The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa by Fernando Pessoa

by Fernando Pessoa

The Washington Post Book World has written that Fernando Pessoa was "Portugal's greatest writer of the twentieth century [though] some critics would even leave off that last qualifying phrase" and "one of the most appealing European modernists, equal in command and range to his contemporaries Rilke and Mandelstam." The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa spans playful philosophical inquiry, Platonic dialogue, and bitter intellectual scrapping between Pessoa and his many literary alter egos ("heteronyms"). The heteronyms launch movements and write manifestos, and one of them attempts to break up Pessoa's only known romantic relationship. Also included is a generous selection from Pessoa's masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, freshly translated by Richard Zenith from newly discovered materials. The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa is an important record of a crucial part of the literary canon.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Philosophy, Essays, Portuguese Literature, Classics, 20th Century

Unknown Binding

About the author

Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa was a poet and writer.

It is sometimes said that the four greatest Portuguese poets of modern times are Fernando Pessoa. The statement is possible since Pessoa, whose name means ‘person’ in Portuguese, had three alter egos who wrote in styles completely different from his own. In fact Pessoa wrote under dozens of names, but Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis and Álvaro de Campos were – their creator claimed – full-fledged individuals who wrote things that he himself would never or could never write. He dubbed them ‘heteronyms’ rather than pseudonyms, since they were not false names but “other names”, belonging to distinct literary personalities. Not only were their styles different; they thought differently, they had different religious and political views, different aesthetic sensibilities, different social temperaments. And each produced a large body of poetry. Álvaro de Campos and Ricardo Reis also signed dozens of pages of prose.

The critic Harold Bloom referred to him in the book The Western Canon as the most representative poet of the twentieth century, along with Pablo Neruda.

Reviews

[Flo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A man may suffer as much in a suit of silks as in a sack or in a torn blanket. (31)

In these random impressions, and with no desire to be other than random, I indifferently narrate my factless autobiography, my lifeless history. These are my Confessions, and if in them I say nothing, it’s because I have nothing to say. (Excerpt from “The Book of Disquiet”, 191)

There is a lot of things to mention about this book. I can't possibly write about everything because an entire world lies in every paragraph of this brilliant work. So I will just write some little, rambling thoughts about one of the greatest authors that ever lived.
Pessoa or the soul of the world.

There are many boats destined for many ports, but no boat for life to stop hurting, nor a landing-place where we can forget everything. All of this occurred a long time ago, but my grief is even older. (79)

A heartbreaking beauty behind every word. A man capable of creating other men with their own strengths and weaknesses. He sees them from afar; he speaks to them as if they were strangers, extensions of his body. I can't imagine the pressure of being a human being with a whole world inside of him and, at the same time, capable of harbouring implacable loneliness. Infinite loneliness. Existence and resignation.
And then, I think I can imagine.
The bliss of understanding. The suffering of empathy.
Again.

Yes. The soul of the world. The plurality of thought. The division of the soul. The complexity of a quiet rebellion. The loudest rebellion in the shape of words. Words in love, in agony, in despair. That fascinating dichotomy of the powerful simplicity of words that can create people, universes, havens, a sacred place where you can pour whatever your heart can't carry within itself, any longer.

I am tired of confiding in myself, of lamenting over myself, of pitying mine own self with tears...
I have no really intimate friends, and even were there one intimate, in world’s ways, yet he was not intimate in the way I understand intimacy. I am shy and unwilling to make known my woes. An intimate friend is one of my ideal things, one of my daydreams, yet an intimate friend is a thing I never shall have. (30)

As I said, this book contains selected prose that covers all ground. There are notes, opinions, plays, letters (I didn't exactly enjoy his love letters that much, they reminded me of the poor man Dostoyevsky described in his wonderful White Nights; and then, after a little research, I understood*), passages about life, love, religion, solitude, women, science, philosophy, psychology, politics; real and fake authors, real and invented literary movements, short stories, quotes about his other works and some other curiosities. He was fond of spiritualism, astrology, occultism and many other -isms. Despite his doubts, Pessoa never abandoned his spiritual quest, presumably for the reason set forth in the Alvaro de Campos poem (81) that I quoted in the last status update.
Anyway, you can get a fair glimpse of what it means to live in a Pessoan universe. In addition to all that, you will find the helpful notes of Richard Zenith; he will give you context and a better way to comprehend Pessoa's writings.
You can't ask for more.

