A very interesting essay that introduced me to an author I hadn’t yet encountered.
Fafa Fafa
17 days ago
Pessoa, the literary hero of my youth! I broke up with my girlfriend because she misunderstood the message in the Gardens of Adonis and thought I viewed her as a one night stand. Oh the joy of yelling the Maritime Ode in the middle of the night in an abandoned barn, holding the book under a bare lightbulb! Saudade, my friends, saudade above all. I should reread Disquiet to soothe my disturbed view of todays world.
Richard 0
17 days ago
Some of the poetry he wrote under his own name, not one of his hetreonyms, is quite beautiful. The Book of Disquiet is…disquieting. An extraordinary individual.
Mike Downing
17 days ago
I came across Pessoa years ago somehow, and got a parallel text from Penguin of his poems. They aren’t super complex in one sense, but that was a plus and (since I understand French) enabled me to read the original with help and a lot more enjoyment.
I found the idea of the different ‘authors ‘ fascinating and the book was split into sections accordingly, so it was like reading the work of different poets with quite distinct characters. I enjoyed it enormously and appreciate surface simplicity over self-conscious complexity in any case. Well worth investigating even if you’re not normally a poetry buff.
David Morley
17 days ago
I like Pessoa for lines like: “the most contemptible thing about dreams is that everyone has them”. It is just so at odds with our modern, very American, view of things. Not so much un American, or anti American as a- American (as in amoral).
UnHerd Reader
17 days ago
These essays by Rob Doyle on great books and writers are really fantastic
Benedict Waterson
17 days ago
There’s no evidence that Pessoa was a ‘closeted homosexual’ and the contemporary impulse to box everyone into reductive little identity categories is sort of paradoxical, and not very Pessoaesque.
Also can be anachronistic when applied to historical figures.
Andrew Boughton
16 days ago
How lovely to read something other than politics, the medium for madness, and instead focus on culture, the medium for truth.
Frank B. Farrell
16 days ago
Pessoa is like Nietzsche in fighting painful states of loneliness and rejection by others by constructing a divine-like psychological universe of self-to-self activity that he can sustain through his own power, without dependence on such others. https://frankbfarrell.substack.com/p/fernando-pessoa
Rita X Stafford
9 days ago
I was so charmed and delighted by this article that I found myself wanting to astrally project myself, traverse the metaverse, find Pessoa and say with outstretched arms, ‘Hello Fernando, it’s me, your friend, Rita!’
A very interesting essay that introduced me to an author I hadn’t yet encountered.
Pessoa, the literary hero of my youth! I broke up with my girlfriend because she misunderstood the message in the Gardens of Adonis and thought I viewed her as a one night stand. Oh the joy of yelling the Maritime Ode in the middle of the night in an abandoned barn, holding the book under a bare lightbulb! Saudade, my friends, saudade above all. I should reread Disquiet to soothe my disturbed view of todays world.
Some of the poetry he wrote under his own name, not one of his hetreonyms, is quite beautiful. The Book of Disquiet is…disquieting. An extraordinary individual.
I came across Pessoa years ago somehow, and got a parallel text from Penguin of his poems. They aren’t super complex in one sense, but that was a plus and (since I understand French) enabled me to read the original with help and a lot more enjoyment.
I found the idea of the different ‘authors ‘ fascinating and the book was split into sections accordingly, so it was like reading the work of different poets with quite distinct characters. I enjoyed it enormously and appreciate surface simplicity over self-conscious complexity in any case. Well worth investigating even if you’re not normally a poetry buff.
I like Pessoa for lines like: “the most contemptible thing about dreams is that everyone has them”. It is just so at odds with our modern, very American, view of things. Not so much un American, or anti American as a- American (as in amoral).
These essays by Rob Doyle on great books and writers are really fantastic
There’s no evidence that Pessoa was a ‘closeted homosexual’ and the contemporary impulse to box everyone into reductive little identity categories is sort of paradoxical, and not very Pessoaesque.
Also can be anachronistic when applied to historical figures.
How lovely to read something other than politics, the medium for madness, and instead focus on culture, the medium for truth.
Pessoa is like Nietzsche in fighting painful states of loneliness and rejection by others by constructing a divine-like psychological universe of self-to-self activity that he can sustain through his own power, without dependence on such others. https://frankbfarrell.substack.com/p/fernando-pessoa
I was so charmed and delighted by this article that I found myself wanting to astrally project myself, traverse the metaverse, find Pessoa and say with outstretched arms, ‘Hello Fernando, it’s me, your friend, Rita!’