Ibero 2016; 2016(83): 1–13

Soraya Nour Sckell*

Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos:
The Philosophy and Poetry of the Poetics of
Selfhood in the Work of Paulo Cardoso Jesus
DOI 10.1515/iber-2016-0006

Abstract: This essay analyzes how Paulo Cardoso Jesus translates in his poetry as
a narrative exercise the conception of the poetics of selfhood that he develops in
his philosophical work as a reflexive exercise in three dimensions: the ‘I that
produces itself’ (autonomy) in Órbitas; the ‘given Self’ (heteronomy) in Labirinto;
and the ‘dialogical Self’ in relation to the other in Caos. In Órbitas, Eva Ferreira
creates herself as if she were creating the universe. In Labirinto, she is confronted
with an external donor, her own body. In Caos, the skin, which is a metaphor for
all external data, takes on a dialogical shape – the touch is a metaphor for the
relationship with the other.

Keywords: Paulo Cardoso Jesus, philosophy and literature, phenomenology in

literature, selfhood, autonomy and heteronomy.

The poetic work of Paulo Cardoso Jesus can be perfectly defined by what Novalis
calls transcendental poetry, which is a mixture of philosophy and poetry. The
trilogy of the heteronymous character Eva Ferreira created by Cardoso Jesus in
Órbitas primitivas (2007, Daniel Faria Prize in 2007), Labirinto íntimo (2013, Nuno
Judice Prize in 2011) and Caos boca-a-boca (2014) translates into poetry what the
author calls the poetics of selfhood (the creation of oneself) in his philosophical
work. The concept of poiesis is understood here in the original sense as produc-
tion. What in the philosophical works appears to us reflexively is concrete and
unique in the poetry of Eva Ferreira, a lived experience. The issue of the self
emerges as the poetics of selfhood, an unceasing work regarding oneself, a work
of discovery and creation (Jesus1 2008 and 2010).

1 The author Paulo Cardoso Jesus signs his philosophical texts as Paulo Jesus and the literary
ones as Paulo Cardoso.

*Corresponding author: Soraya Nour Sckell, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras,

Centro de Filosofia, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 Lisboa, Portugal,
E ˗ Mail: snsckell@campus.ul.pt
 
 
2 Soraya Nour Sckell

As Kant focused on the complexity of the phenomenal character of the

scientific object to be known, this phenomenal object is the subject itself in the
philosophical studies on Kant by Cardoso Jesus. Husserl and Heidegger agreed
with Kant regarding the phenomenal character of the object to be known, but
insisted on thinking of phenomenality itself. Husserl (Brentano’s heir) focused on
intentionality and found relationships in the receptivity of the subject, by which
data constitute an object, that is, a thing-in-relation and not thing-in-itself. In
contrast, Cardoso Jesus studies the subject that has intentionality (Jesus 2008 and
2010). However, inspired by Lévinas (1974) and Anzieu (1995), Cardoso Jesus
develops a phenomenology of the skin (Jesus 2009, 2010, 2013a), as stated in
Órbitas and which becomes the central motif in Labirinto – the skin being a
metaphor for all external data – and which takes on a dialogical form in Caos –
the touch being a metaphor for the relationship with the other.
In his philosophical and poetic work, we thus see the poetics of selfhood being
exercised, a reflexive exercise in philosophy on the one hand and a narrative,
descriptive, singular, concrete exercise in poetic work on the other. The three
dimensions of this exercise are the ‘Self that produces itself’ (central motif in
Órbitas), the ‘Self which is given’ (central motif in Labirinto), and the ‘dialogical
Self in relation to the other’ (central motif in Caos). If an object affects me, what
matters for Cardoso Jesus is self-affectation (how I affect myself). Moreover, as in
the famous formula by Kant, the I think must be able to accompany all my
representations; otherwise, there would be a representation in myself that would
not be thought, that would not belong to me. However, there also appears the
finiteness of human reason, which requires synthesis and depends on being
affected. The Self (the I that thinks) is presence and construction. Existence cannot
be completely constructed. Intelligence attains its limits and Cardoso Jesus wants
to draw attention to passivity, a vulnerability, the main material of which is the
skin. It is the skin that has scars and wounds, that seeks and feels caresses; it is
the skin that burns in Labirinto and that both touches and is touched in Caos. In
such a way, the skin symbolizes the fundamental externality of all Self, that “tudo
se passa em mim como se fosse sobre mim”2, or:

