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Always Astonished: Selected Prose
"After looking for him in the poems, we search for him in the prose. The pursuit of the Other in Pessoa's work is never-ending," writes Edwin Honig. Essential to understanding the great Portuguese poet are the essays written about (and by) his heteronyms--Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Alvaro de Campos--the several pseudonyms under which he wrote an extraordinary body of poetry. In Always Astonished, Pessoa and his several selves debate and discuss one another's work, revealing how Portuguese modernism was shaped. Fernando Pessoa is one of the great voices of twentieth-century literature, and these manifestos, letters, journal notes, and critical essays range through aesthetics, lyric poetry, dramatic and visual arts, and the psychology of the artist. He gives us, too, a singularly heterodox political position in his strange work of fiction, The Anarchist Banker.
"Eloquent, volatile and obsessed with life--and death--(Pessoa is one of the) modernist giants in whose shadow we live and who made our century one of the extraordinary richness."--The New York Times
Fernando Pessoa is Portugal's most important contemporary poet. He wrote under several identities, which he called heteronyms: Albet Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Bernardo Soares. He wrote fine poetry under his own name as well, and each of his "voices" is completely different in subject, temperament, and style.
"Eloquent, volatile and obsessed with life--and death--(Pessoa is one of the) modernist giants in whose shadow we live and who made our century one of the extraordinary richness."--The New York Times
Fernando Pessoa is Portugal's most important contemporary poet. He wrote under several identities, which he called heteronyms: Albet Caeiro, Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, and Bernardo Soares. He wrote fine poetry under his own name as well, and each of his "voices" is completely different in subject, temperament, and style.
134 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1988
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About the author
Fernando Pessoa
1,264 books6,420 followersFernando 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 18, 2019
I have to admit this was pretty amazing. Pessoa is literally Nietzschean in places but not as acute. Nietzschean in the sense that he makes you think of things that you never thought your mind could have ventured towards. Not overly complicated thoughts but almost like an insight into an alien’s philosophy or an other worldly mind which is totally refreshing. In other places he seemed to convey, like all the greatest books have an uncanny ability to, those thoughts or sentences that were somehow tucked away in the deepest crevices of your mind and like a pied piper he lures them out of their dust covered vaults to flaunt them in front of “the eye of your mind” to quote Oasis. Some of the interesting points were:
• Feeling is the true form of creating and feeling is creating sans ideas. For Pessoa if you had to rank ideation and feeling he would put the latter above the former. Pessoa felt that when you feel you truly understand, perhaps more so than the most insightful piece of understanding could make you understand. “To understand what that person feels is to be that other person” – which is the magic of books right, you not only see and live the story through the eyes of Don Quixote, or Raskolnikov or Anna Karenina but you feel the feelings they had felt at key moments of the book and when you felt what they felt you became what they were. “I am you” trumps “I love you” any day. Pessoa also says that through emotion we become more pristinely ourselves but with intelligence we see only through the eyes and on the shoulders of others.
• Pessoa says that extreme suffering can galvanise response like a whiplash to sadness which turns your self-pity and any lugubrious situation you find yourself in into a precipitating action. “Boldness has genius power and magic, innit?” as Goethe once said in his Asian rude-boy patois.
• There is an incredibly insightful and yet short chapter called the Anarchist Banker which is as good as any few pages of literature I have read in a while. It talks about a banker who grows dissatisfied with his status quo and especially the social conditions that had led him to be so. He discusses the conventions and social myths that go about comprising the reality he/we inhibit today. My own immediate Kashmiri culture is awash with a smorgasbord of social myths which are alive in kicking due to the sequaciousness of all of the so called "educated" (read: deaducated) youth who abide by the conventions that are thrown in front of them like ravenous hungry wolves. Conventions which often take the Emperors cloth of religious dogma and unchallengeable and irrefutable catechism. Pessoa further adds that it’s important that we go about destroying these social myths INDEPENDENTALLY otherwise we would begin to foist our version of what reality should be on others and only create a more nuanced form of tyranny. The beat would go on.
