The 20th century was great for producing this sort of epic hero- the tiny and anonymous man who contains multitudes within him, and who can only exist and fight his meager battles within the smaller scale frameworks that were increasingly hard to come by in that century. Yet, reading the words 90 years later- and there’s no doubt more of his writing will be available when we’ve reached the centennial- I feel connected to the little man in Lisbon who refuses to be hemmed in by his small size. He was an isolated man, by choice and character much of the book is about this isolation. * Soares was a meager assistant bookkeeper in Lisbon who wrote these words in 1930, and for him, the night was the time of freedom and art. I look up at the great sky and the many stars and the beating of the wings of a splendid freedom shakes my whole body.”Īnd we believe it. “I go to my window that looks onto the narrow street. In his posthumous Book of Disquiet, Bernardo Soares meditates on some lines by the Portuguese poet Alberto Caeiro:Īfter he reads these lines, Soares tells us:
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