But there's something I could ask. Have you ever asked yourself what poetry is? What is its nature? Pessoa gave one of the most beautiful and accurate answers I have ever read.

Poetry is in everything—in land and in sea, in lake and in riverside. It is in the city too—deny it not —it is evident to me here as I sit: there is poetry in this table, in this paper, in this inkstand; there is poetry in the rattling of the cars on the streets, in each minute, common, ridiculous motion of a workman who [on] the other side of the street is painting the signboard of a butcher’s shop... For poetry is astonishment, admiration, as of a being fallen from the skies taking full consciousness of his fall, astonished at things. (28)

Have you ever felt like you were about to lose your mind?

Add to all this other reasons still for suffering, some physical, others mental, the susceptibility to every small thing that can cause pain (or even that to a normal man could not cause pain), add to this other things still, complications, money difficulties—join all this to my fundamentally unbalanced temperament, and you may be able to suspect what my suffering is.
One of my mental complications—horrible beyond words—is a fear of insanity, which itself is insanity. (32)

Have you ever lost hope? Have you ever lost faith in humanity as a whole?

Ten thousand times my heart broke within me. I cannot count the sobs that shook me, the pains that ate into my heart.
Yet I have seen other things also which have brought tears into mine eyes and have shaken me like a stirred leaf. I have seen men and women giving life, hopes, all for others. I have seen such acts of high devotedness that I have wept tears of gladness. These things, I have thought, are beautiful, although they are powerless to redeem. They are the pure rays of the sun on the vast dung-heap of the world. (29)

So, even if the darkest landscape is being displayed in front of our eyes, there is always a little ray of light guiding us toward hope. There are men and women fighting for their dreams and other people's dreams, always.
This writer's sensitivity was vast. He suffered for his people, for his own country. He was aware of everything that surrounded him and he, a misanthropic lover of mankind, felt an intense patriotic suffering, an intense desire of bettering the condition of Portugal. (32)

Have you ever read a play without a plot? Pessoa wrote “The Mariner”, a gem I can't forget. The beauty of it relies on the fact that it reflects our most inner thoughts about life. If you prefer writing over plot, do not miss it. If not, skip it. Although there is plenty of that in the entire book, so you might want to read a different one.

Pessoa has been a mirror for me since I read The Book of Disquiet, one of the most complex books I have reviewed so far. I can see myself reflected in most of his words, for better and for worse. And as I type this, I feel his presence circling my thoughts—a word he abhorred and so tenderly haunts me. No matter the distance, no matter the time nor place, these writers and their mirrors are with me.

What, I wonder, is the color of feeling? (80)

Pessoa's works make me feel the same way I do while reading Borges. It seems like everything has been already felt and said. Everything is a contradiction; my own words, as well. However, at this very moment, I can't feel I am alone; even if my shadow is the only thing I see. I have made a sanctuary out of The Book of Disquiet. With Selected Prose, I have created my home. I can't imagine the consequences of reading his Selected Poetry. (True, TBOD is his finest work, but this book has an evocative beauty that also captivated me.)

SECOND WATCHER Only dreams last forever and are beautiful. Why are we still talking?
FIRST WATCHER I don’t know ... (in a low voice, looking at the coffin) Why do people die?
SECOND WATCHER Perhaps because they don’t dream enough … (43)

A Borgesian thought arises. Are we the real thing? Could we be the dream of somebody else? Part of somebody else's dream that is being dreamed by somebody else, that is being dreamed by somebody else... Flesh and bones or a mere illusion.
Either way, we seem to dream, day and night. So we have to do something. According to Pessoa, acting is disbelieving; the truth can be found only in our feelings. Learn how to experience sensations simultaneously, to scatter your spirit through your own scattered self. (63) Yet some dreams go beyond sensations. Are we willing to give up the desire of achieving dreams? If we are, that's fine. If not, we must act. Do something. Dreams can transform themselves into reality, and reality is action (“Sartreanly” speaking).
We must act. Find the voice of a writer and a mirror to look at, and do something. Solitude is a fleetingly wanted company. A passive existence is an avoidable tragedy.

