The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition by Fernando Pessoa and Margaret Jull Costa

For the first time—and in the best translation ever—the complete Book of Disquiet, a masterpiece beyond comparison The Book of Disquiet is the Portuguese modernist master Fernando Pessoa’s greatest literary achievement. An “autobiography” or “diary” containing exquisite melancholy observations, aphorisms, and ruminations, this classic work grapples with all the eternal questions. Now, for the first time the texts are presented chronologically, in a complete English edition by master translator Margaret Jull Costa. Most of the texts in The Book of Disquiet are written under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, an assistant bookkeeper. This existential masterpiece was first published in Portuguese in 1982, forty-seven years after Pessoa’s death. A monumental literary event, this exciting, new, complete edition spans Fernando Pessoa’s entire writing life.

ever feel alienated and/or depressed and/or anxious and want to read very pretentious words about it —- this is the book for you

Definitivamente um dos livros mais poéticos que eu já li. Amei acompanhar os pensamentos de Bernardo Soares, pseudônimo de Fernando Pessoa, e suas reflexões em relação à vida, às pessoas e à sociedade em que estava inserido. Amei, principalmente, as descrições quase românticas de uma Lisboa em 1930.

Gosto da intimidade com que somos convidados a apreciar este livro inacabado, assim como gosto das passagens introspectivas e reflexivas que Pessoa nos traz. As reflexões que parecem lhe fazer refletir, mesmo que nem sempre concordando com o que é dito, as emoções tão únicas que conseguiriam ser encapsuladas em palavras tão universais.

Se ver escrito em algumas das páginas deste livro é um daqueles sentimentos de estranha melancolia e felicidade, em parte por saber que estes sentimentos são tão solitários, em parte por saber que essa solidão pode ser compartilhada. Para mim, uma das passagens mais específicas, mais interessantes, que mais me tocou, foi quando Pessoa comenta sobre o tédio e a prisão infinita que este é.

Livro muito bem escrito, pretendo relê-lo novamente num futuro não tão distante.

Uma obra prima da literatura portuguesa ❤️

I held the belief that one perfect work is enough to give an artist the taste of immortality, after death if not while alive. The Book of Disquiet made me rethink my stance. Even an unfinished book, a jumble of notes rather, can do full justice to its name and can place the author among the best of the best.

So, what kind of book is it? It is NOT an autobiography. At least not in the sense we use this term. It is an autobiography of a Persona of Pessoa (a Persona is not only a character, but it is also a more intimate thing, an extension of Pessoa). Then also, it is not an autobiography as we know. It is, as aptly put in the preface, a biography without events.

Without events, but not without thoughts or feelings. Pessoa is a man of both the 19th and 20th centuries. Myths are just stories, gods are long dead. A modern man, thinking man could not believe in God anymore. Yet, nothing is there to replace God with. Morality, ethics, everything was in dire need of redefinition. This void, along with long-standing unanswered questions in philosophy, blended into a disquieting lament. Anguish, profound anguish, but not for happiness but freedom from even the need for happiness.

Most of the entries are introspective. Only a handful of them deals with the exterior and even in those entries exterior is only a backdrop. All of them are monologues, are streams of consciousness flowing naturally, beautifully. And it is disquieting. Disquieting to the point where you might question the life you lived by far, the reality as we know it, and all the values handed down to us.