The Book Of Disquiet [Paperback]

Fernando Pessoa (Author), Alfred Mac Adam (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2, 2004

The eternal mystique of Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) stems largely from his practice of writing under "heteronyms." More than just nom de plumes, Pessoa's heteronyms came with distinct biographies, careers, life spans, even horoscopes. In The Book of Disquiet, Pessoa came as close as he ever would to autobiography. Left on disordered scraps of paper in a trunk, the fragments that make up The Book of Disquiet record in disjunct entries a vast interior landscape and daily minutiae, making for a discontinuous, gently unhinged monologue in daybook form.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pessoa (1888-1935), identified by Barnard professor MacAdam as Portugal's major 20th-century writer, seems to have interpreted Whitman's statement "I contain multitudes" as an imperative; the gifted and perfectionist poet gave voice to a variety of selves, whom he named not with pseudonyms but with what he called heteronyms. The elegant volume here is the "diary" of "Bernardo Soares," presented as a bookkeeper, like Pessoa, who is obsessed with the role and aim of literature and tries, therefore, to become "like a character in a book, a read life." No plot orders the entries, nor is there any discernible progression. Instead, Pessoa speculates on the paradoxes of art ("Only when I'm disguised am I really myself"), at times mordantly ("To speak is to have too much consideration for others. Both fish and Oscar Wilde die because they can't keep their mouths shut"), at times quixotically ("Writing is like the drug I despise but take, the vice I loathe but practice"), nearly always aphoristically. Readers with a particular interest in modernism will find this work indispensable.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Recognized as Portugal's greatest poet since Camoens, Pessoa (1888-1935) wrote poetry under various heteronyms to whom he attributed biographies different from his own. Likewise, this rich and rewarding notebook kept by the solitary, celibate, and semi-alcoholic Pessoa during the last two decades of his life, is written under yet another heteronym (Bernardo Soares), a Lisbon bookkeeper with a position that is like a siesta and a salary that allows him to go on living. Soares knows no pleasure like that of books, yet he reads little. Like Camus, he is irritated by the happiness of men who don't know they are wretched, and his main objective is to perceive tedium in such a way that it ceases to hurt. There are no gossipy details in this heteronymous memoir, only the cerebral workings of a first-rate thinker on the dilemma of life. Full of fresh metaphors and unique perceptions, The Book of Disquiet can be casually scanned and read profitably even at random.
- Jack Shreve, Allegany Community Coll., Cumberland, Md.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Exact Change (February 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878972278
• ISBN-13: 978-1878972279
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully fine and unique book, December 21, 1999

By 

"cjtloe" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book Of Disquiet (Paperback)

Pessoa was a true acrobat of the imagination. The Book of Disquiet is a collection of epiphanic journal or diary prose kept by Pessoa and found decades after his death. The prose is truly some of the most gorgeous musings about everyday life and existence that any reader could ever find. The poet's world is laid out exquisitly and paradoxically for the entire benefit of those who read.I can't say I've ever found such beauty in the pages of a book before. If you like literature albeit simple or complex this book is something that you will immediately cherish for a very long time.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking is absurd, December 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Book Of Disquiet (Paperback)

"If i think, it all seems absurd to me; if i feel, it all seems strange; if i desire, he who desires is something inside of me."
Sums up the book perfectly. Pessoa explores one of his many personalities. "The Book of Disquiet" explains, in complete depth and faith, the beauty of a lonely, existential, moment by moment life. He explains the beauty that people forget. He explains the world, his perception, as if every moment were the last.
"The book of disquiet" is one of the most insightful books a person can read, but only if one has imagination and an ability to let go. Bernardo Soars, Pessoa's personality who wrote the book, is extreme and eccentric. It isn't easy reading, and it won't affect you if you can't overlook the fact that life doesn't go on like Soars'; that there is more in thinking, dreaming, and desiring than Soars admits. What makes the book so special is how Soars can forget everything but the thought and the moment, and how he can analyze and critique and put into words something that most of us forget to remember. "The book of disquiet" reminds me, at least, of how to appreciate my own mind. It is the only philosophy-like book that i enjoy (as yet) because it is the real thing and encompasses a forgotten part of real life.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great, neglected writer, September 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Book Of Disquiet (Paperback)

I first read of Pessoa in Geoff Dyer's biography of Lawrence. The Book Of Disquiet is genuinely original. In it Pessoa expounds his notion that a human being consists of several sensibilities irreconcilable with one another. For each of the individuals comprising Pessoa, Pessoa coins an appropriate (though not epithetic) "heteronym," of which there are more than a few. Pessoa regards the notion of a coherent personality--rather than a committee of warring selves--as an invitation to ignore any experience that does not easily consist with our notion of own characters, and thus an invitation both to dishonesty and to the rejection of experience. In this he is very close to the Buddhist notion that the Self is a fictional solidification of that which is eternally in flux. Pessoa has an uncanny intimacy with his own self and a very deep and moving commitment to the experience of being himself. This is a remarkable, deep, wise book.