Do not mind me. I am near, I am ever near. There is no near nor far for me. Space is the dream men have to submit to, but the dream is not theirs. (91)

Pessoa whispers.





Sep 1, 14
* Photo credit: via Quadrogiz
** Note: There is an interesting passage about letters between Pessoa and Ophelia Queiroz, but I'm going to save my comments until I find and read Cartas a Ophélia. There is a lot to write concerning the matter.
*** Other reviews:
The Book of Disquiet
A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems
The Education of the Stoic
El Banquero Anarquista (written in Spanish)
**** Also on my blog.

[Dustyn Hessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're new to Pessoa than you should probably always start with "The Book of Disquiet." This is not his best book, but Pessoa's prose, at it's worst, is still superior to Joyce, or Hemingway, or any other english writer for that matter.

The main thing that disturbs me about this book is the translator's lame commentary - it is utterly fruitless. In the translator's preface to "The Education of the Stoic" he states that Pessoa's insistence on heteronyms was a means for Pessoa to, "save [him] from the life that bored him, or that he didn't care for [...]" - which is why I find many wasted pages of commentary on this edition extremely redundant. On an even more vulgar note, the translator makes idiotic remarks on Pessoa's virginity. We all know that Pessoa's writing persona is undoubtably that of a masochist. But, to comment on a writer's sex life unnecessarily, is ridiculous.

This book is not as harmonious as "The Book of Disquiet," but more tolerable, as an artwork, than most "great " writing we are accustomed to in school and Barnes and Noble stores. I dock 1 star from this book because some entries were not that enticing and because Zenith has a tendency to make idiotic remarks. Hopefully, we will see more of Pessoa's work in the future, for, "In opposing his age, the man of genius implicitly criticizes it, and so implicitly belongs to one or another of the critical currents of the next age."

[hami · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amazing Selection of works, with a good translation.
The Anarchist Banker
The Master and His Disciples
Letters to Ophelia Queiroz
The Riddle of stars,
etc.
Pessoa's use of 'heteronyms' was genius. His multidimensional approach to subjectivity is notable. I am looking forward to read his main work The Book of Disquiet.

[Jacques Coulardeau · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZINGLY OXYMORONIC IN INDIVIDUALISTIC ANARCHISM

The author has a theory about these characters who are all of them declared to be the authors of some of these prose writings. Let’s first enumerate them knowing that the author published these prose-works under their different names and the author often theorized about them as being his heteronyms or semi-heteronyms. Who are they, and we can say who because the author treats them as real persons with a biography and a position in society besides being the authors of the texts published under their names? In common authors’ rights or copyright regulations, they are pennames, but Fernando Pessoa is one of these pennames. The list is long: I take the list from the January 13, 1935 letter to Adolfo Casais Monteiro.

1. First, Chevalier de Pas, when the author was six years old.
2. Second, Ricardo Reis on March 8, 1914.
3. Third, Alberto Caeiro defined as “the return of Fernando Pessoa as Alberto Caeiro to Fernando Pessoa himself,” when speaking of the poem “Slanting Rain” by Fernando Pessoa. In such a more than circular, totally entangled and messed-up affiliation of the one to the other through the one by the other and both being nothing but one in two with each other, we can accept here the author’s assumption in his constant self-distantiation and self-analysis, like page 125: “From the psychiatric point of view, I’m a hysterical neurasthenic but fortunately my neuropsychosis is rather weak.” And then the author gargles with such words: “neurasthenic… hysterical element… hysterical traits… my hysteria…instability of feelings and sensations… emotional fickleness and fluctuation… protean neurosis… a mental introvert… like most born neurasthenics… my extreme emotionalism… my extreme rationalism… an overly analytical and logical intelligence… my abulia and parabulia…” over less than ONE page. Of course, all that concerns the character Fernando Pessoa, not the author who anyway is not qualified nor able to do such a self-analysis which was absolutely rejected by people like Sigmund Freud and a few others.
4. Fourth, Alvaro de Campos who rejoins Ricardo Reis as the second, or first, the order is not important, disciple of Alberto Caeiro.
5. Fifth, “my semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, the official declared author of The Book of Disquiet.
6. Sixth, Alvaro Coelho de Athayde, the fourteenth Baron de Teive, as the author of The Education of the Stoic.
7. Seventh, to conclude the Christian Holy Week, which the author would reject as probably iconoclastic, the only female in this colony, a hunchback girl of eighteen who writes the Letter from a Hunchback Girl to a Metalworker, Maria José.
8. Eighth, the Second Coming, the character Fernando Pessoa who intervenes in many texts as one character opposed to one of the author’s heteronyms. That makes the colony, company or gang a real redemptive team since it is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, just before the Apocalypse and Doomsday. This remark is the final nail needed to crucify the author who cannot spend one page without rejected Christianity, all the more because he is in his works and his characters a direct impersonation of Jesus Christ himself if at least we believe what the characters say about him. But that concerns more the real author than the character, the latter being so vain at times that we cannot even push aside the idea that this Fernando Pessoa in this dramatic prose-writing believes he is the Savior of this world, though the author reminds him regularly of the fact that he is nothing but a dramatic and pathetic playwright’s puppet.

