The Book of Disquiet

The Book of Disquiet explores the relationship between the imagination and reality. In dreaming, imagining, and writing, Bernardo Soares finds not only an escape from life’s monotony, but a space in which to weave beauty, meaning, and hope out of the chaotic and often oppressive raw material of daily life. Bernardo Soares’s detached narration enacts his constant preoccupation with dreaming. Translator Richard Zenith notes that the “writing is impersonal and the narrative voice ethereal” (xiv), stylistic choices that capture Soares’s retreat from the life of action and ambition in favor of the life of the mind. Throughout the novel, Soares repeatedly underscores the importance of dreaming—by which he means primarily daydreaming and conscious imagination—to survival. His near obsession with the topic arises from his reliance on inventing fictions to withstand a material life circumscribed by societal expectations and limitations—personified by Vasques, the boss whose tedious expectations Soares both resents and depends on for stability and structure.

Repeated images of Soares sitting in his squalid room, staring out the window, lying in bed, or wandering the city—all while lost in thought—convey his aversion to daily life.