• Feeling is the true form of creating and feeling is creating sans ideas. For Pessoa if you had to rank ideation and feeling he would put the latter above the former. Pessoa felt that when you feel you truly understand, perhaps more so than the most insightful piece of understanding could make you understand. “To understand what that person feels is to be that other person” – which is the magic of books right, you not only see and live the story through the eyes of Don Quixote, or Raskolnikov or Anna Karenina but you feel the feelings they had felt at key moments of the book and when you felt what they felt you became what they were. “I am you” trumps “I love you” any day. Pessoa also says that through emotion we become more pristinely ourselves but with intelligence we see only through the eyes and on the shoulders of others.
• Pessoa says that extreme suffering can galvanise response like a whiplash to sadness which turns your self-pity and any lugubrious situation you find yourself in into a precipitating action. “Boldness has genius power and magic, innit?” as Goethe once said in his Asian rude-boy patois.
• There is an incredibly insightful and yet short chapter called the Anarchist Banker which is as good as any few pages of literature I have read in a while. It talks about a banker who grows dissatisfied with his status quo and especially the social conditions that had led him to be so. He discusses the conventions and social myths that go about comprising the reality he/we inhibit today. My own immediate Kashmiri culture is awash with a smorgasbord of social myths which are alive in kicking due to the sequaciousness of all of the so called "educated" (read: deaducated) youth who abide by the conventions that are thrown in front of them like ravenous hungry wolves. Conventions which often take the Emperors cloth of religious dogma and unchallengeable and irrefutable catechism. Pessoa further adds that it’s important that we go about destroying these social myths INDEPENDENTALLY otherwise we would begin to foist our version of what reality should be on others and only create a more nuanced form of tyranny. The beat would go on.
October 11, 2022
Of all the Pessoa I have read thus far, I most appreciate him as the diarist (Bernando Soares in
The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition
), and so it was the very last section of Always Astonished that felt the most rewarding to me. The rest of this volume offers a glimpse into the heteronymic ecosystem he created, through critical essays, letters, and manifestos written by and about Alvaro de Campos, Ricardo Reis, Alberto Caeiro, and—of course—Pessoa himself. These people (or acts of modernist depersonalisation, depending on how you see them) offer valuable commentary on aesthetics and politics, as well as on writing as a process and, often, on the writing and philosophical process through which they came into being.
Indeed, going off of the editor Edwin Honig's introduction, this volume offers a clue into the utility of these heteronymic personalities in Pessoa's ability to pursue distinct styles and thoughts without having the burden of subscription attached to his own 'self': clearly, while certain ideas, such as the heterodox politics of the "The Anarchist Banker," could be expressed using the form of fiction, others like the religious views of Ricardo Reis could not. In my reading, this makes the heteronyms a project just as much intellectual as it was literary. Honig's selections here also shed light on the possible origins for Pessoa's impulse to such depersonalisation—they likely sprang from a place of deep loss.
Always Astonished is a rewarding read for those seeking more insight into Pessoa in his own words. I enjoyed several parts of it but was confused and confounded by large swathes too; it is definitely more academic and philosophical than expected.
Indeed, going off of the editor Edwin Honig's introduction, this volume offers a clue into the utility of these heteronymic personalities in Pessoa's ability to pursue distinct styles and thoughts without having the burden of subscription attached to his own 'self': clearly, while certain ideas, such as the heterodox politics of the "The Anarchist Banker," could be expressed using the form of fiction, others like the religious views of Ricardo Reis could not. In my reading, this makes the heteronyms a project just as much intellectual as it was literary. Honig's selections here also shed light on the possible origins for Pessoa's impulse to such depersonalisation—they likely sprang from a place of deep loss.
Always Astonished is a rewarding read for those seeking more insight into Pessoa in his own words. I enjoyed several parts of it but was confused and confounded by large swathes too; it is definitely more academic and philosophical than expected.
February 16, 2015
Finally, after all these years, I had a chance to read the Anarchist Banker (included in this edition of Pessoa's collected prose). Can't tell you how many time I cracked open the edition I purchased in Paris, that's in French, which I don't comprehend. I can read a little, but not comprehend. This was great for me. And there is also all this awesome bits that root around in his heteronymic structures and, and, and. For Kurt, based on a recent comment on my work that written pre this read: "The creator of mirrors poisoned the human soul."
Read
July 11, 2008It was fun, but I still liked the idea about the thing more than the thing itself.
October 6, 2011
Just started this after meaning to for several years - Pessoa describes the experience of writing and living with the heteronyms. Will write more later.