But my reflection is not on these eight characters and the Christian allusion we can feel behind and then the contradiction with the numerous anti-Christian assertions in the name of paganism, of a multiplicity of gods that correspond to the multiplicity of human personalities, experiences, and experiments. Paganism and multi-polytheism are not really at stake here. It is quite obvious Pessoa does not really know the “logic” of the multiple gods in ancient polytheist societies. In fact, I am not sure he knows much beyond Greek mythology and its copycat Roman mythologies. And I am not going to discuss the point because his choice of a polytheistic vision is purely ideological. It is in no way “natural” as he is prone to say. It is only the way societies started conceptualizing and spiritualizing their experience of real life. They saw, not because what they saw existed but because that was their own conjecturizing and mental construction, a vast array of spirits and they established a lot of rituals. These spirits could be existential, having to do with life, death, birth, initiation (at 12-13, that has become circumcision in some societies for boys, and excision for girls), coming of age, procreation, fertility. They could also be real and attached to the moon, the sun, stars and planets, Venus and Mars for example, and the cycles attached to each one of them. They could also be attached to moments in these cycles, like day and night, the seasons, the seasonal weather, and many other things. They finally could be attached to other living beings, animals of course, but also plants, trees, and particularly the wild plants that were domesticated by man and transformed man’s life, like Maize becoming the Maize God, Jun Nal Ye, for the Mayas, and under other names for many Meso-American old agricultural civilizations. All that is missing in Pessoa, at least in this selection of prose texts.

But it is a lot more interesting to discuss this systematic attitude that erases the identity of the real author and splits a hypothetical identity into eight different entities, and in fact some more with a lot of minor heteronyms or semi-heteronyms, without speaking of the women in the play The Mariner – A Static Drama in One Act. There the dead woman and the three waking women are nothing but plain theatrical characters. That can lead you to the idea that the author is looking at himself as a bunch of actors on the stage of life, or at least the stage of life he is imagining, because I am not sure he is realistic about what life really is. I will come back to The Anarchist Banker later, but let’s say here this Anarchist Banker text, with an extra character who could be considered as another heteronym, but yet with the proper status of a character being interviewed by the author, or an interviewer who is supposed to be the author – but is he really? – is at least of a fictional journalistic nature that makes it something absolutely different from what it pretends to be.

For the time being, we can bring up, several ideas in this imbroglio.

First, the author does not want to project his real personality into his writing, and he does not accept the idea he has only one personality, or that his one personality is absolutely unified. He says several times that his nature is double, one side feminine and the other masculine, but that is not the author, but the character Fernando Pessoa who also expresses several times his revulsion and refusal of anything gay or homosexual (the two are not the same thing), both practice or attraction. He invests this homosexuality in some of his heteronyms and semi-heteronyms. But, in the very same way, we may think the character Fernando Pessoa has no sexual life at all, his heteronyms and semi-heteronyms have no sexual life either. They are haunted by sexuality, by masturbation, by passion and love but they have no real sexual intercourse with anyone or, as for that, anything else. The final letter by Maria José is typical of this absolute frustration the author imposes onto his characters: “I’m neither a woman nor a man, because nobody thinks I’m anything but a creature that fills up the space in this window and is an eyesore to everyone around. God help me… I hope you never find out about me so as not to laugh, for I know I can’t hope for more. I love you with all my heart and life. There I said it, and I’m crying.” We should discuss this female semi-heteronym who is neither a woman nor a man, – whereas Fernando Pessoa, as a man, says he is both – who has a hump and whose body is distorted with arthritis in the legs. She can’t even stand up on her legs and straight with her hunch or hump. When he deals with female characters, the author seems to be at least sexist.

