophical literature, Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet offers a compelling and thought-provoking experience. Its innovative style and philosophical content make it a significant and enduring contribution to literary history.

[Jim Wood]