#posthumous diary

[disease]

ばぶちゃん | 死後日記 「CD, 2018」 | BABU-0005 ILLUSTRATION: TREVOR BROWN

[danceintheskies]

RIP Kafka you would have been an incredible tumblrina

[lavendertowerarchives]

To JH:

Upon my swift and timely death, no matter the method,

I bequeath to you the first pick of muscle, fat, and bone from my corpse. It may be for any purpose, preferably to eat. I wasn't kidding when I said I'd give you my body so a vegan could eat meat. Once you're done selecting, grabbing, and roasting (please cook me, raw meat is bad, silly vegan) please let my body be donated to science or whatever. You're under no compulsion to do so, you can have it all if you really want. Share it. It's yours now.

No one is to stop you. I, P.T.S., don't want anyone getting in your way. More accurately, I don't want them disrespecting my wishes, but my dumbass family is likely to stop you and everyone else from doing what I ask of everyone but them. To my younger brother, mother, and father, respectfully piss off. To my older brother, it's not like you tried to stay in our lives anyways.

I'd recommend you choose my rear first, so I can have you eat my ass, just like I tell everyone to do. Again, that's your choice, I'm only saying this for the joke. Similarly, you could keep a fragment of my skull, so I could give you some head. Just like I've always wanted.

[ask-a-gotham-mortician]

Dear diary,

Shit's been getting weird. I should have known what I was signing up for when I decided I was going to carry on this business in the old man's stead. He had told me stories about operating in this city, but perhaps part of me believed he was exaggerating things. Hyperbole. Just for shock value and to keep the conversation going.

Yesterday, a body was dropped off anonymously by somebody who made damn sure that their identity wouldn't be discernable. Shadowy figure in a trenchcoat, all features obscured. The decedent had been some mafioso. You could tell by the expensive jewelry: the gold rings on his hands, the fancy watch, and his custom cufflinks.

His wife stopped by to see him, and it broke my heart. She sobbed into his suit, going on about their daughter and how she had wanted him to see her finish high school, be the first in her family to attend college, make something of herself. (The daughter in question had been too young to accompany her mother, having been dropped off with her uncle.)

I helped the widow to set up the embalming and burial arrangements. I've never been much of a physically affectionate type, but she surprised me with a hug on her way out the door and I couldn't just shove away someone who is grieving.

Later after she had left, sometime around 2 or 3 am, I was startled by a loud, insistent knocking on the door. Big guy, tough looking, very intimidating. He muscled his way in through the entrance, demanding to see the body that had been brought in earlier.

The way he dressed and the manner in which he had carried himself had also suggested mafia. I knew telling this guy no would have been hazardous to my health, and so I had no choice but to comply.

He produced a pair of dental pliers from his pocket, reached into the corpse's mouth, and got to work wrenching away at the dead man's mouth, extracting several gold teeth. I was so flabbergasted that I just stood there and watched with my mouth agape. He shoved a fat wad of cash into my hand and just left. No explanation.

I can only assume this man was from a rival family, knew the guy had a few gold teeth (which these sorts use as a symbol of status), and wanted them for himself, maybe as a sort of trophy.

I guess I have no choice but to continue with the widow's requested services without telling her what happened. It shouldn't matter, anyway, since I normally sew the mouths shut for presentation. You don't want a dead guy's mouth flopping open like a fish in the middle of the eulogy.

I don't know how to feel about all this. I feel… Conflicted. I know that we can't take material possessions with us when we go, so it's rather pointless to be buried with them. I'm also against the defilement of the dead. But this mobster left me with enough cash to cover services for a couple of deceased without going broke if the families can't pay.

[jewish-microwave-laser]

And here is the most devastating fact of Frank's posthumous success, which leaves her real experience forever hidden: we know what she would have said, because other people have said it, and we don't want to hear it.

The line most often quoted from Frank's diary are her famous words, "I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart." These words are "inspiring," by which we mean that they flatter us. They make us feel forgiven for those lapses of our civilization that allow for piles of murdered girls—and if those words came from a murdered girl, well, then, we must be absolved, because they must be true. That gift of grace and absolution from a murdered Jew (exactly the gift that lies at the heart of Christianity) is what millions of people are so eager to find in Frank's hiding place, in her writings, in her "legacy." It is far more gratifying to believe that an innocent dead girl has offered us grace than to recognize the obvious: Frank wrote about people being "truly good at heart" before meeting people who weren't. Three weeks after writing those words, she met people who weren't.