Second, every single heteronym or semi-heteronym is conceived as a stage-enacted reproduction of the author but systematically distorted in a way or another, and/or amputated, castrated, deprived of some elements of the author, and this is true even of the character Fernando Pessoa. This systematic psychological excision or circumcision makes all these characters stripped or bereft of something essential that could make the character livable, humanly plausible. They are in a way all of them cartoons, caricatures of the author so that the author is never really present in his writing. This creates a feeling of alienation, frustration, dissatisfaction, even discontentment in the absolute meaning Sigmund Freud gave to the term in Civilization and Its Discontents (1929). Sigmund Freud was targeting the two main discontented political parties of Germany in 1929 after the Big Depression, viz. Ernst Thaelmann’s Communist Party and Hitler’s National-Socialist party. The latter seized power in 1933 and the former’s leader died in Buchenwald. This systematic discontentment leads to a negative feeling and it is not the concept of “fifth empire” for Portugal that he will invest in the nationalism of António de Oliveira Salazar after the May 28, 1926 military coup and his appointment as Prime Minister on July 5, 1932. He finally found the extreme he needed to invest his characters’ discontentment and frustration into: then he just had to lock himself up in his alcoholism and let his characters play on his mental slightly distorted stage. And I must say there is then a depth that can be rebuilt in this exploded multiplicity that goes millennia beyond his present time. We can probably compare him to Gabriele d’Annunzio who found in Mussolini the force he needed outside his own self to be able to balance this very self into some kind of peaceful coexistence with the world.

Third, what is the anarchism of his character, the Anarchist Banker, in this political or ideological approach? Is it a prank, a satire, a real conviction? Probably these three things at once, and many others in the exploded way of thinking of this author projected into his exploded characters. The Banker is a character like many others and he is telling his life, totally fictitious of course, to a Fernando Pessoa who is there only to say he approves what the Banker says and to ask some slightly disruptive questions, but nothing very deep or provocative. And we know, from the very start, what it is all about: the inflated ego of this anarchist banker. “I’m an anarchist in theory and practice… I’m an intelligent anarchist. I, in other words, am the true anarchist” Note how the article “the” makes this character vain enough to assert there is only one true anarchist and he is that unique true anarchist. The humility of “I am a true anarchist” is beyond the self-centered umbilical personality of this character. He tried to integrate anarchist groups of trade-unionists or political activists and he was side-tracked, rejected, laughed at when he defended his vision of his true anarchism, that, by the way, is so close to my brother’s anarchism in the 1950-60-70s turned ecological in the 1980-90s. He too came to that true individualistic anarchism from a Christian education turned anti-militaristic into conscientious objection, which led him into prison, with a military court-martial afterward that hit a compromise, condemning his refusal to abide by the law on conscientious objection, but freeing him de facto at the end of the trial. But let’s look at this author’s Anarchist Banker’s principles. Objective: “An anarchist is someone who rebels against the injustice of people being born socially unequal.” He rejects any reformist approach: “Any system besides pure anarchism, which aims to do away with all systems, is likewise a fiction.” That makes him reject any “progressive” approach he calls social fictions. He needs a concept of justice to justify his objective and he states it in very simple terms: “Where does the notion of justice come from? It comes from what is true and natural, in opposition to social fictions and the lies of convention.” This reference to natural truth is the most surprising element you can imagine. Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau knew that there was no truth in this concept because all human history is nothing but the ideological vision of the situation of humanity trying to go against nature and control it with social contracts or compacts, to avoid the Christian or Jewish term covenant.

