[HN Gopher] The literary life of Pessoa's alter ego (2020)
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       The literary life of Pessoa's alter ego (2020)
        
       Author : prismatic
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-01-05 00:13 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lithub.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
        
       | bshepard wrote:
       | From the Book of Disquiet: "I see life as a roadside inn where I
       | have to stay until the coach from the abyss pulls up. I don't
       | know where it will take me, because I don't know anything. I
       | could see this inn as a prison, for I'm compelled to wait in it;
       | I could see it as a social centre, for it's here that I meet
       | others. But I'm neither impatient nor common. I leave who will to
       | stay shut up in their rooms, sprawled out on beds where they
       | sleeplessly wait, and I leave who will to chat in the parlours,
       | from where their songs and voices conveniently drift out here to
       | me. I'm sitting at the door, feasting my eyes and ears on the
       | colours and sounds of the landscape, and I softly sing - for
       | myself alone - wispy songs I compose while waiting."
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | Also from the Book of Disquiet:
         | 
         | > Put your hands together, place them between mine and listen
         | to me, my love.
         | 
         | > In the soft, consoling voice of a confessor offering advice,
         | I want to tell you how the desire to achieve something far
         | outstrips what we actually achieve.
         | 
         | > I want to recite to you the litany of despair while you
         | listen intently.
         | 
         | > There is no work of art that could not have been more
         | perfect. Read line by line, no poem, however great, has no
         | single line that could not be improved upon, no episode that
         | could not be more intense, and the whole is never so perfect
         | that it could not be even more perfect.
         | 
         | > Woe betide the artist who notices this, who one day thinks
         | this. His work can never again be a joy, he will never again
         | sleep peacefully. He'll become a young man bereft of youth and
         | grow old discontentedly.
         | 
         | Good luck on those projects in 2023 everybody!
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-05 23:01 UTC)