It was an experience listening to your review of Pessoa's book. Thank you. You did a great job. I felt I learned something about you, and it was an excellent introduction to the work itself which I'm waiting to arrive from Ebay any day soon. Possibly, it's one of those books that finds you as much as you find it - the sort of book that becomes a milestone in one's life. I particularly related to your comment that often you felt that you didn't fully understand your own feelings until you started to talk about it to the viewer. This happens for me when I talk to my 80-year old partner - things that were unclear in my head suddenly make sense and have relevance to everything going on in our lives. I hope that makes sense. Again, my thanks. I can only encourage you across the generations and reassure you (if you need it) that what you are doing and the way that you appear to be thinking is really 'super-cool' and whatever you do, don't stop! Blessings - 'WART'

@mikereadstheworld

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for your wonderful comment and the encouragement! I didn't know anything about Fernando Pessoa until this Reading the World project. It's been so surprising to see how he continues to be read and loved by a select but devoted audience...well, I understand it now that I've read him. I am excited for you to read it and hope to hear your thoughts when you do. Indeed, it is a book that teaches one more about oneself than you even realize, just by the reactions and feelings it provokes. Truly your words mean so much and I treasure them.

@user-dx9nc2kn4s

11 ай бұрын

@@mikereadstheworld I'm still reading it and I'm not sure what I think about it. Sometimes it makes perfect sense and I wander off into some place in my mind and discover something, other times I'm wondering if I'm missing the point. I guess I need to buckle down and read it properly - airport lounges are not the best place for deeper thinking... perhaps. Blessings, Dude.

@mikereadstheworld

11 ай бұрын

@@user-dx9nc2kn4s I found reading it slowly, just a few entries a day was a good approach. Writing my thoughts in the margins was helpful too. I can see where you're coming from as I definitely did not resonate with or understand everything in it but the things I did enjoy really made me think. I learned a lot about myself by way of disagreement with some of the ideas in the book too!

Thank you! I've been googling about the book and stumbled across your channel. And really I love your project with books around the world! 💚

@mikereadstheworld

2 ай бұрын

I hope you can find some more things you like! I appreciate the comment.

I think it's critical to examine the author separate from the story. He endured close loss very early. It creates a sort of subhuman with sensory if not perceptive abilities. I think capacity creates a barrier versus a bridge because so many cannot evolve, endure, and expand all at the same like artists and writers. And it doesn't have to be their own personal pain/issue. Absolutely found refuge in this work.

@mikereadstheworld

4 ай бұрын

Great perspective!

Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet is among some of my long-time favorites, and you absolutely do it justice. Fantastic video. I particularly enjoy your point about the description of thought and dreaming in a way that almost seems purely formal-I think that articulates what’s so strange about this book perfectly. I’ll be pondering that and it’s implications for a while now, I can already tell.

@mikereadstheworld

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much! It was both a rewarding and exhausting read for sure. The strangeness is enhanced by the fact that it is virtually impossible to know how much of it reflects Fernando Pessoa's thoughts and how much is his invention in the mind of his heteronym Bernardo Soares. For that reason it is probably best to read it as a unified character, but maybe someone else would disagree?

@user-dx9nc2kn4s

Жыл бұрын

@@mikereadstheworld Perhaps it is the things we, as the reader relate to that says something about who we are? I'll let you know once it arrives, and I've read it.

A great work of Literature, Philosophy, Psychology, by beloved Pessoa. 🙏🐦

Good review of a good book. My opinion 😎 What i really liked about it was that you made a review mainly from Your point of view. From the point of view of a reader. And not of that of hat i would call a "book critic". What i mean is that most critic end up trying to reduce books with "pro forma" norms and labels and many never give us a part of themselves in the relation with the book. The "vocabulary" made up of lego ideas and categories that they use hides any sincerity that they may have tried to pass on to us. I know that i am also generalizing and reducing critics the same way as i "accuse" them but it is what i feel too many times when i read or ear a "professional review". So here it is. As for the book, i believe that Pessoa was totally aware of the disconnection to others, to humans need, to reality and strongly to belief that is shared in this book and it was one of the main reasons that he tried to wrote the book among many other motivations. You will note that many times when he goes on about dreaming or such a thing, he is not sharing some great truth as i have seen many "analysing". He is sharing his moments of weakness. He knows he is weak by using those endless verbose rationalities where he tries to make logical poetry of his own condition. Make meaning of what he cannot handle. But that is Pessoa. And that is why he used Bernardo Soares to present those part of himself. Bernardo is the ones who is speaking and rationalizing. Pessoa is the one who presents Bernardo. That doesn't mean that Bernardo is not part of Pessoa. On the contrary. This is what heteronyms are. Pessoa has other characters inside himself that present totally different views and experiences of the world in totally different writing styles Note that heteronyms are not some multiple personality disorder. They are just oneself reacting to the same things in totally different manners. It is a normal thing in any person. It just has different degrees of separations (or self awareness) on different persons. What Pessoa did is to try to differentiate those self experiences in different characters and give them more expression by naming them, by giving them a "pseudo biography" and by giving them books and poems to try to manifest in reality. Note that Pessoa is known to have an history with mysticism in his early years. Everyone has an history. So dreaming and inaction is not the only thing he has known. What he describes in the book is a condition very common in over-analysing "atheist intellectuals" that grew up inside a strict belief system but abandoned it because of their infinitely need for consistency. They know how much what "we" would call self-delusion (belief, faith) is important to any meaning and how life can seem so empty without such meaning. But they cannot ever really return from their self created purgatory. This condition is very different from what i see in many that grew up as "atheists". Interestingly enough many of them seem to use it as a new belief system. This is easily seen in their main type of argumentations and how they endlessly seem to measure their "system" against others. But they rarely speak or seem to have put their eyes on the Abysm. I would just resume the Book of Disquiet as a book about the sadness of Pessoa. And everyone who has some sadness will find something of themselves in there. This book (and most "good books") is supposed to be a struggle to the readers. If there is no struggle, dialogue, disagreement or doubt then there is no need to read it. That is why it is so hard to write a "good book" when the author seem to not want to respect the reader's own lack of energy to deal with him. By the way, as a disclaimer i must say that i am Portuguese and i am also one of those "extreme sceptics" (or some other preferred label that one may like better) like him.