The Anarchist Banker then favors “the only adaptation, evolution, or transition that can occur in passing from the bourgeois society to the free society [that] is psychological; it’s the gradual adapting of people’s minds to the idea of the free society.” He rejects the “revolutionary dictatorship… A revolutionary regime … is materially only one thing, a revolutionary regime… a despotic military regime, because a state of war is imposed on society by just one part of it… Military despotism…” That leads him to his conclusion: “Goal: an anarchist or free society. Means: an abrupt passage, with no transition, from bourgeois society to the free society. This passage will be made possible by an intense, sweeping propaganda campaign, designed to prepare people’s minds and break down all resistance.” Then we seem to be in Trotsky or at times Mao Zedong. The revolution is done by propaganda in words and actions but with no violence or duress of any sort. That’s purely dreamlike. And he does not seem to understand that it is all a question of power, who is in power, no matter how they manage to capture it, but of course, that goes against his pure anarchism that dissolves the state at all levels. And that is the main contradiction. He is in fact in line, ninety years before, with what Marcel Gauchet defended last week in Le Figaro, Paris, France, about the COVID-19 pandemic: “Let’s hope this crisis will be the opportunity to come to a real re-evaluation of our social reality and it will be a wake-up call.” (Si cette crise pouvait être l’occasion d’un vrai bilan et d’un réveil collectif!) and for him, this call is the call for a mythologized social revolution.

But let’s go back ninety years and listen to our Anarchist Banker. “Social fictions are the only hindrance. They, I realized, were what had to be destroyed… in order to promote freedom.” And then the dream becomes a dystopic utopia (note the oxymoronic expression of the contradiction): “A swift, sudden, and overwhelming social revolution ...

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

[Shahad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fernando Pessoa's prose aren't only penetrative to ones heart but they always find a way to shake a deadly mental earthquake. Pessoa was intellectually distressed by the gap between what he was and what he wanted to be. His views on sensationalism are relatable to a huge extent. I admire his views on god as the faceless force or relationship we have with the universe that really has the insignificance and importance to keep us going. I found the story of The Anarchist banker to be something strange and rather amazing in the sense that to be viewed as a successful anarchist is to be viewed as a capitalist ally. And that generalization tends to be flawed according to Pessoa, the successful anarchist is the best kind of anarchist, one that constructed a mountain above other capitalists who are born with privilege and wealth. To truly abolish a system belonging to the anarchist doctrine you need to climb the top of the capitalist ladder, to be heard, to enforce "The anarchist propaganda" and to not be viewed as a revolting person of the working class only because you can't be in any position above that.

Pessoa rejects the notion that a human being could seek to preach what is known as The ultimate knowledge or correctness be it, politically, socially or religiously. As well as his apparent rejection of logic and reason over feelings. Although to be Pessoa is to be driven by the ultimate rejection of belief systems and religion, Pessoa still emphasizes that although reason influenced his atheism, feelings are a core drive to seeking reason, and without feeling, The human being is but a machine constructed by nature.

[Arick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great compilation of Pessoa's various types of prose. Expect excerpts of letters explaining his views on the occult, his genesis of heteronyms, a play, some short stories, etc. While the scope of this division in Pessoa's writing is vast, it makes sense, given the fragmented personality of the man himself. I found myself wanting more sections of The Book of Disquiet, but overall this is a great bundle of writings from a superb genius. I do not, however, recommend this as any sort of introduction to Pessoa and his work. The volume is definitely written for the reader with previous encounters concerning Pessoa. Each piece opens with a nominal amount of text from the editor, giving the reader a rough background concerning the text, but nothing incredibly substantial is rendered.
If you're just starting out with Pessoa, might I suggest his monolithic Book of Disquiet? It might sound silly to prescribe a 'monolith' for starting out, but this is very much the nature of Pessoa himself- he was a monolith of literary fury.

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odds and ends collection of fragments, letters, essays, juvenilia, mysticism, etc. Honestly, the average quality was low and few pieces could stand alone. I hoped for more like the incredible Book of Disquiet (which is excerpted here) but was disappointed. The Baron of Tieve section towards the end (adjacent to Disquiet) was similar and good but short. A few of his love letters and prose pieces were OK. Meanwhile, The Anarchist Banker was one of the worst, most boring short stories I've read recently and almost all of his non-fiction philosophical writing was terrible. He loves to schematize a few things together with no attention to reality and little disciplined engagement with other schools of thought. Anyways, if you area really interested in Pessoa then this offers some insight into his life and thought, but if you want writing on par with The Book of Disquiet this isn't it.

