I have a strange book recommendation for you. It is "The Book of Disquiet" by Fernando Pessoa. This diminutive volume (Penguin Classics) is an amalgam of sometimes short, sometimes long stream-of-consciousness chapters that are supposed to constitute an "auto-biography without facts." In fact, the book is entirely fictional, but that isn't the point.What amazes and astounds is the alternately lyrical, stealthily chilling and by turns incredibly insightful musings of this unique work of fiction. Typical American novels tend to praise the outlandish, the famous, the cheap, the flashy and the superlative. Pessoa, however, writes in praise of the obscure, the dismal, the small, the ordinary and the sometimes desperate inner life that most of us ignore.
What emerges is a testament to the brilliance of life lived in ordinary, even bleak circumstances, circumstances that mirror and analogize the sometimes grueling inner turmoil of the average thinking person. The average thinking person I refer to, of course, if the working lawyer. Scratch the surface of a practicing lawyer and you will find a frustrated philosopher, a stunted author, a hyper-sensitive soul with a dramatic flair for observation. Lawyers will find a kindred spirit in Pessoa--one that rivals anyone's pursuit of knowledge, and of truth.