Here's how much some people dislike living Jews: they murdered 6 million of them. This fact bears repeating, as it does not come up at all in Anne Frank's writings. Readers of her diary are aware that the author was murdered in a genocide, but this does not mean that her diary is a work about genocide. If it were, it is unlikely that it would have been anywhere near as universally embraced.

We know this, because there is no shortage of writings from victims and survivors who chronicled this fact in vivid detail, and none of those documents have achieved anything like Frank's diary's fame. Those that have come close have only done so by observing those same rules of hiding, the ones that insist on polite victims who don't insult their persecutors The work that came closest to achieving Frank's international fame might be Elie Wiesel's Night, a memoir that could be thought of as a continuation of Frank's diary, recounting the tortures of a fifteen-year-old imprisoned in Auschwitz. As the scholar Naomi Seidman has discussed, Wiesel first published his memoir in Yiddish, under the title And the World Was Silent. The Yiddish book told the same story told in Night, but it exploded with rage against his family's murderers and, as the title implies, the entire world whose indifference (or active hatred) made those murders possible. With the help of the French Catholic Nobel laureate François Mauriac, Wiesel later published a French version under the new title La Nuit—a work that repositioned the young survivor's rage into theological angst. After all, what reader would want to hear about how this society had failed, how he was guilty? Better to blame G[-]d. This approach earned Wiesel a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as, years later, selection for Oprah's Book Club, the American epitome of grace. It did not, however, make teenage girls read his book in Japan, the way they read Frank's. For that he would have had to hide much, much more.

from "Everyone's (Second) Favorite Dead Jew" in People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, pp 9–10

[canisalbus]

ive been wondering, how is Machete remembered in the future, like, does history even remember him? are there articles about him? is his life speculated upon?

I couldn't find the post where I touched upon this before, but a few months ago there was some talk of how he might be viewed in modern times. Machete was a very private person, I don't think he would've kept journals or diaries, and he did his best to cover his tracks so I doubt he would leave behind a lot of information about his personal life. A number of second hand accounts about him would most likely be tainted by his unfavorable public image, at least those dating to his final inquisition years.

The nature of his relationship to the Florentine politician Vasco della Gherardesca might be a topic of discussion in some circles, some historians would strongly suspect that they were lovers and others would adamantly dismiss such theories. I suppose there wouldn't be proof unless parts of their extensive correspondence survived to modern day, or some of the artwork Vasco commissioned after his death.

I remember someone suggesting that perhaps they would be mentioned in an occasional video essay or podcast, in a list of historical figures who might've been lgbt maybe, and I found that terribly wholesome. It's heartwarming to think that they would posthumously be granted some of the understanding and support they didn't get enough during their lifetime.

[hard--headed--woman]

Hello and happy Pride Month everyone ! 🏳️‍🌈

As promised, I am going to talk about an important lesbian in history everyday. And this first post is about one of my favourite :

Renée Vivien !

I have seen some people talk about her here but she clearly isn’t as famous as she should be, and she deserves way more recognition!

Renée Vivien, whose birth name is Pauline Mary Tam, was a British writer poetess, who wrote her poetry (and most of her works) in french ; born in 1877, she died in 1909, at only 32 years old.

Renée was openly a lesbian, and she never tried to hide it despite the society she lived in being extremely homophobic and considering homosexuality as an illness. In her poetry, she mentions her love for women a lot, and wrote a lot of love poems for several of her lovers. This even earned her the nickname “Sappho 1900”. ("Sappho 1900, Sappho cent pour cent").

Of Sappho, she was by the way a huge fan : in 1903, she published the work "Sappho", in which the poet's Greek texts are followed by a French translation, as well as verses by Renée Vivien, which thus "completes" the remaining fragments of Sappho's writings. This collection greatly helped to anchor Sappho's work and her identity as a lesbian woman in our culture.

Her work consists of :

Twelve collections of poems, totalling more than 500 poems

Several translations of Greek poetesses (including Sappho)

Seven books of prose

Around ten novels (written under various pseudonyms)

A posthumously published collection of short Gothic tales (written in English this time)

A book about Anne Boleyn's life

It is also possible to read her diary and the letters she exchanged with her lovers, friends and other personalities of her time, including Natalie Clifford Barney, Colette, Kérimé Turkhan Pacha and others.

Pauline studied both in Paris and in London, then decided, once she came of age, to come and settle in Paris. She published her first collection,"Études et Préludes" in 1901, under the pseudonym R.Vivien. This pseudonym later became René Vivien (the male version of Renée) then Renée Vivien, the name under which she will be remembered. We can easily guess that she first chose these neutral then masculine pseudonyms to be able to write and be published despite the misogyny and homophobia of her time, especially given the themes exploited in her writings.

