Tuesday, June 2, 2020

“With a cheap cigarette”


Fernando Pessoa, from text 400, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).

Perhaps the most dangerous passage in The Book of Disquiet, at least if you’re an ex-smoker subject to moments of nostalgia for a filthy habit you’d never return to, not even for one cigarette, not even for one puff.

Related reading
All OCA Pessoa posts (Pinboard)

comments: 7

Stefan said...

I wonder if Jeff Tweedy ever read Pessoa. Here are the opening lines from “Misunderstood”: “When you’re back in your old neighborhood/The cigarettes taste so good.”

Michael Leddy said...

I’d wonder too.

The old neighborhood also makes the madeleines taste better, no? :)

Stefan said...

Yes, but only till I recall la morte d’Albertine. Then I feel sad and need something a little stronger.

Michael Leddy said...

Maybe a nice piece of coffee cake? Drake’s? Entenmann’s?

Stefan said...

Methinks that a nice Charlotte Russe no-bake would do the trick. (I tried to work in “Godspeed” too, but no dice. Which reminds me: “cowlick”?)

Michael Leddy said...

Oh, the European (i.e., fancy-pants) kind of Charlotte Russe. Well, Godspeed!

Michael Leddy said...

Yes, cowlick works. Weird: methinks is a verb, but Godspeed is a noun. I would have thought it’s a verb — may God speed you along.