May 3, 2016
Considering how much I loved the Book of Disquiet and Richard Zenith's Selected Prose, a little disappointed by this one.
January 4, 2024
The first half on aesthetics and literary critiques between Pessoa’s imagined heteronyms bored me to tears but the latter fictions/journals were mystical.
The “Always Astonished” section induced a strange sense of depersonalization:
“Having definite and certain opinions, instincts, passions, and a known and fixed character - all this adds up to the horror of turning our soul into a fact, of materialising it, making it eternal. Living is a secret and fluid state of being ignorant of things and of oneself - and the only style of life appropriate and comforting to a wise person.
…Our personality must be unfathomable, even to ourselves; our duty then is always to keep dreaming and to include ourselves in our dreams soo that it is impossible to hold opinions about ourselves.”
The “Always Astonished” section induced a strange sense of depersonalization:
“Having definite and certain opinions, instincts, passions, and a known and fixed character - all this adds up to the horror of turning our soul into a fact, of materialising it, making it eternal. Living is a secret and fluid state of being ignorant of things and of oneself - and the only style of life appropriate and comforting to a wise person.
…Our personality must be unfathomable, even to ourselves; our duty then is always to keep dreaming and to include ourselves in our dreams soo that it is impossible to hold opinions about ourselves.”
October 13, 2015
I read less than half the essays, focusing on essays from the first 4 sections. Heteronyms, Sensationism, Literature and the Artist, and the Manipulation of Sensibility. In general I found the essays to be somewhat lazy and rough, like reading a journal entry. I paid special attention to the letters to Marinetti and the English editor, since in these Pessoa was forced to articulate his ideas to a higher standard in order to be suitable for another person's consumption. But honestly I didn't enjoy them.
February 16, 2017
There's something Nietzschean about this.
April 14, 2023
Some time after reading his opus ("Disquiet"), I was in search of more of Pessoa's prose, and so stumbled upon this book of critique, reviews, and observations, with a long, political short story thrown in for good (but not that good) measure. The first section of this book is primarily concerned with Pessoa expounding upon his noms de plume , which was entertaining primarily because, while it's not unusual to write under a pseudonym, to create an entire coterie of alter-egos and then write critiques about them from OTHER alter-egos is, well, a chef's kiss of meta.
I felt the section dealing with his critiques was a bit flat, and the short story, a very-thinly veiled fictional defense of anarchism, was fine, but didn't require 30+ pages. The only truly "Pessoan" section of the book, for those of you looking for something akin to the observations made in the Book of Disquiet, is the last one, 20 or so pages of short reflections which give us some insight into the man and his perceived place in the world.
In sum, good for a completist, but not required reading for anyone else.
I felt the section dealing with his critiques was a bit flat, and the short story, a very-thinly veiled fictional defense of anarchism, was fine, but didn't require 30+ pages. The only truly "Pessoan" section of the book, for those of you looking for something akin to the observations made in the Book of Disquiet, is the last one, 20 or so pages of short reflections which give us some insight into the man and his perceived place in the world.
In sum, good for a completist, but not required reading for anyone else.
Read
January 14, 2026The sections on Pessoa’s understanding of heteronyms were quite interesting, but not much of the rest of this did anything for me.
The editor/translator here fails to give enough context or justification for why these selections were included or how they fit into Pessoa’s life and other writings.
The editor/translator here fails to give enough context or justification for why these selections were included or how they fit into Pessoa’s life and other writings.
March 22, 2021
Pessoa contained many things, but certainly not the non-philosopher that he claimed to be.
January 4, 2024
"The wish is similarly to conjoin remnants of some illusory self with a new undiluted self against the disintegrations of time."
A fine introduction to Pessoa's work. Particularly enjoyed the last section of the book "Always Astonished: A Journal".
A fine introduction to Pessoa's work. Particularly enjoyed the last section of the book "Always Astonished: A Journal".
September 19, 2017
Pessoa is quite a profound man. His writings could be classified as personal theoretical monologues, or perhaps philosophical literary meanderings. I'm any case, it's not just entertaining to read what he has to say on the failure that is Shakespeare, and the Anarchist Banker. There is so much truth to what he's writing, that his stories could fit into a prose book and a journal. I will always think of Pessoa when futurist, abstract poetry is the topic.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews