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A review by sunshine42
Jurnalul unui om dezamăgit by W.N.P. Barbellion
5.0
TL;DR
Reading this journal, "The journal of a disappointed man", and finishing it will feel like you've made a friend and then lost him. You will get to know the author intimately and most likely get attached to him. His ambitions, struggles with life and death, and lyrical way of revealing the world, make this a pleasant read (I can almost imagine how enraged he would be by this adjective haha).
28 January 2023
My last "conversation" with Barbellion
It has been a few years since I've written a Goodreads review, unfortunately. And this feels less like a review and more like a journal entry, but given the book, I believe it is quite fitting.
I started reading the book as a "natural" choice following two other books, a novel and a journal, where a character in the first book and the author himself in the second, had to deal with a diagnostic and the knowledge that they will die within a few years.
A few days after starting this book, I was suggested the spectre of a gloomy diagnosis myself and while I was rather optimistic with the outcome, I couldn't help thinking about the worst case, with the dark shape of death slowly starting to emerge down my road, sooner than I would have hoped. This fundamentally changed my relationship with the book, from an intellectual exercise to actually having to learn and apply what I will find within its pages, feeling like I wanted to desperately grab the author's hand and hold it tight, preparing for the storm that was to come.
Nevertheless, as I was continuing my read, the gloomy prospect that was haunting me vanished into the best scenario I could hope for, and the spectre of death was nowhere near me...apart from the pages of the book.
But then something even stranger happened, which might be due to my reading the Romanian translation. There were very many sentences, passages, which, had I encountered them on the sporadic pieces of paper I sometimes note my thoughts on, I could've sworn were written by me ! I was astonished by how similar his lyrical way of noting events or little things in life, was to mine. One evening I even entertained the ludicrous thought that maybe his soul is mine, returned to this life once again, reading its own journal ! And, ridiculously enough, many pages later he encounters the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff and feels about her journal the way I feel about his ! I couldn't help but start laughing, noting to get my hands on her journal too and see how I feel. Is this the third journey of this soul into this world ? Three is such a beautiful digit. And some of the ways in which his mind plagued him, are no longer present now!
I wonder if his grave's location is known. If I go there, will my soul tremble when near it, "the dust, the atoms buried deep in the ground there, they were our home a long time ago.."
Maybe it's time for a fundamental change !
And do you see, how all I've talked about was me ! And not the book. Barbellion would have been proud, or at least could relate.
All in all, after finishing the book I feel so strange. Like I've lost a friend I never met, but whom I know rather well. Over many lunch breaks and quiet evenings I would find out about how Barbellion's days went, how he felt about this or that, snippets of his life, mind, reactions, thoughts. And now it is over, he is gone yet again, he died once more, this time in my mind.
Reading this journal, "The journal of a disappointed man", and finishing it will feel like you've made a friend and then lost him. You will get to know the author intimately and most likely get attached to him. His ambitions, struggles with life and death, and lyrical way of revealing the world, make this a pleasant read (I can almost imagine how enraged he would be by this adjective haha).
28 January 2023
My last "conversation" with Barbellion
It has been a few years since I've written a Goodreads review, unfortunately. And this feels less like a review and more like a journal entry, but given the book, I believe it is quite fitting.
I started reading the book as a "natural" choice following two other books, a novel and a journal, where a character in the first book and the author himself in the second, had to deal with a diagnostic and the knowledge that they will die within a few years.
A few days after starting this book, I was suggested the spectre of a gloomy diagnosis myself and while I was rather optimistic with the outcome, I couldn't help thinking about the worst case, with the dark shape of death slowly starting to emerge down my road, sooner than I would have hoped. This fundamentally changed my relationship with the book, from an intellectual exercise to actually having to learn and apply what I will find within its pages, feeling like I wanted to desperately grab the author's hand and hold it tight, preparing for the storm that was to come.
Nevertheless, as I was continuing my read, the gloomy prospect that was haunting me vanished into the best scenario I could hope for, and the spectre of death was nowhere near me...apart from the pages of the book.
But then something even stranger happened, which might be due to my reading the Romanian translation. There were very many sentences, passages, which, had I encountered them on the sporadic pieces of paper I sometimes note my thoughts on, I could've sworn were written by me ! I was astonished by how similar his lyrical way of noting events or little things in life, was to mine. One evening I even entertained the ludicrous thought that maybe his soul is mine, returned to this life once again, reading its own journal ! And, ridiculously enough, many pages later he encounters the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff and feels about her journal the way I feel about his ! I couldn't help but start laughing, noting to get my hands on her journal too and see how I feel. Is this the third journey of this soul into this world ? Three is such a beautiful digit. And some of the ways in which his mind plagued him, are no longer present now!
I wonder if his grave's location is known. If I go there, will my soul tremble when near it, "the dust, the atoms buried deep in the ground there, they were our home a long time ago.."
Maybe it's time for a fundamental change !
And do you see, how all I've talked about was me ! And not the book. Barbellion would have been proud, or at least could relate.
All in all, after finishing the book I feel so strange. Like I've lost a friend I never met, but whom I know rather well. Over many lunch breaks and quiet evenings I would find out about how Barbellion's days went, how he felt about this or that, snippets of his life, mind, reactions, thoughts. And now it is over, he is gone yet again, he died once more, this time in my mind.