Tudo arde sobre a pele.

e a pele sobre Tudo.3 (Cardoso 2014: 7, and also 8 and 10)

2 “everything happens inside me as if it were on me.” [The translations in the footnotes are mine.]
3 “Everything burns on the skin. / and the skin on Everything.”
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 3

The touch becomes the absolute form of existence: “Somos Absoluto tacto de
coração no coração”4 (Cardoso 2014: 76). It is because to touch and be touched
symbolize the foundation of relationships with each other that Eva implores:
“Toca-me e salva-me das fracturas”5 (Cardoso 2014: 77). The mouth-to-mouth
relationship simultaneously symbolizes dialogue, loving touch and saving breath.
Cardoso Jesus conceives a subject that produces itself only upon exercising,
which emerges only in the act. This exercise is poetic production. To think for
oneself requires exercise, experience and experimentation, in which “the life of
the self and the virtue of thought” come together. The philosophical and poetic
work of Cardoso Jesus thus shows “thought in work”, work in which the most
abstract thinking becomes the most concrete and the most universal becomes the
most singular. Thought is more abstract and more universal by simply enouncing
the pure act of thinking common to all thought, the act that precedes every
cognitive operation, the pure form of every judgment and possible proposition. Its
concrete and particular character derives from the first person’s radical intimacy
as well as from materiality, concrete and particular, that belongs to something
real to which thought is applied in order to exist while thinking, for thought is the
realization of an act and even the act of a will and a pure concept must act on
something, a substance. By questioning the I itself, Cardoso Jesus questions the
exercise of the Self. This exercise of the Self is the last instance in which the Self
practises, feels and experiences itself as well as hallucinates, in Cardoso Jesus’
words, as if the Self were the absolute origin (Jesus 2008 and 2010).
It is this hallucination of thinking of oneself as the absolute origin that gains
poetic shape (in the literary sense of the term) in Órbitas, in which Eva Ferreira
feels as though she were the beginning of the universe through nebulae, mists
and fogs:

Esta manhã acordei vaga e imensa como uma cidade desabitada

[…]
E sou a bruma indissolúvel envolvente etéreo de nada
Num universo de nebulosas.
Sou bruma […]
[…] Eu atmosfera densa de ausências
[…]
Eu Só Névoa6 (Cardoso 2007: 14).

4 “We are the absolute touch of the heart in the heart.”

5 “Touch me and save me from fractures.”
6 “This morning I awoke vague and vast as an uninhabited city […] / And I’m the indissoluble
mist surrounding ethereal nothingness / In a clouded universe. / I am mist […] / […] I am the dense
atmosphere of absences / […] I am mere Mist.”
4 Soraya Nour Sckell

In this Genesis without God, without a Creator, the creature is the creator created
by itself. Neither the creature of God nor created from Adam, Eva is the first
woman in the most absolute sense that autonomy can have: she is the beginning
of the universe.
The absolute autonomy that appears at this moment of construction of herself
is also what explains the literary activity. The construction of oneself as a work
equates to writing. “Não sei e sinto sede”7, says Eva (Cardoso 2007: 12). This thirst
for knowledge cannot find any book that can quench it. The book that can quench
it can be no book given by others. It can only be a book written by herself or infinite
writing rather than a finite book with an ending, which substantiates itself.

A minha fome procura um livro que não encontra.

