The Book of Disquiet - Rambling Readers

508 pages

English language

Published Dec. 26, 2002

ISBN:: 978-0-14-118304-6

(1 review)

The Book of Disquiet (Livro do Desassossego: Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guarda-livros na cidade de Lisboa) is a work by the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935). Published posthumously, The Book of Disquiet is a fragmentary lifetime project, left unedited by the author, who introduced it as a "factless autobiography." The publication was credited to Bernardo Soares, one of the author's alternate writing names, which he called semi-heteronyms, and had a preface attributed to Fernando Pessoa, another alternate writing name or orthonym.

9 editions

J. J. Zepfanman @...readers reviewed The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

Review of 'The Book of Disquiet' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I only got to skim through this book, but as others have noted, it's not really something that lends itself to being read from cover to cover in a few weeks. I had never heard of Pessoa when I picked this up - I was in the mood for a small paperback "biography" and thought this looked interesting.

At first, as I was reading it, Pessoa's thoughts seemed so random, but as I learned more about the "heteronyms" he wrote under, the complexity of his work quickly became apparent. I don't know how he managed to express such deep thoughts in the voice of a -- if only slightly -- different person. I'm not a voracious reader, but I can't think of another author who has created this kind of world of semi-autobiographical characters. Fascinating stuff.