FERNANDO PESSOA 101

I. Anatomy of Initiation

Freezing fire. Scorching ice.

My initiation to Fernando Pessoa, Portugal's national artist (or shouldn't we say Portugal's national art?), was established on contradictions - of terms, of feelings, of essences - that were as haunting as a beautiful nightmare and as troubling as a scary daydream. The first time I tested his literary waters, they were very, very cold, yet somehow, somewhere, there was a transition where I was smelted by extreme heat and, as cast iron, was shaped by the sometimes strong, sometimes gentle, arms of this engaging blacksmith.

Don't just read. Feel his words; for once be a literary masochist and suffer the highest blessings of literary torment, of language enclosed in passion but captioned in irony.

I'm astounded whenever I finish something. Astounded and distressed. My perfectionist instinct should inhibit me from finishing; it should inhibit me from even beginning. But I get distracted and start doing something. What I achieve is not the product of an act of my will but of my will's surrender. I begin because I don't have the strength to think; I finish because I don't have the courage to quit. This book is my cowardice.
- Text 152, The Book of Disquiet