[…]
Mas talvez não haja ainda o livro da minha fome e falta que
A própria fome a fome de livro seja posto em livro
Continuarei faminto a fiar silêncios
Até que a minha fome se faça escrita
[…]
O livro é impossível de haver: só há escrita
Pois esta é o tempo aberto de todos os fluxos8 (Cardoso 2007: 49).

The writing in Caos, however, undergoes a formal change: the use of the episto-
lary device. The book is organized as a sequence of letters in which there is no
proper identification of the interlocutors, but only a disclosure of the emotional
bond between the correspondents. One might even imagine that Eva writes to
herself. However, one can also imagine that it is a poetic dissimulation of the love
relationship itself, which is always on the lookout for an encounter, a word, a
gesture in motion between me and the other. The correspondence as a form
already means this movement.

As minhas cartas são a verdade toda desta cadeia de coisas

finitas
em movimento imanente: são o corpo do mundo
no meu corpo9 (Cardoso 2014: 17).

7 “I do not know and I have thirst.”

8 “My hunger seeks a book that it does not find. / […] / But perhaps there isn’t t yet the book to
satisfy my hunger, and what is missing is that / The hunger itself, the hunger for a book, be put
into a book / I continue to be famished, spinning silences / Until my hunger becomes written / […]
/ It is impossible for the book to exist: there is only writing / As this is the time open to all floods.”
9 “My letters are the whole truth of this chain of finite things / in immanent motion: they are the
body of the world / in my body.”
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 5

Furthermore, this correspondence is cyclically organised, with each cycle corres-

ponding to a year. In each season, a letter is sent and received: eight letters in the
first year (or cycle) and another eight in the second. A cycle always indicates
repetition and differentiation (Deleuze 2003), which is an image that is in Órbitas
but also in Labirinto. Orbits are cyclical phenomena. The labyrinth is an enigmatic
space in which everything repeats itself and differs, where we find ourselves as
well as lose ourselves. Another formal distinction between Caos and the other two
books of the trilogy, which also conveys the idea of movement, are the facsimiles
(flowcharts) consisting of lines and words as if to propose courses: the flow of
diagonal reading.
Throughout the trilogy the poetics of selfhood, an analysis on the act of writing
itself is found, the work of the self on itself by producing a narrative of self-
consciousness. In this narrative, it is impossible to discern what is symbolic,
imaginary or real. We do not know if mouth-to-mouth symbolizes a spiritual
meeting that never physically takes place (and there is no desire for this), which
ultimately could be even a meeting of Eva with herself; or whether mouth-to-
mouth signifies a physical meeting (in either reality or fantasy).
In Órbitas, there is a fusion of fiction (in the sui generis poetic sense of self-
composition) and vision (as consciousness). It is knowledge prior to all other
knowledge, a more fundamental knowledge that precedes and accompanies all
knowledge. It is the primitive sense of its acting, a feeling that has a kind of proto-
reflective function. The agent intellect is always in action. It is essentially a primus
actus inherent to all reflection (Jesus 2008 and 2010). It is this priority that is
announced at the opening of Órbitas primitivas and that explains “Por que tudo
aqui é primeiro e primitive”10. It is a

[…] espécie de assertividade pura

Cujo conteúdo se confunde com a forma
Dado que se trata de uma asserção sem outro objeto
Que o seu sujeito
Nada de coisa tudo ato11 (Cardoso 2007: 7).

There is a feeling coextensive with thought: thought feels itself thinking and feels
itself thought, it feels itself judging and feels itself judged (Lyotard, 1991). The
whole philosophy of the subject, Cardoso supposes, can only be based on the

10 “why everything here is first and primitive.”

