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The Book of Disquiet
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The Book of Disquiet - Pessoa, BOTM 8/2020
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Hey all, welcome to the “Book of Disquiet� BOTM. I haven’t read this one before, so I’ll be reading along with everyone else. To get us started here is a quick blurb:Summary (from Publishers Weekly): When Pessoa died in 1935, a few years short of 50, he left behind a trunk of mostly unpublished writing in a variety of languages; his Lisbon publishers and variously translators are still sifting them. This perpetually unclassifiable and unfinished book of self-reflective fragments was first published in Portuguese in 1982, and it is arguably Pessoa's masterpiece. Four previous English translations, all published in 1991, were compromised either by abridgement, poor translation or error-laden source texts. While he's now a Pessoa veteran-having edited and translated Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems, the 1999 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation winner-Zenith's first pass at this book was one of the four misses. He bases this new translation on his own Portuguese edition of 1998, and has done an admirable job in bringing out the force and clarity in Pessoa's serpentine and sometimes opaque meditations. Pessoa often wrote as various personae (as Pessoa & Co. carefully demonstrated); Disquiet is no exception, being putatively the work of "Bernardo Soares, assistant bookkeeper in the city of Lisbon." Thus it is impossible to ascribe the book's anti-humanist logophilia directly to the author: "I weep over nothing that life brings or takes away, but there are pages of prose that have made me cry." That is just one of many permutations of similar sentiments, but the genius of Pessoa and his personae is that readers are left weighing each and every such sentence for sincerity and truth value.
There is more info about the author and this novel here:
Questions:
1. This book is interesting format wise: written as the diary of Bernando Soares, it is full of symbols that indicate unfinished thoughts that were never fill in before publishing. How did this affect your reading experience/perception of the book?
2. This book has been written about as being oddly hopeful, or contradictorily uplifting in its melancholy: was that you felt about the book? Why or why not? (Consider this with quotes such as ““To see and feel…makes me feel a great hope�).
3. The Guardian wrote that one of the main themes of the book is that “Anyone who has ever attempted to write something, or begun a large, important project, will know that hope itself can be crippling � the ideal form it could take looms large, even inhibiting us from beginning. Busy, ambitious people are now encouraged to take mindfulness or wellness classes in order to shed their perfectionism. But Fernando Pessoa’s great work offers us a different approach altogether: accepting that dreams needn’t be converted into achievement.� How do you feel about this analysis as it pertains both to the book and real life?
4. Pessoa once said of this book: “Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, of my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.� How does the book both live up to and defy this expectation?
5. Others have noted that this book is in part about how one inhabits their city (in this case Lisbon). How does Soares inhabit his city, and do you relate to how he relates his life in it/to it in any way with regards to your own hometown?
6. How do you feel about some of the author’s more bold and contradictory claims, such as “despising� dreamers despite declaring themselves one, being free of vanity or pride and ambition yet setting out on this work, thinking “How sublime to waste a life that could have been useful,� he says, “never to execute a work of art that was certain to be beautiful� (despite having written so much himself), wanting never to be a protagonist yet making himself one of a prolific novel?
7. I’ve found some quotes from the book in articles I’ve glossed over that really stuck out to me, did any of these resonate with anyone else, or does anyone have another quote from the book that really stayed with them? The ones I’ve found (pre-reading) are:
a. (referring to time spent alone) � [the] sombre majesty of splendours no one knows�
b. “To still not have died is enough for life’s wretches, and to still have hope.�
c. “I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.�
d. “My past is everything I failed to be.�
e. “We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.�
f. “My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance � Siamese twins that aren't attached.�
8. And finally, what did you think of the book? Did it earn its spot on the list for you?
Discuss!
Kristel wrote: "I started this one, and I have to say, I am not sure I am liking it much. I think the translator did a remarkable job. I feel like I am reading the private journaling of a person fighting with ment..."I'm starting it tomorrow, so I'll see how I feel about it but what I've read from articles and quotes has me intrigued. But, I do get the vibe that you have essentially summarized the jist of it.
I'm just a few pages in. It seems to be the kind of book that would be great to re-read (cause the first reading is like walking through a dense jungle.) A lot of material to absorb in a month.
I read it 10 years ago. And i enjoyed it. So now i do a reread.
