In Which Fernando Pessoa Punctures My Heart

I am a well of gestures never made, of words never thought or spoken, of dreams I forgot to dream until the end.

Fernando Pessoa

I have never before considered studying Portuguese. In the cosmos of my bookshelves, where rest languages from Sumerian to Swahili to Bugotu, there has always been a blank space as far as Portuguese is concerned. I simply was disinterested. All that changed when Fernando Pessoa and his masterpiece The Book of Disquiet cleaved to my soul, scattering my reservations to the wind like so many desiccated leaves in the ruminating gloom of autumn.

I am halfway through The Book of Disquiet, and it is probably the greatest book I have ever read. Nothing will ever replace The Call of the Wild in my life, the way it anchored me in a chaotic world, the way it taught my heart to howl, howl, howl. But this book, this passion coming forth from Pessoa, has enchanted me with its lyrical language and sheer, uninhibited beauty. It is pure poetry.

Even so, deciding how to classify The Book of Disquiet is a labor. Pessoa, or, rather, one of his heteronyms Bernardo Soares, writes that, “This book is the autobiography of someone who never existed.” Later, he continues: “This book is a single state of soul, analyzed from every angle, traversed in every possible direction.” It is nothing less than the meditations of an angelic ball of clay, tugged by words this way, pulled by harmonies that way.

Swan of rhythmic disquiet, lyre of immortal hours, hesitant harp of mythical griefs — you are the Expected One and the Lost One, who both caresses and wounds, and who gilds our joy with pain and crowns with roses our sadness.

And to think, I picked selected this book because of its cover, a colorful configuration of purples and stubborn reds and a wink of green. I am annotating it with a yellow pen. These colors are crucial, as, reading The Book of Disquiet, my mouth is full of electric blue, a stone upon my tongue, it wily swings of words sauntering through curtains of saliva. Color is a letter and a word is a collection of colors and tastes. You must know, the first time I ever saw sounds, I was alive with the realization that this was a defining moment of my life. I was so happy. Blinking in the light of the blues of these pages, I have that same sensation.

I read this book in my library, surrounded by the shelves that were such a pain to construct. I keep my heels propped on the footstool, highlighting evert single page. It is slow moving through this book as I pick my way through the frothing swamps of its majesty. I don’t mind this creeping pace. In fact, I savor every page, and I am hoarding them like a miser. What will I do when I am finished, plopped back into the world a changed woman? Will I be broken violin, rosining my splintered bow with the hopes of returning to its pages?

I know that I have a life-dream of reading this book in its exquisite Portuguese. I even ordered my first textbook yesterday, the Practice Makes Perfect series, a collection of educational materials that I adore (I am currently working my way through their mathematics offerings). I like studying the machine of language, its taut grammar and elixir of meaning, as though language itself were a light contained in a mechanical body. Portuguese, which I associate with the color yellow, is going to be a new adventure, like suns and candlewicks and flowers.

Sometimes, when I read The Book of Disquiet, I envision myself in the middle of a sea shanty, with swooping sounds gliding left and right over the water and rippling my body. Other times, I think about Pessoa’s constant talk of dreams and think about The Diary of Anaïs Nin, which shares a lot of the same patter of the unrealized, subconscious world. Perhaps this is a Modernist shanty, one suckling on the milky path to enlightenment. I certainly have found my goat trail to beauty, memory, flickering insights. It’s all universal.