[Avvai · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love diving into an artist's life, especially when travelling, so I absolutely loved this book.
While in Portugal I was looking for a book to read by a Portuguese writer. Pessoa's name came up quite a bit as he's one of Portugal's most famous poet. However, poetry intimidates me a bit so I found this collection of his prose writing. But it turned out to be so much more than that.
Each section starts with a short biography/aspect of Pessoa's life written by Richard Zenith (Pessoa's main translator/biographer) and it was super interesting to read. Pessoa was a very strange guy, with all his heteronyms and different philosophies. I quite enjoyed the context that Zenith provided before diving into Pessoa's strange writing.

There were letters, essays, his personal musings, and even some automatic writing (psychic stuff).

While reading this book I also went to Pessoa's house/museum in Lisbon and it was fantastic.

Would highly recommend this to people who like doing a deep dive into an artist's life and learning more about their strange inner lives.

[Mariano · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Man is an animal that almost exists." What the hell.

[Thomas Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa offers a wonderful window into this great poet's mind. For example, I didn't know he had a strong interest in astrology and seances. He explains his famous use of heteronyms. His letters describe his incompetent efforts to woe a woman (hate to disappoint those who would like to claim him as gay).

In his poetry, he comes across as someone who has cut any external human ties to his inner self, where he lives most of his life. He is the exact opposite of Walt Whitman, whom he criticizes. But his take on the underground societies like the anarcho-communists and their ilk is spot on. I know this from personal experience. The tyranny that these groups are fighting to overthrow, they create the even worse among themselves, which they impose on everyone else after they are successful. We have seen this play out in all the socialist revolutions.

HIs conclusion agrees with mine. The current system of democratic capitalism, despite its many weaknesses, is far better than any alternatives that exist so far. The tyranny that exists today is nothing compared to what others have tried recently (Religious, Nazis, Fascists, Communist, etc.) We need strong democratic institutions founded on law with a strong central government that can control the excesses of capitalism. This last paragraph contains my thoughts that go further than his as he lived before he could see the results of these groups.

[Mattjmjmjm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy Fernando Pessoa's writings particularly his poetry but I thought this collection of his prose was just ok. It is hard to fault this book since it is only a mixed collection of letters, short stories, philosophical tracts, etc. There would be some profound insight here and there like this
"For poetry is astonishment, admiration, as of a being fallen from the skies taking full consciousness of his fall, astonished at things. As of one who knew things in their soul, striving to remember this knowledge, remembering that it was not thus, he knew them, not under these forms and these conditions, but remembering nothing more."

I really love the way, Fernando Pessoa talks about poetry, individuality, and beauty but this collection isn't just nice prose, there is for me some uninteresting letters and short stories. The Anarchist Banker for example is somewhat interesting but is mainly a Platonic Dialogue between two people about anarchism. I am really interested in anarchism but as a fiction reader, I want more than just philosophy as a story(Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann has the same issue for me). This book is only really for Fernando Pessoa fans otherwise most readers will not connect with this collection of prose. His collection of poetry is what I recommend the most as it shows his writing at it's most complex, rich with metaphors and sympathetic melancholy.

[RONG · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5-4-4.5-4-5.
So, 4.5.
It’s a trace of how I reflected on this book.

Not all great writers have such extreme courage, honesty, talent to leap into an unknown abyss of humanity--philosophical, psychiatric, tireless, indefatigable-- trying to figure out a true self. Then, back to tell how it looks.
---Unless you are sensitive enough and brave enough to die others’ deaths, to live others’ lives, which is what Pessoa refers to as “feeling multiple.”

People are born, then gone. Sooner or later, 99.9% of them eventually disappear into vast silence and darkness.  Few have fought against this aspect of human nature.
Let me end here with this quote: “Pessoa had moved beyond literature; he was simply etching , on paper, his mind and soul.”
Echo and mirror.
On page 116, Pessoa wrote, “...understand this if you can, and I know you can understand it.” It's 9 July 1916.
Yes, I can.