Sadness, death, ancient Greece, love, despair, solitude and love are the most recurrent themes in Renée's poems. There is actually a poetry prize in her name, the Prix Renée Vivien, which rewards poets whose themes and style are close to those of Renée Vivien.

Among Renée's best-known lovers is Natalie Clifford Barney, a famous writer and poet, with whom she had a relationship for several years before leaving her, tired of her infidelities. It is said that Natalie never accepted this breakup and tried until the end to get her back by all means, sending her love letters even years after.

Renée then had a relationship of more than six years with the rich Baroness Hélène de Zuylen, married and mother of two children, with whom she traveled extensively around the world and collaborated on the writing of several works (under the collective pseudonym Paule Riversdale). In a letter to her friend Jean Charles-Brun, Renée admitted that she considered herself married to Hélène.

While still living with the Baroness, she received a letter from a mysterious admirer, Kérimé Turkhan Pacha. What followed was an intense four-year epistolary relationship, interspersed with brief clandestine meetings. In 1908, however, Kérimé, the wife of a Turkish diplomat, put an end to their relationship when she had to follow her husband to St. Petersburg. This break-up probably contributed to Renée's tragic end.

The writer was in deep psychological distress, which only worsened from 1908 onwards. Alcoholic and suicidal, she began refusing to eat properly, and attempted suicide with laudanum. After this failed suicide attempt, she contracted pleurisy, which left her very weak, and then chronic gastritis due to her alcohol abuse. She gradually fell into anorexia, and, with her limbs paralyzed by multiple neuritis, she died on November 18, 1909, aged just 32. Her death was attributed to "pulmonary congestion", probably due to pneumonia complicated by alcohol and anorexia.

After her death, intellectuals, artists and newspapers, out of lesbophobia, tried to make her forgotten by the literary world, describing her as a woman of evil and damnation, perverse and cruel, going so far as to invent for her a life of crime, debauchery, orgies with married women, violence and cocaine consumption.

Today, Renée Vivien's name is no longer known to the general public, and is never mentioned alongside those of great ans famous poets such as Arthur Rimbaud or Charles Baudelaire, despite her gorgeous poetry, her immense talent and fascinating work.

She's personally my favourite, and not only because she was a lesbian. Her poetry is the most beautiful, interesting and deep poetry I have ever seen. She deserves to be as famous as Victor Hugo or Paul Eluard (and even more famous, in my opinion lol).

Here is one of her poems, with its english translation :

A link to some of her poems (in french but you can use a translator) ;

And two links with some of her poems translated into english : 1 and 2.

You should totally buy and read her books and poems, I have them and they're amazing!!! I'll post more translations of her poems in the future for those interested.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you tomorrow for the second post!

[theamazingmaddyas]

Apollo Cabin Camper headcanons

Lee was an avid writer, and was planning to go for a Creative Writing before he, you know, kicked the bucket. Michael and Will ended up posthumously publishing his diary as a fiction story (because monsters and all) so that he could have his dream of being a published author. Nico brought Lee a copy in the Underworld.

Michael would only ever call his younger siblings his "little siblings" despite the fact that most of them passed him in height at like 9 or 10.

Will has Michael and Lee's names tattooed on his wrist in their handwriting, as well as a quote from one of Lee's poems on his forearm.

Kayla's known she was a demigod since she was really young, since her father had to explain why she has no mother. Darren could see through the mist, and would just shoot the monsters that came because of Kayla's stronger sent.

Kayla was brought to camp by Hedge when he was in Toronto in TLO (is this a common hc? I feel like it should be)

Austin could play any instrument, except the kazoo. For some reason, he sucked at playing the kazoo.

Jerry's accent was so strong his first summer at camp no one could understand him except for the other internationals.

Yan would hide in the armory with their book so that they didn't have to do sword-fighting or archery practice

Gracie would make rainbow loom bracelets for literally everyone. Even though she came to camp after the Battle of Manhattan and the Battle of the Labrynth, she still made bracelets for her deceased siblings based on Will, Kayla, and Austin's description of them.

Will was protective of the chariot in TLH not because he cared about it, but because Michael cared about it

Lee was born in Connecticut, but lived practically his whole life in NYC, and Michael was from Maine.

The cabin has a world map with push pins indicating where everyone is from. Every camper has also signed the wall around it on the day they were claimed, so there's well over a thousand names by the time PJO takes place.