11 “[…] Kind of pure assertiveness / The content of which is indistinguishable from form/ Given
that this is an assertion without any other object / than its own subject / Nothing of a thing,
everything an act.”
6 Soraya Nour Sckell

rules of the development of thought as a system always in process, always in

action. To understand itself, subjectivity should conceive itself as a constructive
operation. To think of yourself is the exercise of being a subject, to think of
yourself as the law of action (Jesus 2008 and 2010).
God ceases his work of creation when the creature becomes a substance.
However, in this Genesis, in which the creature creates itself and in which the act
of creating and self-creating is what matters, the work is never ending:

Ser-me é trabalho infinito12 (Cardoso 2007: 23)

[…] Sétimo Dia.

Deus dorme. Eu trabalho.13 (Cardoso 2007: 99)

This infinite task work presupposes a future that comes across difficulty in our
condition of being finite:

Vir do pó voltar ao pó
Ter a origem por destino grãos de pó. Não sei14 (Cardoso 2007: 98).

The laws of thought only constitute a system when establishing the system of the
experience. There is a coincidence between the constitution of reason and the
institution of the world. Therefore, it is not about learning a philosophy, but
engaging in an activity, the activity of philosophizing. A practice carried on by
itself results not in a science, but in the formation of practical procedures, in a
generating attitude, the method of which can only be a productive search. The
self cannot be anything more than a work, a practice, an exercise that can be
explained only by its spontaneity. Science is the science of the subject and not of
the object, just as poetry is the poetry of the subject, not of the object. We are
dealing with the identification of the acts governing the construction of knowled-
ge on any object: the subject understands itself as a subject that is acting,
constructing. The poetics of selfhood is the activity that defines human subjecti-
vity as intelligence in an act of absolute freedom, a creation ex nihilo, a produc-
tion of something that did not exist before, an absolute beginning, the radical
spontaneity of itself – the poetic self is identical with the autopoiesis – and the
poetics of ipse has no other content than this spontaneity. The self witnesses the

12 “Being myself is an infinite task.”

13 “[…] Seventh day. / God sleeps. I work.”
14 “To come from dust, to return to dust / To have the source as destiny, grains of dust. I do not
know.”
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 7

pure poiesis of selfhood, in which the desire to be (essendi conatus) and the desire
to know (conatus cognoscendi) are identified. The self is strength and power of
conceiving. Thus, the first meaning of such poetics is vitality (Jesus 2008 and
2010): “Deparamo-nos portanto com um momento energético primordial”15 (Car-
doso 2007: 7).
The construction of oneself is a bodily corporeal construction that occurs and
continues to occur in a process that Eva cannot control – that occurs as though
independently of her own will:

Sei apenas que a verdade é a mesma e que há algo

De óssico e de muscular na verdade que trabalha:
Sou eu articulando-me16 (Cardoso 2007: 99).

This poetics regards an operation immanent to the individual, but the Self is not
yet the agent or the subject in the proper sense of the term. There is certain
precedence in activity in relation to the agent. I realize myself acting; it happens
that I am acting. This act-event is a necessary potentiality that precedes all
experience and possible language of oneself; it is a habitus. To reach Selfhood, it
is necessary to abolish the stable and lasting I that Husserl calls a ‘substrate of
habituality’, a personal character. The problem that arises is that, if the self
develops an authentic activity, it is by having in itself a reality coefficient, by
unceasingly reiterating the tautology between being and thinking. The act of
thinking should always be connected to something; the act is only activated by
being necessarily applied to something. Selfhood is what causes one to be oneself
and not another – something that one finds in oneself and produces by oneself
the essence of one’s singular entity. The pure self is not a rationale but a dynamic
foundation of the whole possible cognitive system. Understanding contains wit-
hin itself a dimension of an organism of powers – understanding is a power, a
force – it is organically alive. Science that has understanding as object cannot be
confined to logic and appeals for a bio-poetics of intelligence. Intelligence and
reason constitute an organism, a living system. Thus, a purely logical description
is insufficient. Its architectural nature is dynamic rather than logical (Jesus 2008
and 2010). The immoveable must move. Hence, the continuous movement expres-
sed in the semantics of the orbits, of the waves within me, of the pendulum in the
clock that directs my eye rhythmically from one side to the other.

