To Be Renamed... Book Club discussion

We will meet on Wednesday, April 27th at Biddle's Escape (7:00 pm - 9:00 pm) to discuss Fernando Pessoa's posthumous experimental... something-or-other, The Book of Disquiet. It was published in 1982, 47 years after Pessoa's death, and apparently Pessoan critics (because of course there's such a thing!) cannot agree on how the book should be organized. My interest is piqued!

Wikipedia says "the book is a fragmentary lifetime project, left unedited by the author, who introduced it as a 'factless autobiography'."

If you cannot make it, feel free to share your thoughts here so we can include them at our meeting!

People might want to be aware that the two most readily available English translations are apparently significantly different. The Penguin Classics edition, translated by Richard Zenith, is much longer at 544 pages. The Serpent's Tail Classics edition, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, is exactly half as long at 272 pages! I have seen reviews extolling the virtues of both. It might be interesting if some people read the shorter version?

Interesting! I always wonder why there are such differences between translations. I still have to find my copy but I think I have the Zenith translation.

Yes, I think this is the most extreme variation I've seen, other than outright abridgment. From comments I have seen, there may be two reasons. First (maybe you can confirm this), the Zenith version may have broken each item into a chapter format with blank space between each "chapter." Since there are lots of these, it could add up to a lot of blank space (in the Zenith version.) Second, the material is fragmentary enough that a lot of discretion about content was left in the hands of the translator, and Costa may have just been more selective. I have the Costa version.

Hey, everyone, I don't know that I'll be able to make this meeting this month. I can't seem to find the copy I swear I have, and the one I requested from the library still hasn't come in. I refuse to buy another copy because I know I already own this. I still want to read it, but may not be able to participate in the meeting. I might still come by to hear all of your thoughts, but won't have anything to contribute. :(

El wrote: "Hey, everyone, I don't know that I'll be able to make this meeting this month. I can't seem to find the copy I swear I have, and the one I requested from the library still hasn't come in. I refuse ..."

If you get a copy in time to dip into parts of it for even a day or so I for one would be interested to hear your thoughts. I can already see that I will not be all the way through by next Wed. It's so fragmentary that I have decided that trying to plow through to the end would be doing a disfavor to both myself and the material. So I don't think completion equates to contribution, nor vice versa.

Thanks for that, Dallas. I will definitely at least come by then, whether or not I actually get my hands on a copy before then.