Cabin 7 has a music room in it's basement, that has every single instrument you can imagine. (Austin is banned from playing the kazoo of course)

The only way the cabin can be cleaned is if It's A Hard Knock Life (Broadway version) (and the reprise as well) are playing. The youngest kid sings at Molly, and they play rock paper scissor to figure out who jumps in the laundry basket like Annie (one time Michael accidently fell asleep and was brought to the laundry room by the harpies. He did not let Lee hear the end of it) (The same thing almost happened to Gracie, but Will found her before the harpies could)

It's tradition that the last day of camp the younger campers write a song for their counselor and play it before bed. There's a binder of all the lyrics of every song dated back to the 1940s on the shelf, when the tradition was started

I'm not even sorry about how many there are, I'm just a tad bit obsessed with Cabin 7 (as indicative of my ao3 fics dedicated to them all)

(Octavian's a legacy and I'm only 150 pages into my reread of Son of Neptune, I can't remember if there are any canon Apollo kids barring Octavian's ancestors.)

[froody]

writing fictional Wikipedia articles as outlines for my historical fiction characters and having so much fun. dude look at this:

Daniel Ivey Clairville (3 May 1856 - 5 December 1941) was a prominent figure in the field of animal husbandry, early adopter of germ theory, animal behaviorist, cattle drover, diarist and Quaker theologian. Born in Philadelphia, Clairville apprenticed as a farrier until the death of his father in 1871 caused him to relocate to Texas to seek employment along the Chisholm Trail. Clairville was known for his ability to slow and halt the spread of disease among cattle using sanitation methods he pioneered, reducing cattle loss by up to 60% in herds under his care.

After retiring from the cattle industry in the late 1890s, he attended Cornell University, becoming an adjunct professor at Elgin Polytechnic Institute and publishing several texts on bovine husbandry and behavior.

Clairville was a relatively obscure scientific figure before his private writings about his sexuality, faith and experiences in the waning days of the Wild West were published posthumously.

^ Personal life

Clairville was gay and in a committed relationship with Joseph “Shortie” Alcott (14 November 1860 - 17 July 1906) until the latter’s mysterious death in Texas. Alcott was a train robber, outlaw, gambler, duelist and suspected serial killer. The couple met in the mid-1880s after Alcott was released from Utah Territorial Penitentiary and joined a trail drive lead by Clairville. Their relationship was described as inseparable but contentious by John Matthew Robertson-Clairville, Clairville’s adopted son, who often wrote about the couple’s relationship in his trail diary.

Having worked side by side for over a decade, Alcott initially followed Clairville east when he retired from the cattle industry in the 1890s but became embroiled in legal trouble in Pennsylvania and returned to Texas where he embarked on a crime spree that ended in a fatal two day shootout with a number of Texas rangers.

The details of Clairville’s private life and his connection to notorious criminal Shortie Alcott was largely forgotten until the 1970s when a box of personal letters and diaries was discovered in the attic of his former residence. The diaries of Clairville and Robertson-Clairville along with the correspondence between Clairville and Alcott in the latter’s final months form the basis of the book published by his great granddaughter in 1996.

Analysis of his writings and first hand accounts of his behavior suggest he had autism and OCD.

[dk-thrive]

Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year. To have none. Not to be tied. To be free & kindly with myself, not goading it to parties: to sit rather privately reading in the studio...Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. To go out yes – but stay at home in spite of being asked. As for clothes, to buy good ones.

— Virginia Woolf, on January 2, 1931 in "A Writer's Diary: Being Extracts from the Diary of Virginia Woolf", compiled and edited by her husband, Leonard Woolf, and published posthumously in 1953 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

[whencyclopedia]

Ennin

Ennin (c. 793-864 CE, posthumous title: Jikaku Daishi) was a Japanese Buddhist monk of the Tendai sect who studied Buddhism at length in China and brought back knowledge of esoteric rituals, sutras, and relics. On his return, he published his celebrated diary Nitto Guho Junrei Gyoki and became the abbot of the important Enryakuji monastery on Mount Hiei near Kyoto and, thus, head of the Tendai sect.

Tendai Buddhism had been introduced to Japan by the monk Saicho, also known as Dengyo Daishi (767-822 CE). Based on the teachings of the Chinese Tiantai Sect, Saicho's simplified and inclusive version of Buddhism grew in popularity, and its headquarters, the Enryakuji complex on Mount Hiei outside the capital Heiankyo (Kyoto), became one of the most important in Japan as well as a celebrated seat of learning. Ennin became a disciple of Saicho from 808 CE when he began to study at the monastery, aged just 14.

