Tag: literature

It is irritating, but perhaps simultaneously necessary, to make concessions to the practical world in literary creation. It is natural that there is an urge in the intellectual to isolate himself in abstractions as pleasurable as the intrusions of everyday banality into his work are unpleasant. However, these seeming stains constitute a necessary link with the reality that allows literature to play its aggrandizing role. To isolate oneself on the intellectual plane is to blend in with the philosophers whose idle works have never served as advice to anyone.

It is very difficult to judge the inconsequential artist, who has the now as his only reality and adopts a financially irresponsible stance. Whether one admits it or not, financial prudence is a bet. Frugality, thrift, slowly building a small patrimony is to bet that there will be a future and that, in it, it will be possible to dedicate oneself entirely to art, even if not a penny is extracted from it. The truth is that, under no circumstances, the artist can allow himself to waste the now, and must always work on the best ideas he has, even if for a short time, far from the ideal; because, just as the future is a possibility, there is also the possibility that he will never enjoy such “ideal” conditions.

A century later, it seems almost a crime the insistent recommendations of the lady Maria Madalena to her irresponsible son, asking him to find a job and devote the bulk of his days to working for his own sustenance. There is the very prudent common sense in perspective! And we are left wondering what would become of Fernando Pessoa if he yielded to his mother’s prudence and acted like a normal person. It is true, it is true: Pessoa sank because of extraordinary stupidity; and he had to pay for it. But how? How to force such a man to waste himself in trivialities? Such a man always asserts himself the moment he contradicts that which is convenient for him, the moment he completely distances himself from that which is expected of him. It is preferable to live as a deadbeat, or rather, it is preferable to die than to destroy his genius by conforming to normality.

I have recorded, in these Notes, how amazed I was to go through the three-month diary kept by Pessoa at the age of twenty-four. I remember comparing him to myself at that age, and saying that his routine, to an animal of my species, seemed like literature. What to say, now, when reading the same phase described by Richard Zenith? Fernando Pessoa, no doubt, was much more concerned than I am with posterity. Burning in months an inheritance that could afford him, according to his biographer, a modest life for several years; immersed in debt, rejecting outright the idea of having a “normal” job and instead writing a letter asking a multimillionaire philanthropist for money… This is the kind of attitude that makes a biography worthwhile! And to think that I never thought of such an idea! Instead of sending CVs, send letters asking for money! There is no arguing about how much more fun a biography like this is: how can it be compared to another one of someone who chooses to clock in from Monday to Friday, in an evident lack of creativity? Not to mention the inheritance, which stupidly incinerated makes the biography much more interesting to us…