15 “We are therefore faced with a primordial energy moment.”

16 “I only know that the truth is the same and that there is something / Of bone and muscle
actually working: / It’s me, articulating myself.”
8 Soraya Nour Sckell

In this poetics of selfhood, the imagination becomes central to cognitive

dynamics. The imagination as producer signifies the productivity of all cognition.
Cardoso thus conceives the examination of the cognitive activity as an examina-
tion of the imagination. This imagination, more than a faculty, is the dynamism
intrinsic to all possible cognition. Initially, it is time, as a form of sensitivity, that
is stated as the most real, the formal place in which the empirical consciousness
of myself appears. I am perceptible to myself just as I phenomenalyse myself, as I
appear in time. Hence, we have the coincidence between becoming aware and
being temporal (Jesus 2008 and 2010).
But this permanence of myself in time claims no substantiality. On the
contrary, Cardoso’s strategy aims to oppose any attempt of assimilation of the self
to a substance; hence, the key role of the image of the metamorphosis of Eva
herself, of her body.
In Órbitas, autonomy and heteronomy are already present. The work of
construction (autonomy) and discovery (heteronomy) is developed metaphori-
cally around two images: the construction appears through the image of genesis –
the construction of Eva herself is the construction of the universe. The discovery
of herself, of what is heteronymous to Eva, the other of her reason and the other
of herself, appears through the paintings of navigations, of discoveries. The orbits
are primitive because they are the first movements of construction – orbital
motions albeit continuous. The navigations are also circular; they are circumnavi-
gations. The construction of Eva herself and the discovery of what in herself is
another will then appear in the synthesis of the images of genesis (construction,
autonomy) and navigations (discovery, heteronomy).
In Órbitas, autonomy appears in the foreground. In Labirinto, however, it is
heteronomy that prevails – heteronomy working in us, that affects us, that shows
the finiteness of our reason, moves to the foreground. Eva comes across several
heteronomies with different limitations. The first is her own body, which Eva
wants to transform: she has a ‘desire for metamorphosis’, a desire that her body
will be transformed, passing through the organic and physiological stages of
transformation of a woman’s bodily growth; a desire that it will be transformed
through growth and love. Heteronomy here is complete. The body in which she
finds herself is not her creation and Eva longs for its transformation. Moreover,
the place where Eva finds herself is not part of herself. She was torn from her
home, as in the poem by Bernardim Ribeiro, which Labirinto re-creates – a poem
that begins with the theme of being taken from home and ends with the theme of
continuous metamorphosis:
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 9

Menina e moça, me levaram de casa de meu pae para longes terras. Qual fosse então a causa
d’aquela minha levada, – era eu pequena, – não na soube. Agora, não lhe ponho outra,
senão que já então, parece, havia de ser o que depois foi.17 (Ribeiro 1916 [1554]: 9)

■se em alguma cousa d’este mundo houvera segurança. Mas não na ha; que mudança
possue tudo!…18 (154–155).

Every spatial reference – her body and the place where her body resides – is strange
and heteronymous. All space affects her as something foreign. In Órbitas, Eva is the
beginning of the universe, the absolute principle, the absolute autonomy. In
Labirinto, everything is heteronomy: Eva is in a place that is not her own, a place to
which she was brought. The cosmic dimension of the work is thus related to
cosmopolitanism. By constructing herself, Eva is not pinned down to any particular
spot (as opposed to Heidegger’s Being-Here, Dasein). The land to which she belongs
is not part of the construction of her identity. Eva is wandering in an Exodus and the
Babylon in the text is also the space of the multiplicity of languages.
In this search for herself, Eva finds herself seeking the other, but the other is
indecipherable or even hostile. Indecipherable, like a yet to be discovered Ame-
rica:

De resto penso muitas vezes no silêncio de um amor

Que cruzei uma remota noite
Lembro-me de olhar para o lado oceânico daquele silêncio
E de concluir com os olhos incendiados: o silêncio deste amor
É uma américa nova ainda encoberta sitiada por oceanos
Quase infinitos – serão necessários séculos
Para que ela se desenhe nas cartas de marear19 (Cardoso 2007: 98).

