/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11402744]

What did you guys think?
Was tbinkng of getting a collection of his poetry next, how is it? Also any recs for which collection to get?

[Anonymous No.11403281]

i read the New Directions edition
Fuck Penguin

[Anonymous No.11403343]

It's my favourite book, and influenced my thoughts and perspective like no other book has done or is likely to do. Perhaps the fact that things are expressed so frankly means that I am a pleb for liking it so much (rather than preferring a book which subtly expresses similar themes etc). Books like this serve as something I refer to as a Levelling Force, that is to say they are written with such clarity, honesty and brutal straightforwardness that all tension, anxiety and conflict inside me are levelled and I feel, when reading this book, that I am soaring over my life, and life in general, in such a way that the relief I feel is overwhelming. I read The Pale King by Wallace in 2013 and that influenced me a lot, and I really respected the fact he wrote it in a partly boring way so as to force the reader to confront his / my own tendency to skip or frown on anything dull or not immediately pleasurable. The argument in that book, that heroism in real life is necessarily boring and mundane and superficially undesirable, really struck a chord with me, and in Pessoa's book I feel that he argues a similar thing, but without what I feel is Wallace's tendency to moralize and plant flags for his readers to rally around. The Book of Disquiet is a very dangerous book, because it treats nihilism not as something sexy, or dangerous, or depression, but as something we all know to be the case, and merely wallows in its affect rather than attempting to distract himself from it. I've posted this before, but Evola in Ride the Tiger condemns the nihilism spreading throughout Europe and condemns those philosophers or writers who encourage us to believe that instead of a single, distinct unit of existential being we are instead two, three or even five different personalities sheltering beneath the same ontological umbrella. Pessoa is rather funny when considering Evola's condemnation, because he offers an infinite amount of selves, and does all he can to dismantle the one self most clearly associated with his life (in the book at least). It's a true masterpiece and it taught me to truly respect the careful, unpretentious, brutally honest articulation of those aspects of my disposition I perhaps overlook, conceal or deny. I have the book beside me actually, and I own two copies with each one having been underlined on almost every page. I know that I can pick it up and read a sentence immediately which just speaks to me like the whisper of objective wisdom in a perfectly calm and quiet room. This is exactly why I read: so that someone can communicate to me as though aware that we are both living secretly in some kind of occupied town, and that their writing to me confides in me the kind of things I would have confided in them had I been as articulate and well-read. 10/10.

[Anonymous No.11403481]

>>11403281
I have this edition as well and enjoyed it,

[Anonymous No.11403599]

>>11403481
>>11403281
what's wrong with the penguin edition? or what makes new directions better

[Anonymous No.11403615]

>>11402744
repetitive but beautiful

[Anonymous No.11403834]

>>11403599
i mean just fuck penguin in general, support other publishers

[Anonymous No.11403847]

i don't read books written by virgins

[Anonymous No.11403868]

>>11403847
so, nobody's gonna even read your obituary when you necc yourself for being a massive faggot, lmao

[Anonymous No.11403905]

>>11403868
you are what you eat

[Anonymous No.11404015]

I never connected to a book as much as this
He perfectly described so much stuff I always thought and felt but could never put into words
Finishing this book was like saying goodbye to a friend who knew me better than anyone else

[Anonymous No.11404464]

>>11403343
Great post, I agree

[Anonymous No.11405440]

>>11403281
Is it available in paperback yet?

[Anonymous No.11405532]

Book's bout despairin', will maybe teach you to Try Something Else

[Anonymous No.11405649]

Daily reminder that Pessoa was a waifu fag:

"Thanks to another simultaneous and related experience that touched my sensibility and my intelligence, I absorbed far too early on the idea that the life of the imagination, however morbid this might seem, is the one best suited for temperaments like mine. The fictions of my (later) imagination may weary me, but they do not hurt or humiliate. To impossible lovers the false smile, the fraudulent show of affection, the cunning caress are all equally impossible. They never abandon us or vanish from our life. "

[Anonymous No.11405836]

>>11403343
great post
>>11404015
>Finishing this book was like saying goodbye to a friend who knew me better than anyone else
that passage where he talked about having his own kin made me feel homey

[Anonymous No.11405897]

Daily reminder Pessoa was euphoric.

[Anonymous No.11405940]

>>11402744
Is that a basketball back there

[Anonymous No.11405956]

>>11405940
Lmao I never realized that

[Anonymous No.11405971]

>>11405956
This book-cover just went from being expressive and representative to laughable

[Anonymous No.11407479]

>>11403599
Better translation and the chronological order is superior. The Penguin edition is fine, I just enjoyed the New Directions copy a lot more.

[Anonymous No.11407526]

>>11402744
Read it about two months back now. Picked up the meme serpents tail version. It was a decent length but I wanted more right away.
>dude notice the little things in life
Also, best publisher for my next purchase? Where is it best to go from here with based Pessoa?

[Anonymous No.11407564]

>>11402744
Fuck man how the fuck do you not cringe at some of the shit this guy is writing.
I get the whole peotic prose but I'm about half in it and it feels like I'm reading a full on xanaxed math teacher who read a lot but wants no one to know about it.

[Anonymous No.11407682]

>>11402744 and everybody else.
The author is miscredited. pessoa didn't write this in his own name. He acredited it to Bernando Soares, A lonely accountant with a vivid imagination. The stuff Pessoa published in hois own name differs significantly in style, tone and themes.

If you want to go deeper inside the rabbit hole there are plenty heteronyms to choose from. Each complete with biography, own distinct style, developmnt, etc.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa#List_of_known_heteronyms

My faves are Alberto Caeiro and Alvaro de Campos

[Anonymous No.11407712]

>>11407564
because he is literally me (except he has talent and has a higher iq)

[Anonymous No.11407728]

>>11405940
holy...

[Anonymous No.11408605]

bump

[Anonymous No.11408655]

>Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself.
IKTF too well

[Anonymous No.11408692]

>>11407564
I believe that the best writing walks a fine line whereby it can be accused of being cringeworthy due to how honest and heartfelt it is. DFW for example often writes in a way which, in a cynical mood, I would view as very cringeworthy, but it is a consequence of his very often articulating himself without artifice or trickery. Thomas Ligotti is the best modern horror writer for similar reasons, and you really have to transcend your own tendency to mock or ridicule when you invest in one of his stories (Lovecraft is the same). Pessoa's writing is so frank and straightforward that it can be easy to allow your hyperactive, consensus-orientated brain to dismiss his writing as too self-involved or pretentious. But that's the beauty of great writing. It introduces itself to you with an intimacy that can be very uncomfortable, and so it's natural that an instinctive reaction would be to use laughter as a means of maintaining the distance between what you believe yourself to be / think and the ugly, confusing, depressing truth lurking in the deepest parts of your consciousness.

[Anonymous No.11408824]

>>11403599
Listen here, new directions print on acid free paper. That entails a creamy, delicious feel. No brittle, no yellow, you feel?

[Anonymous No.11408966]

>>11408692
>Pessoa's writing is so frank and straightforward
See >>11407682

Penguin et al publishing the book of disquiet in his name is an atrocity.

[Anonymous No.11410272]

>>11405940
Soccerball. The guy with his arms up is the goalie.
It's not like the photo is obscure. It's from a fairly famous series from the 50s.
Look up Gerard Castello Lopes. He's a great candid street photographer, and it still really fits the book in my opinion. I can just imagine Soares staring out the window and watching some guys playing a pick-up match of soccer and then making a morose reflection on it.

[Anonymous No.11410643]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11410649]

>>11403343
>>11404464
>>11405836

Stop shilling yourself samefag retard, everyone can see through it.