I have been reading this for several weeks now. The mood is so sad that I can't tolerate reading very much at a time, but the prose-poetry is sometimes quite lovely and moving.I've decided to just read one or two percent a day; since I'm now at one-quarter through, it will probably take me about 2 more months to finish it. I bought the book for kindle, ($4 for the Serpent's Tail edition, translated by M J Costa, 1991) so I don't have to worry about due dates. Mercedes said it took her a year to read it all (partly because she read it in Portuguese which she is still a novice in), so I think three months is okay. Although it's not very long, (430 pages or so) I think it works better as a quarterly-type read because of the rambling poetic style.
Here's a recently-read part I highlighted: Civilization consists in giving an inapprorpriate name to something and then dreaming what results from that...Although love is a sexual instinct, we do not love with that instinct, rather we presuppose the existence of another feeling, and that presupposition is, effectively, another feeling".
I don't agree with everything Pessoa says, but he was certainly thought-provoking.
Just chiming in to agree with you all. Clearly I will need to reread. I am reading very slowly both to attempt to absorb more but also because it is so sad that I can not stay with it for long.
1. I am conflicted by this book because what we have isn't a book it is a collection of writing put together how the translator thought the author would have put them and for me we have no idea if this is what the author originally intended. I found the fragmentary and unfinished nature off putting and in all honesty it just didn't work for me.
2. What I felt about the book was how much more do I have to read before I get to the end.
3. Again how can we call this Pessoa's great work when it was never finished by him and has been interpreted by others? Frankly I found the whole section on dreaming and living and not living and not dreaming and being awake but not dreaming was sending me to dreamland. Perhaps Pessoa didn't actual publish this himself because it fell short of the ideal narrative he was trying to create. In real life I think contentment should be more important than achievement but I know others will disagree.
4. For me it totally lived up to the saying nothing if only it could have said it in less words.
5. No idea.
6. Didn't care.
7. I highlighted 2 quotes while reading:
"I have a very simple morality - not to do good or evil to anyone. Not to do evil. because it seems only fair that others enjoy the same right I demand for myself - not to be disturbed -and also because I think natural evils are enough for the world."
"At other times I find pieces that I not only don't remember having written which in itself wouldn't astonish me, but that I don't even remember being capable of writing, which terrifies me."
8. You may have guessed from my answers above that I didn't enjoy this book. That said I would still include it on the list for the element of diversity it brings. I would still add that I would prefer the books on the list to be books written as the author intended them to be and not pieced together posthumously by others who may have the intention of the author entirely wrong.
2. What I felt about the book was how much more do I have to read before I get to the end.
3. Again how can we call this Pessoa's great work when it was never finished by him and has been interpreted by others? Frankly I found the whole section on dreaming and living and not living and not dreaming and being awake but not dreaming was sending me to dreamland. Perhaps Pessoa didn't actual publish this himself because it fell short of the ideal narrative he was trying to create. In real life I think contentment should be more important than achievement but I know others will disagree.
4. For me it totally lived up to the saying nothing if only it could have said it in less words.
5. No idea.
6. Didn't care.
7. I highlighted 2 quotes while reading:
"I have a very simple morality - not to do good or evil to anyone. Not to do evil. because it seems only fair that others enjoy the same right I demand for myself - not to be disturbed -and also because I think natural evils are enough for the world."
"At other times I find pieces that I not only don't remember having written which in itself wouldn't astonish me, but that I don't even remember being capable of writing, which terrifies me."
8. You may have guessed from my answers above that I didn't enjoy this book. That said I would still include it on the list for the element of diversity it brings. I would still add that I would prefer the books on the list to be books written as the author intended them to be and not pieced together posthumously by others who may have the intention of the author entirely wrong.
Mod
I totally agree. I don't feel it is a book. I feel that family decided to try and make use of this man's possible deep depression and make some money. I feel it has no place on the list. I do think the translator is rather interesting and enjoyed reading about how he decided to translate, so it is an excellent work of translating (possibly) but it is not a book written by the author.
I am having a hard time making myself read this.
So it looks like so far there is a big split between people who are really into it and feel it needs a re-read and people who are not into it at all…lol. I ended up actually really enjoying it (relatively speaking as it was quite heavy) and being very intrigued by it. As for the questions:
1. It was kind of odd and took me out of it a little to keep hearing “missing fragment� in the audio, and I found myself wondering what would have gone in there had Pessoa finished it. I liked the diary format though considering it is a philosophical musing type of book, the format lent to the theme well.
2. I totally see where other people are coming from with it being a really depressing read, and it does deal explicitly with the narrator’s own depressing a lot. But, I also did find it oddly hopeful in that it is also about someone who suffers from depression and isolation being able to carve out reasons to live and derive meaning from life from the smallest things, even if that thing is a strong internal life, and the external life becomes the necessary vessel to have this meaning.