The other is also hostile, the one who refuses and denies:

Procurei braços encontrei espadas

Procurei portas encontrei paredes20 (Cardoso 2013: 98).

17 “Little girl and child, I was taken from my father’s house to distant lands. What was then the
cause of my kidnapping – I was little – I was ignorant. Now, I do not have any other explanation
than this: that it seems that, even at that time, there had to be what later turned out to be.”
18 “If in anything pertaining to this world there were security. / But now there is not; what
change takes hold of everything!”
19 “Moreover, I often think about the silence of a love / that I shared on a remote night / I
remember looking at the seaward side of that silence / And ending up with eyes on fire: the silence
of this love / is a new America, still shrouded, surrounded by oceans / Almost infinite – it will take
centuries / For her to be drawn on maritime maps.”
20 “I sought arms, but found swords / I sought doors, but found walls.”
10 Soraya Nour Sckell

Hence, the conception of a relationship with the other is also something akin to a
struggle for recognition:

alguém em busca de alguém em busca de alguém em

Busca de alguém em busca de alguém até ao Sem-Fim
Da busca […]21 (Cardoso 2013: 164).

The dimension of the struggle, of the conflict with a world that appears to her as
hostile and with another who is indifferent to her is crucial here.

Enamorei-me de uma espada

Beijo-a todas as manhãs todas as madrugadas
Sempre grata livre Heróica
Sei que há raras mulheres guerreiras como raros homens oceânicos
Tudo depende da exatidão férrea da alma22 (Cardoso 2007: 21).

It is from this iron soul that Eva earns her family name, Ferreira (iron in Portugue-
se is ferro). It is also with the fusion of desire and struggle – two opposites like day
and night – that Eva ends her narrative in Labirinto íntimo:

Sete dias mais um sete combates mais um sete desejos mais um sete luas mais uma23
(Cardoso 2013: 164).

Moreover, in Caos, the dialogical character is also highlighted in combat, as

opposed to the mouth-to-mouth meeting: combat is body-to-body, chest-to-chest,
and the scars remain on the body:

O corpo não esquece

(…)
O corpo não esquece, longos combates, peito a peito
(…) O corpo não esquece a ferida24 (Cardoso 2014: 68, 71, 72).

21 “Someone in search of someone in search of someone in / Search of someone in search of

someone until the Without-End / of the Search […].”
22 “I fell in love with a sword / I kiss her every morning, every night / Always grateful, free,
Heroic / I know there are rare female warriors, as there are rare oceanic men / It all depends on the
iron exactitude of the soul.”
23 “Seven days and one more, seven fights and one more, seven wishes and one more, seven
moons and one more.”
24 “The body does not forget / […] / The body does not forget, long struggles, chest to chest / […] /
The body does not forget the wound.”
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 11