Travels to China

Ennin was selected as part of a larger Japanese embassy led by the envoy to the Tang Court, one Fujiwara no Tsunetsugu, to visit China in 838 CE and study there. The main aim was for Ennin to study further the Tendai doctrine at the T'ien-t'ai shan. Ultimately, he would stay there for nine years, studying under various masters and learning in greater depths the tenets and rituals of Buddhism and especially the mysteries of Mikkyo, that is esoteric teachings known only to a very few initiated priests.

On arrival at Yang-chou and awaiting to be taken to T'ien-tai shan, the monk wasted no time and there and then found priests to teach him shitan, the Indic script used in esoteric texts. He also made his own copies of such texts and underwent an initiation with a priest called Ch'uan-yen. As it turned out Ennin did well, for by the time the Chinese authorities had organised his transport to his original destination he was informed there would be no time to do so if he were not to return to Japan as planned with the embassy. Ennin decided to stay and passed the winter at a monastery in Shantung run by Korean monks.

In the spring Ennin set off for Wutai, an important pilgrimage site and home to some more learned monks who could help satiate his thirst for Buddhist knowledge. Mount Wutai, where the bodhisattva Manjusri was thought to have appeared, was also a centre of esoteric cults. Over the next 50 days, Ennin acquired such techniques as rhythmically chanting the name of Amida Buddha and changing the intonation each repetition.

From 840 to 845 CE Ennin then studied at Ch'ang-an, learning more of Mikkyo, copying texts and mandalas, and being initiated by three different esoteric masters, going beyond the level that the recognised Japanese master and foremost expert Kukai had reached. In 845 CE Ennin, like many Chinese monks, suffered the persecution of anti-Buddhist emperor Wu-tsung, and he was compelled to return to Japan. This was easier said than done and it took two years, the death of Wu-tsung, and a general amnesty for him to finally find a ship that would make the voyage.

Continue reading...

[anonymous-dentist]

I propose that we posthumously call the Ghost ‘Stanford’ not only because of that whole prison experiment thing but also because of this dude

Like look man, Cellbit tweeting about loving Gravity Falls just shortly before the qsmp prison event Plus the Ghost having diaries left outside of the prison to find (3 diaries, anyone?) just makes it kinda obvious to me personally actually

[acheronist]

What do you think henry's personality was like?

putting this under a readmore because i just know that i'm so insufferably annoying about this guy

so above all else i think we need to remember this guy was darling & beloved enough that someone else gave up his own chances of survival just to protect henry's words. He Was Very Dear To Someone. We Know This.

but i think he was very thoughtful and very clever, even for a guy in his 30s who hadn't been to school since he was 12. he was familiar enough with long-term life aboard a ship & knew that privacy was hard to come by, so he was smart enough to write nearly everything in his diary backwards. he mentions keeping an eye on "my frends" pretty regularly, and talks often about being concerned about if everything is "comfortabel". he often writes about what he "obsearved" and "went to sea" and what happened "on first/middel watch", and of course doodled the infamous lid bay 👁️, and there are times when he apparently "maid it my bisness" to check on things, even though a lot of what he's talking about were probably relatively mundane and nonspecific events aboard terror/amongst her crew while they were all fairly healthy and alright still. if the ships were ice-locked, he wouldn't have had a ton of work to do in the sails and rigging, so i suspect he started spending his time keeping track of what was going on with the crew which were (on average) about a decade and change younger than him. he was very concerned with being aware of his surroundings, but even more important, he was also very concerned about His People and His Friends being warm and comfortable and settled and well.

i also think he might have been a little bit odd compared to the average sailor-- the way he fills up pages is kind of sporadic and can range from really over-full and slanted and squished into one corner when he isn't thinking too hard about it, to pages that are nearly empty and carefully printed in very neat circles and spirals. obviously this isn't a very accurate way of gauging personality, but i think it's worth mentioning!! when he was writing for just himself, the pages are messy and crowded and rambling and strange, but when he was writing with an audience in mind, it's extremely neat and tidy and very carefully organized. and he was a bit of an archivist too-- there are scraps of pages that have fun clues like "lines writ in the arctic" and "lines writ april - november" and when things got dire, he put in the effort to write down an account of his long career in the navy. (he left out the year he was flogged from his career account, though. this was also one of the only pages he wrote in neat scripted forwards english, so it kind of indicates to me that it was something he was scared he would get judged posthumously for, and left it out on purpose. make of that what you will.)