3. I liked this angle about the book as well, the expectation of success and fulfilled dreams itself can put a huge pressure on people or inhibit beginning for fear of failure. It also reminds me of a quote from Katya- one of my favorite drag queens- where she said something like “It’s important to keep having dreams. Not because they have to come true, it’s just nice to have them� and that stuck with me.
4. It lives up to it in that the book really isn’t about very much plot or action wise, and the life of the narrator is unremarkable. On the other hand, it explores many massive topics in ways I found illuminating at least, such as the nature of ambition and its caveats, the value of the inner life, how we derive hope and meaning, and many others.
5. He seems to spend a lot of time just speculating on the people who pass by and the goings on of others in the city, and he seems to count this as the bulk of his social life. I definitely like to people watch and get speculative too, and when I first moved to Montreal I knew no one and it was weeks before my job started so I lived like this for a little while too and honestly it was enough, at least for that long. I kind of got his point about it being enough to be surrounded by the human experience without participating directly in it socially. I thought this was angle that is often not discussed in literature or life either, so I enjoyed that.
6. I think contradictions is very human and honest, but one thing I couldn’t quite endorse in this book was the way he really seems to extoll a life spent not contributing to the greater good in any way.
7. Some other things from the book that have stuck out to me since reading it are:
a. Him talking about most enjoying authors/works/characters the least like himself because they seemed more alive and less subjective the more they were removed from his reality. I agree to a certain extent. It also seems to mirror this passage in A Picture of Dorian Grey where they talk about one of the characters being so good at acting love because she’s never been in love herself and the performance is lesser once she has.
b. Describing himself as other because most people think about how they feel and their primary reflection being emotional, versus he sees feeling as just an a way to think further about things, I don’t know that if you do feel in the first place, that distinction is really real, or if he just supposes it is because he has a sense of himself as experiencing thought and life separately from others. I’m not sure that is actually true, but does reflect a way we can often suppose ourselves unique to everyone else when that isn’t really true.
c. Grammar as a guide and not a rule. Loved this bit. I find people who get really persnickety about grammar have just found a way to feel superior while missing the forest for the trees. This goes hand in hand with the passage where he says something to the extent of “those who can speak their thoughts truly are akin to the King of Rome as they have dominion over language�.
d. “Every man has his alcohol and mine is just existing�. I thought this was beautiful: I get “intoxicated� or “peak experiences� just from being alive, so I got this and loved it. I’m also allergic to alcohol and my friend jokes that “my brain makes the Jesus Juice� so I laughed when I heard this line.
e. “To every Emperor Rome is a field, and to every farmer a field is an empire�.
f. The passage about the conformity of conquest (to have to conform to the societal idea of success, to the personal sense of pathos, to the sensibilities of those who allow you to keep power), and the personal conquest of disengaging from all of that. Loved this take and it reminded me about one of my favorite stories from history: When Alexander the Great met the homeless philosopher Diogenes and asked him what he wanted and he said “for you to step to the side and stop blocking my sun�, to which Alexander replies “if he couldn’t be himself he would want to be Diogenes�, who in turn replies that if he was someone else he’d want to be himself too (cheeky bastard).
g. His fascination with people and being enamored of them deeply in of itself, not coupled with fantasy, or objective, desire, or need for actual or continued contact. I loved that: there’s random people I’ve spoken with only once in my life and I considered it perfect and that I didn’t need to ever see them again.
8. I loved it and gave it 4 stars, but could see how it wasn’t for everyone. I also think the point that it was compiled by a translator is relevant as others have pointed out. But, just because something exists that required the reworking of someone else’s existing work, doesn’t mean that new or combined product isn’t a worthy piece of art in its own right (just as I feel collage can be original and meaningful artwork). I would put it on the list.
I just got this book in the mail today. Sounds very interesting. I hope I'm not too late to join in discussion. We've started back to work, zoom training etc. I guess I can always come back to this thread.
Mod
You're not too late, discussion goes to the end of the month. Look forward to your thoughts. And Welcome to group.
I am listening to the Audible version read by Adam Sims and translated by Richard Zenith. My daughter and her husband are driving me around remote parts of New Zealand, where the scenery is stunning and I should be able to listen to large chunks each day. But like others reading the book, am finding it a challenge to concentrate for long and find myself switching to Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain for light relief!
Questions:1. This book is interesting format wise: written as the diary of Bernando Soares, it is full of symbols that indicate unfinished thoughts that were never fill in before publishing. How did this affect your reading experience/perception of the book?
