Aleph

August 15, 2011
In this chimerical tale, protagonist Paolo embarks on a journey to remedy his dissatisfaction with life, a frustration he feels despite enjoying the accoutrements of success. Given that his world includes clairvoyance, Divine Energy, and time-travel, Paolo's is not the usual existential crisis. His present-day troubles, in fact, can be traced to betrayals during a previous incarnation that took place during the Inquisition. When he encounters Hilal, a woman he wronged, complications arise from their shared experience in The Aleph: "the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time." Given the couple's history, Paolo's response is curiously practical and distant: "reopening old wounds is neither easy nor particularly important. The only justification is that the knowledge acquired might help me to gain a better understanding of the present." Although the novel requires ample suspension of disbelief, there's no better author to serve such a work than Coelho (The Alchemist)âhis main character bears the weight of the sometimes ambiguous and wandering narrative with pithy reflections.

September 1, 2011

The latest spirituality-lite novel from Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone, 2009, etc.).

The narrative focuses on a character named Paulo who has had a wildly successful novel (The Alchemist, 1993) and who is embarking on a book-signing binge on the Trans-Siberian railway, stopping at various spots from Moscow to Vladivostock. Paulo, it seems, is in the midst of a spiritual crisis, for life has lost its savor. His spiritual guru, cryptically named J., advises him to reconnect to his life by getting into the present moment, a mystic space called the Aleph. Paulo agrees, for after all he claims that, "To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life"—as though any good could come out of that sort of reflective activity. Paulo's wife is all in favor of having him take this journey—or perhaps she's interested merely in getting him out of the house for a while. Just before the journey begins, Paulo meets Hilal, a violinist who can bring him to tears with the beauty of her playing. She seems familiar to Paulo, however, and it turns out that he's known her before—roughly 500 years before, when he had been a monk and she had come before the Inquisition for having had sexual relations with Satan. They've both been given another opportunity together in the present so Paulo can make amends, both to Hilal and to several other women he'd mistreated in cosmic time. While he finds himself sexually attracted to Hilal, he remains technically chaste—well, kind of, though it's possible his wife might not see it that way.

For readers who admire books filled with goofy yet endearing spiritual clichés such as, "Death is just a door into another dimension."

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 1, 2011

Best-selling inspirational author Coelho was having a crisis of faith, so he did what we all do in that situation: he traveled through Europe, Africa, and Asia and met again with a woman he loved 500 years ago. His books having sold over 130 million copies in 160 countries in 72 languages, you know there's an audience.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011
If you love mysticism Coelho-style, as many readers around the world do, chances are you will love his latest spiritually transformative odyssey. At the heart of the narrative, Paulo, profoundly disillusioned by contemporary reality, plagued by inner conflict, and losing faith in himself and the world he inhabits, sets off on a highly personal quest that defies time and space. Traveling around the world, he journeys back into his own reincarnations, understanding that his path is reflected in the eyes of others, and that if I want to find myself, I need that map. Although he encounters a diversity of significant friends along the way, his reconnection with a woman he loved and heartlessly betrayed over 500 years ago is the key to his reawakening and redemption. Another magical mystery tour full of spiritually challenging ideas and ideals from the always inspirational Coelho.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)