@mikereadstheworld

8 ай бұрын

Wow! I love this. I am in sympathy with everything you wrote here, and you summed up the experience of reading this book perfectly. As you say, I didn't leave the book with a profound realization or truth about life, but rather with the sensation that I had spent a month as a roommate to a strange, brilliant, and lonely person who I appreciate but would never want to imitate and would never know how to help. The book plants the seeds of reflection, it doesn't give you picked flowers of truth, If I may use a metaphor, that just came to mind. Very nice what you said about my presentation in thr video being a "reader's experience" rather than a critics. Good self reflection for me as well, I never thought how that could be a strength! That may give me more confidence to lean into that approach going forward in this project. I suppose I also often seek out random videos of people stumbling their way through ideas about our favorite books, and it gives me some comfort. Thank you again for an insightful comment. I haven't reponded to all of your points but I do appreciate and enjoyed reading and thinking about all of them. You wrote all of it wonderfully!

I'm intrigued enough to want to buy this one sooner rather than later. When I saw the title, I thought 'disquiet' was such a strange descriptor for a book. But as you described your thoughts as you read this, I realized it is a perfect label. It certainly seems like anyone would find this book disquieting, and as you suggest, it is probably intended as such. The other striking thought is this idea of tedium. As you described it, it sounds to me like it is strongly reflects Durkheim's ideas in his book titled Suicide (1898) where he notes rising suicides rates and how they are driven by anomie. (estrangement from society and it's norms leading to an extreme feeling of isolation) I suppose we'll never know if he was influenced by Durkheim or if he is simply a profound case of what Durkheim was theorizing about. Thanks for reviewing this book!

@mikereadstheworld

11 ай бұрын

Interesting (potential) connection! I should say I don't think this book ever goes extremely dark in the Durkheim sense, but it does communicate the mind of an extremely isolated and lonely person well enough that it never needs to. There's so much in here it acts as a mirror. Would love to hear more of your thoughts if you choose to read it!

That was great. I was on the fence if I should read this as a philosophy book. Glad I found this vlog, I was about to start the audio book but now I'm buying a physical copy. I want to have a conversation with Fernando now.

@mikereadstheworld

3 ай бұрын

Yes! Take your time with it. It is definitely somewhere in the ether between poetry and philosophy, and at the same time, kind of like reading someone's diary.

Hello! Interesting take, glad I found your channel. I'm reading Jull Costa's translation of the Book of Disquiet now and have ordered the Richard Zenith translation you reviewed. I've marked up nearly every other page of Costa's translation myself similar as you stated you have of Z's trans-. Perhaps I am more introverted as I find this book and Bernardo Soares as fully sympatico. I find a completely fleshed out person who is fascinating, flawed, contradictory (I think of Whitman's "do I contradict myself ..." ) and more 3-dimensional than the words that make this person come to life. The philosophy fleshed out resonates with me and I think our time. I'll finish tomorrow and spend the next 2 or 3 days re-reading marked up passages and notebooking my highlights and notes for further insights. Before I dive into Z's translation and arrangement for comparison. I feel it's worth the effort, as I'm very excited about the Book of Disquiet and Pessoa. I know I'll be coming back to your channel for more reviews . Thanks. James.

@mikereadstheworld

5 ай бұрын

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, James. I have been really surprised to hear about how resonant Pessoa is with so many people. He was one of the very first that I knew for certain I was going to read when starting the Reading the World project, and it was mainly the cover and the short philisophical chapters that grabbed my attention. Despite having my disagreements with the book and concerns about some of the thought patterns being mentally unhealthy or isolating, I find that this tension enhances the reading experience-and as you say, this makes it resonate even more with our time. And all while knowing that Pessoa is hiding himself, it's so easy to forget that Soares is his own character!

Boring and pointless book.

@pbskidsnetwork

4 күн бұрын

Fernando Pessoa himself wouldn’t disagree with that