The book is meant to feel disjointed and I found myself filling in and moving on with ease...
2. This book has been written about as being oddly hopeful, or contradictorily uplifting in its melancholy: was that you felt about the book? Why or why not? (Consider this with quotes such as ““To see and feel…makes me feel a great hope�).
I felt no hope whatsoever in this book. Soares contradictory statements tended to only emphasize the hopelessness of a man with any sensitivity. Also, I often can find the beauty of the writing to redeem a very sad plot line, but that did not happen in this case.
3. The Guardian wrote that one of the main themes of the book is that “Anyone who has ever attempted to write something, or begun a large, important project, will know that hope itself can be crippling � the ideal form it could take looms large, even inhibiting us from beginning. Busy, ambitious people are now encouraged to take mindfulness or wellness classes in order to shed their perfectionism. But Fernando Pessoa’s great work offers us a different approach altogether: accepting that dreams needn’t be converted into achievement.� How do you feel about this analysis as it pertains both to the book and real life?
Soares struggled with the fact that his dream writings were so much better than anything he actually wrote down. He yearned for perfection and to be able to hit the target of his heightened sensitivities but he failed and came to rest on working hard to desire nothing but tedium and despair because in tedium and despair he would not fail. There is something to realizing that you can not have it all, that your project or writing will ultimately have a life of its own which may not live up to your expectations. However, to not even attempt to have a life, to settle in permanently to despair does not seem a life worth living.
4. Pessoa once said of this book: “Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, of my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.� How does the book both live up to and defy this expectation?
Like Soares, Pessoa evidently struggled with pulling the writings together into anything coherent enough that he would want them to be published and read by others. . His confessions are often beautiful and thought provoking so I do not agreed that he had nothing to say. However, they are not "perfect" and so Pessoa, like Soares, would prefer to be indifferent than suffer other people's judgements.
5. Others have noted that this book is in part about how one inhabits their city (in this case Lisbon). How does Soares inhabit his city, and do you relate to how he relates his life in it/to it in any way with regards to your own hometown?
Lisbon is a beautiful city and he writes about the beauty of the sky, the rain, the weather but not about the beauty of the city. He writes about the rooftops and the deserted streets (even if they are full of people) but he does not write about a city that is full of real or imagined or even dreamt people. It is just the place he knows and so he inhabits the street like Soares inhabits his 4th floor room. It is just where he is while he dreams. It is what he knows.
6. How do you feel about some of the author’s more bold and contradictory claims, such as “despising� dreamers despite declaring themselves one, being free of vanity or pride and ambition yet setting out on this work, thinking “How sublime to waste a life that could have been useful,� he says, “never to execute a work of art that was certain to be beautiful� (despite having written so much himself), wanting never to be a protagonist yet making himself one of a prolific novel?
The contradictions gave the book a heightened interest level and an engagement that would have been lacking if he was always saying the same thing. He actually contradicts himself quite often. However, Soares, his narrator, attempting to present a tedious and wasted life as something to be masterful about, and proud of, is irritating. One assumes that Soares and Pessoa are not aligned in this as Pessoa wrote prolifically. However, Pessoa probably did feel much of what Soares wrote.
7. I’ve found some quotes from the book in articles I’ve glossed over that really stuck out to me, did any of these resonate with anyone else, or does anyone have another quote from the book that really stayed with them? The ones I’ve found (pre-reading) are:
a. (referring to time spent alone) � [the] sombre majesty of splendours no one knows�
b. “To still not have died is enough for life’s wretches, and to still have hope.�
c. “I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.�
d. “My past is everything I failed to be.�
e. “We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.�
f. “My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. […]. I'm two, and both keep their distance � Siamese twins that aren't attached.�
I really loved #c and also "Our love took place peacefully, the way she wanted it, in just two dimensions".
8. And finally, what did you think of the book? Did it earn its spot on the list for you?
I wrote a review and posted it. The book definitely made me think quite a bit and irritated me quite a bit but I do think it was well worth reading. However, I think that I would recommend reading it in small doses over a longer period of time.
1. Because the format was disjointed it was an easy audio to pick up and discard, without worrying about remembering what had come before. But when there were gaps it was difficult to imagine what was missing because the audio rolled on!2. Yes, I did find it oddly hopeful. So many of the phrases were beautifully written and memorable. With writing like this it is a distinct disadvantage to be listening. One cannot easily mark things that are especially memorable. The writing was very much in tune with my present melancholy. It was wonderful to listen while being driven through spectacular scenery. It was so appropriate, despite my daughter being somewhat impatient with me distancing myself behind my headphones!