i suspect also that he didn't particularly like the navy by 1845, but it was just what he had spent his life doing. in 1844/1845 he was trying to purchase a pub in westminster (and even put an ad in the newspaper looking for a polite young man to take over for him as bartender before he left for the expedition!!!), but probably ran out of money, and planned on doing one more navy job (with double pay!) to afford the final things for his pub, but sadly ummmm that never worked out. gesturing vaguely towards the overall disasters of the franklin expedition.

however, he was quite prone to being nostalgic. he writes very often about the great parties he remembers attending when he was young and warm and handsome ("party wot happened at trinadad", "the old sitty of cumanar [...] with singing and danceing", "sentimental song", etc) which might have been a coping mechanism for being cold and miserable in the arctic!!! but who knows!!! on the subject of drinking, though, he mentions his "grog shop" and "my bisness" and wanting a drink after having "hard ground to heave" so this was a guy who liked to drink. looked forward to having his grog rations. we can very confidently say this was a working class guy who liked relaxing and having fun and wanted to do Something Different after a lifetime of being kind of used and abused by the british navy.

so i dont knowwww i think he was far more thoughtful and caring and clever than he gets credit for. he wasn't a lieutenant or a superior officer, and on top of his handwriting being kind of convoluted and hard to read, the pages have been disregarded for a really long time because from the empire's perspective, what could a kind of poor working class guy who probably got cannibalized have to tell us? surely nothing significant. :)

but again. someone loved this guy enough to die protecting his letters and papers. he was cared for, and clearly there was a lot of love and concern in his own mind for his fellows as circumstances were getting more and more dire over time. and even despite those circumstances, he still found time to keep his own records of what happened, to teach others how to write, to help out when he could, to think about poetry and art, and to remember the parts of his life that made him happiest. 🫶

[thevalleyisjolly]

Something about how the finale of Shōgun (2024) subverts and resists the posthumous objectification of Mariko in defiance of Orientalist tropes. I don't think it's a coincidence that "A Dream of a Dream" opens with Blackthorne dreaming of a future in which he returns to England and lives to be an old man with grandchildren clamouring for stories of his adventures. After all, that's how these things usually go, isn't it? The intrepid sailor returns home and publishes adventure diaries about his fantastical experiences in a far and strange land. Visitors to his house gawk at the extraordinary mementos from his travels and nudge and beg for romantic tales of his travels, especially the exciting character of the foreign love interest, the intelligent yet submissive exotic woman who elicits sympathy for her unusual Christian piety and who helps Blackthorne navigate an unknown culture, ultimately sacrificing herself out of loyalty and love.

That's not the story. There won't be a story. Like the moment Blackthorne steps up to be Mariko's second -a moment where he respects her decision and both puts aside his own feelings to be there for her when she most needs it while also being there for her because he loves her- Blackthorne's decision to let Mariko's memory go serves the same significance. Mariko once told him, "We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that" and Blackthorne ultimately honours that by respecting her death. Mariko's final days were a purposeful, powerful assertion of her choice, her death was a significant and wilful act that reshapes her country forever. And no more. She will not become a ghost haunting the narrative, a wistful dream of a lost love cut short too soon. She lived and she died and it was her own decisions which gave her life (and her death) meaning, not any story or memory that Blackthorne or anyone else will hold.

Though she does not appear in "A Dream of a Dream," the narrative nonetheless centres Mariko by showing us the effects -both immediate and far-reaching- of her decisions upon the story and the other characters, while refusing to mythologize or objectify her into a sacrificial icon. And this in turn also empowers Blackthorne, who has been effectively powerless throughout the entire story, to finally make a decision that matters. He chooses to let go -of Mariko, of his dreams and ambitions, of everything that he thought had motivated him and everything he was meant to do- and live in the now. There are innocent villagers being punished for no reason. He can do something about that. There is a wrecked ship that needs rebuilding. He knows how to do that. He no longer tries to scheme, to plan, to pilot his way through the dangers and the forces that brought him here and keep him here. Instead, he embraces the winds to take his life where they will. And in a story where nearly everyone struggles for power and control, constantly trying to think two steps or ten steps ahead of everyone else, spilling blood and ink and courtesies in pursuit of the dream of a life that's always just beyond reach and true understanding...though he will never leave Japan, Blackthorne is free.

[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]

[johntorrington]

when the posthumously published diary of someone who died young starts mentioning how they’ll “remember things for the rest of their life”