Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls of gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
First poem of 35 Sonnets of Pessoa, 1918
When I started reading Como Fernando Pessoa pode mudar a sua vida - primeiras lições (How Fernando Pessoa might change your life - first lessons) by Carlos Pittella and Jerónimo Pizarro, I didn't know it would equally change my evening. The moment I immersed myself into its first chapters I couldn't stop.
Every chapter unveiled a facet of Pessoa I and, I personally believe, many people may have never heard of or associated with him - such as the invention of board games, caricatures and sketches, astrological maps (he designed himself), lists of a myriad of themes to be further explored, translated and put together, just to mention a few.
This book is a little gem, that everyone should read, not so much to change one's life but to get to know a little bit better who Fernando Pessoa may have been (part of his huge written legacy hasn't yet been classified) beyond the poet we have got accustomed to identifying him as.
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