Education Of The Stoic, The [Paperback]

Fernando Pessoa (Author), Richard Zenith (Translator), Antonio Tabucchi (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2004

Description: "I transferred to Teive my speculations on certainty, which lunatics have in greater abundance than anyone." Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) was a multitude of writers: his works were composed by "heteronyms," alter egos with distinct biographies, ideologies, influences, even horoscopes. The Education of the Stoic is the only work left by the Baron of Teive, who, having destroyed all his previous attempts at literary creation, and about to destroy himself, explains "the impossibility of producing superior art." The baron's manuscript is found in a hotel-room drawer - not unlike editor and translator Richard Zenith's own discovery, while conducting research in the Pessoa archives, of a small black notebook whose contents had never been transcribed. In it he found the missing pieces of this short but trenchant complement to Pessoa's major prose work, The Book of Disquiet. Pessoa himself noted that despite their dialectical differences, the middle-class author of The Book of Disquiet (assistant bookkeeper Bernardo Soares) and the aristocrat Teive, "are two instances of the very same phenomenon -- an inability to adapt to real life." "There are in Pessoa echoes of Beckett's exquisite boredom; the dark imaginings of Baudelaire (whom he loved); Melville's evasive confidence man; the dreamscapes of Borges" - Voice Literary Supplement "The humorist who never smiles and makes our blood run cold, the inventor of other poets and self-destroyer, the author of paradoxes clear as water, and like water, dizzying, the mysterious one who doesn't cultivate mystery, mysterious as the moon at noon, the taciturn ghost of the Portuguese midday - who is Pessoa?" - Octavio Paz

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) published little in his lifetime, but his rediscovery in the 1990s has been as central to postmodernism as the rediscovery of Kafka in the 1950s was to modernism. The Book of Disquiet is now widely regarded as a classic, and has been translated into nearly every European language.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Exact Change (November 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878972405
• ISBN-13: 978-1878972408
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #42 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Portuguese

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Towards Book of Disquiet, November 20, 2010

By 

Stefan (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Education Of The Stoic, The (Paperback)

Intense like any Pessoa writing it is limited in proportions and content. Maybe the topic could seem outdated, but the metaphors are still valid. Consider it the leading sign towards the surprising and unpaired masterpiece: The Book of Disquiet.