But in Caos, what is most important is the meeting. While Órbitas is the book of
absolute autonomy, in which Eva creates herself as creating the universe from
nothing, and while Labirinto is the book of heteronomy, in which Eva confronts a
given (her own body), Caos is the book in which the heteronomy that arises is the
other. In Órbitas, everything orbits, turns around Eva itself; in Labirinto, Eva finds
herself trapped within her own body, from which she wants to escape, which she
wants to metamorphose as she likes but is unable to, and above all to metamorp-
hose as a girl who wants to become a woman. In Caos, the other appears in the
chaos – the chaos of the relationship with herself and others; a chaos that causes
no distress because Eva does not suffer from the desire for order and harmony.
But above all it is a chaos that does not cause distress because it is no longer
experienced in a solitary manner, as in Órbitas and Labirinto. Mouth-to-mouth
relationship is conjunction, meeting, expressed in its epistolary form.
The other was certainly also present in Órbitas and Labirinto. In Órbitas,
however, the other was something deeply mysterious, a new continent to be
discovered. In Labirinto, the other is someone for whom Eva always awaits, but
who never comes. In Caos, the meeting finally takes place, mouth-to-mouth. The
Amorous Answer in the first autumn is: “esta mão é para ti enquanto a tua mão
quiser”25 (Cardoso 2014: 27).
In Órbitas, the creation of herself is represented by the biblical metaphor of
Genesis, the creation of the world. Every day is the day of the construction of
something of herself until the seventh day. Órbitas ends on the seventh day –
when God sleeps, but Eva continues to work. The work continues on and after the
seventh day. Thus, Labirinto concludes not on the seventh day, but on the
following day – seven days and one day more. Caos boca-a-boca, the book of the
meeting, presents another biblical metaphor, no longer from Genesis: the biblical
setting for the meeting is the Garden – where the serpent also lives.
The meeting with the other is mouth-to-mouth in the sense of the epistolary
dialogue, but nothing in the book indicates that this meeting has passed through
the body. The meeting with the other that we learn here takes place by means of
letters. However, we do not know whether the other really answers the letters or
whether Eva continues to be delirious, to hallucinate and fantasise that the other
replies, so that it is as if the meeting really takes place – the search finishes and
with it the anguish of having absolutely no response: “Os sonhadores não
acordam nunca”26 (Cardoso 2014: 76). Hence, we have the tension between a
physical meeting on the one hand, to which the text refers, and the reality of a

25 “This hand is for you while your hand wants it.”

26 “Dreamers never wake up.”
12 Soraya Nour Sckell

text that is purely epistolary on the other hand. The reader has no clue. We know
that there is no use asking the author of the book, because he would also not
know and would probably be surprised to learn that the text arouses such
curiosity in the reader, as if it were a love plot, a novel that leaves the reader
anxious to know whether the meeting actually took place or not. Ultimately, the
plot that is suggested here is no different from a type of philosophical poetry in
which the construction of oneself and the meeting with oneself remains the
central issue, even if the meeting with oneself does not release the fetters of the
meeting with the other.
The poetic of the self, the work of constructing oneself, nevertheless takes
place in chaos and does not intend to establish connections, to make sense,
building a linear and coherent biography. Hence, we also see the literary style
that breaks with the grammatical norms of syntax and appears to be disconnec-
ted:

Desconexo gramatical e lógico – estilo de AmarTe no sobre-possível Real. Na minha vida,

não acontece Bio-Grafia. Não sofro de desejo de nexo-com-nexo. Todos os ruídos de Caos
fazem sentido.27 (Cardoso 2014: 78)

Eva’s story also tells us, among many other things, of her inquiry into why she is
Eva and not nothing or another person. However, in its uniqueness, Eva’s story is
also revealed to be the story of us all: travelling with Eva along her path of
discovery and the creation of herself, we have just extended the experience of this
journey into the most intimate part of our interior life and each one can go her/his
own way of self-creation and self-discovery at its deepest core. However, while
Órbitas and Labirinto also present the reader with the anxieties of this construc-
tion, Caos leaves us with the comfort of a meeting, of a rest – be it the meeting
with another or the meeting with oneself.

Bibliography
The author Paulo Cardoso Jesus signs his philosophical texts as Paulo Jesus and the literary ones
as Paulo Cardoso.
Anzieu, Didier (1995): Le moi-peau, Paris: Dunod.
Cardoso, Paulo (2007): Órbitas primitivas, V. N. Famalicão: Edições Quasi.
Cardoso, Paulo (2013): Labirinto íntimo, Lisboa: Chiado Editora.

27 “Grammatical and logical disconnection – style of Loving-You in the over-possible Real. In my

life, Bio-Graphy does not happen. I do not suffer from the desire for connection-with-connection.
All the noises of Chaos make sense.”
 Orbits, a Labyrinth and Chaos 13

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