Book Destiny

Book Destiny

I'm beginning to believe that books are meant to be read at a certain moment or time. A decade ago a friend gifted me Blindness by Jose Saramago but it was too dark and depressing so I refused to read it. I like happy endings specially back then because my real life seemed tragic enough or so I thought. The book remained with me for 10 years, untouched. Yes I know I'm really good at saving things- specially books. Anyways I digress, one day I found myself doing my first solo trip and the destination was Portugal. My goal was to see beautiful things, eat and drink delicious things, learn  history and have new experiences but specially to read and write. Somehow the thought came into my mind that I ought to read a book by a Portuguese author. A way to pay respect to the place, read from an author of that place to understand the culture and its people better and to appreciate and celebrate their literary achievements. This is now a tradition actually.

I began doing research online about Portuguese author's because I thought Saramago was south American. He popped up immediately in my searches as the most renowned author of Portugal.
Furthermore there's a museum in his honor in Lisbon called Casa dos Bicos. It was perfect I could read the book and visit his museum which was a 15 minute walk from my hostel. It felt like the stars had aligned in my favor.



The best part was getting to read the book in it's actual setting. Looking down over the streets where in the book people were losing their sight and panicking. It was like this story was happening on some street corner in Lisbon as I was reading it. It was an experience like no other. Hearing around me the language in which the characters spoke and seeing the faces of the characters of the book in the strangers that walked by below me. The street corners, cars and houses were all before me like a dream.I was in their world not them in mine.


The second time I was going to Portugal, I was looking for another book to read. I was thinking about going with Saramago again perhaps the second part of Blindness called Seeing. I was looking for a sign I wanted it to be special like the first time. In my heart I knew that Seeing wasn't the right book. I went with it anyway. The second day after I arrived in Lisbon I decided to go on a walking tour of the city. I had been on a tour like this before but I find that different guides have different knowledge and stories to tell. They also follow different routes as well. On that walk the tour guide took us to the statue of Fernando Pessoa and introduced him and his work. A couple days later I bought The Book of Disquiet and I read the book throughout my whole trip. I've become a huge fan of his work. I recently read "I have More Souls that One" and I'm currently reading "A Little Larger than the Entire Universe". He's now one of my all time favorite writers and I hope to read all his works. A couple months ago I was looking through my tickets and booklets that I collected from my trip to Portugal. On the ticket to Livreria Lella in Porto was a recommendation to purchase the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Even then somehow Pessoa was in the cards for me I just didn't see it.



It was late one evening and I had fallen down the rabbit hole of the internet. I usually get curious about the most random things and start watching the most random videos and reading articles about all topics. Somehow I decided to follow up on one of my favorite Colombian actresses named Andrea Lopez and I found out she has an instagram account so I started following her. I  came across this quote: "I like sweet people. I like clear situations and for all that, I walk more and more alone." the connection was immediate! I had to know and read more from Caio Fernando Abreu. Everything I found was in Portuguese except for a translation of one of his short stories called "Beyond the Point" which I randomly found translated in English here. His writing is amazing and I wish I could read more but I would have to learn Portuguese to be able to as all the novels I could find for purchase were in Portuguese.

It seems like in life a lot of the most amazing things happen at the most unexpected times. Sometimes you just have to be open. I look forward to new literary discoveries in a happenstance kind of fashion.