So, timelessly, “Hello, Mr. Pessoa. Nice to meet you, nice to meet your The Book of Disquiet.” 
Not just me who feels this 100 years after he wrote.
Such a greeting may last far longer than anyone can imagine..
It’s a glorious fate for a complete writer.

[J]

“I am, in large measure, the selfsame prose I write. I unroll myself in sentences and paragraphs, I punctuate myself. In my arranging and rearranging of images I’m like a child using newspaper to dress up as a king, and in the way I create rhythm with a series of words I’m like a lunatic adorning my hair with dried flowers that are still alive in his dreams. And above all I’m calm, like a rag doll that has become conscious of itself and occasionally shakes its head to make the tiny bell on top of its pointed cap (a component part of the same head) produce a sound, the jingling life of a dead man, a feeble notice to Fate.”

[Marlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pessoa is one of the most genuinely unique thinkers I have encountered in recent years. I bought this blindly at Des Pair books (great shop in LA, why we need to go browse despite online stores). His prose varies wildly, but “the book of Disquiet” is by far the most powerful section. Though I loved his Nietzschean humour and bombastic critique of the culture around him through the whole book. I haven’t found a writer before who made paganism seem so appealing.

[Matt McCormick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe another reviewer described the book as "art" and I think that's true if art is Surrealism in the manner of Dali. I'm sure it means a lot, I know its obviously unique, I'm confident it took exceptional skill to create, but in the end I'm just not that interested and I'm clearly confused. I plan to give Pessoa one more go with "The Book of Disquiet" and will see if there is something I'm missing.

[Amelia Hargreaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without a doubt the most enigmatic writer(s) I've ever read (best described here: "Besides generating a diversified trio of heteronymous poets, a team of sub-heteronymous translators and publicists to promote them, and a "neopagan" ideology to give philosophical heft to their literary works and psychological weight to their invented personalities, Pessoa also invented literary movements for them to spearhead or else oppose").

[zoya · Rating 4 out of 5]

fernando pessoa, the founder of yap city

jokes aside — he put to words many things i've thought a lot about in my life, and though i don't agree with some of his beliefs, i'm fascinated by the way he presented them, and the way he is presented in this book.

[Cigdem Kaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pessoa as ever

[David McLeod · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like some of the selections were erroneously chosen, but the most of what is included is excellent.

[Baihe (Lily) Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

“mature Pessoa was affectionate and good-humored but resolutely private.”

Excerpt From:
The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa

[Anders Demitz-Helin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit too much of a patchwork and surrounding information

[Dharmendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was obsessed with Pessoa once.

[Jessica C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing and demanding. If a sliver of your attention had a date with Ranch Doritos while you attempted to digest the cud that Pessoa put in the black and the white of this collection (odd) collection by Richard Zenith, one Doritos that grabs that sliver by falling onto your lap and you're not there (Pessoa's designation for all) anymore. I suggest this book because a)It's an exercise like lifting weights for your brain and b)This quacker is very comical at times. I have a book of his poetry to chew up next. Pessoa is best read well done.

[Mathilda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is completely lacking in harmony. No one wants to read an essay about neopaganism and a bunch of love letters in the same sitting. I also thought that Richard Zenith’s commentaries could have been cut shorter. They were informative but unnecessarily long. This book was like a visit to a museum with a very annoying tour guide. It annoys me that it could have been so much better and it isn’t Pessoa’s fault. But overall good translation and writing. I’ve learned about Pesso a lot just reading his prose.

[Stosch · Rating 5 out of 5]

really good book. what a mind he had. i would highly recommend Fernando Pessoa and Co.: Selected Poems. book of disquiet is nothing to scoff at. it just seems the poetry book and selected prose are more focused. if you dig those, then read disquiet.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of Pessoa's prose. It features several selections from each of his heteronyms and I highly recommended it for those who are new to his work.

[Antonio Vuković · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Existing isn’t necessary; what’s necessary is to feel. Note that this last sentence is completely absurd. Dedicate yourself to not understanding it with your whole heart."