3. Personally I aspire to turning dreams into achievement. I am goal orientated, even when choosing what to read! Pessoa didn't publish this work. Why not? Was he a perfectionist, or did he think sharing his thoughts unimportant?
4. The contradiction, which I am sure he thought too, was that he actually had plenty to say.
5. I struggle to remember the Lisbon I visited in 1985 when he writes about his surroundings. I note that he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about things growing, gardens and trees, which is a contrast to the way that I have lived, even when that city was Hong Kong. A bit more forest bathing may have lightened his mood!
6. See answer 4.
7. It is hard to remember quotes without having the written word in front of myself. I actually thought the whole work was worthy of quotes, but I did particularly like "I'd woken up early...."
8, Audible was the only version of this book I could find. I regret not having the actual book. I think I might have liked to have a copy by my bed and read a few pages each night and a few more each morning and then taken time to digest them. It is so different from other works (is it even a novel?) I do think it belongs on the list
My book's title is The Book of Disquietude, not quite the same but never mind. The writing is meditative rather than narrative, and that's a quality that brings me some peace (despite the disquiet) in the midst of all these false narratives swirling about us now, in the U.S; it is also wonderful writing. The tone of melancholic skepticism suits me too. Most wonderful of all is the narrator's experience being no one, of not identifying with an identity. This escape from mechanical life is so rare. Oddly enough, Mary Gaitskill describes this in her book of essays "Someone with a Little Hammer," which I am re-reading.
I read this last year and was completely blown away by the beauty of Pessoa's writing. The book is weak as a novel, but I am sure it was never the author's intent to make it such. Still, I think what the translator did with the multitude of random notes left behind by the author is quite amazing.I am in the minority here, but I completely loved this book, and consider it one of my all-time favorites.
1. How did [the format] affect your reading experience/perception of the book? Some books are better read with no expectations, no knowledge of the story or structure. Some books are better read with the context of their purpose. For me, The Book of Disquiet is definitely the latter. Knowing a little about how it was created and the unusual structure allowed me to accept it for what it is, rather than be confused/disappointed by the lack of story. I loved the introduction & learning about Pessoa's heteronyms -- I want to read the biography of all of the characters he has created!
2. Did you feel the book was oddly hopeful, or contradictorily uplifting in its melancholy?
Yes, I did find it oddly hopeful -- there was an beautiful, balanced perception of human's ability to simultaneously to desire the dreams and accept reality.
3. Fernando Pessoa’s great work offers us a different approach altogether: accepting that dreams needn’t be converted into achievement.� How do you feel about this analysis as it pertains both to the book and real life?
This theme resonated with me.
4. Pessoa once said of this book: “Through these deliberately unconnected impressions I am the indifferent narrator of my autobiography without events, of my history without a life. These are my Confessions and if I say nothing in them it’s because I have nothing to say.� How does the book both live up to and defy this expectation?
The book absolutely lives up to the first part � it is without plot, story or events. But I believe the book had many things to say and although fairly abstract, said many of them exquisitely.
5. How does Soares inhabit his city, and do you relate to how he relates his life in it/to it in any way with regards to your own hometown?
I have the city in which I was born and raised and the city I choose to live in. I love both, but in different ways. Soares� occasional descriptions of a moment of beauty seen in the way the light hits a building reminds me very much of the occasional flashes of wonder I have of the city I chose.
6. How do you feel about some of the author’s more bold and contradictory claims?
I believe in this he captured an essential component of humanity � the ability to feel the truth in two contradictory ideas; the ability to feel something with the heart and also disbelieve it with the mind and vice versa.
7. Did any of these quotes resonate with anyone else, or does anyone have another quote from the book that really stayed with them?
I also highlighted the ones below:
c. “I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.�
d. “My past is everything I failed to be.�
e. “We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept—our own selves—that we love.�
I highlighted so, so, so many passages � too many to pick a favorite or to share all of them here. But the final vignette, #438 in my edition, was stunning and weirdly apropos for current “quarantine� circumstances: "Freedom is the possibility of isolation. You are only free if you can withdraw from men and feel no need to seek them out for money, or society, or love, or glory, or even curiosity, for none of these things flourish in silence and solitude. If you cannot live alone, then you were born a slave."
8. And finally, what did you think of the book? Did it earn its spot on the list for you?
Overall, yes I enjoyed the book. It is not easy and required a meditative mind-set. But when I was at peace and able to focus on the text, I found it gorgeous and resonating.
Review thread is here; /topic/show/...