Wednesday, July 17, 2013

More of Paulo Coelho

Three books concerned with a week in the life of ordinary people, all of who find themselves suddenly confronted by love, death and power. Profoundest change in life can happen within a very reduced time frame. When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change. We need to decide and accept our destiny.

By the River Piedra I sat down and wept (1994)

Pilar encounters her childhood sweetheart after 11 years now a mesmerizing and handsome spiritual teacher-and a rumoured miralce worker- who leads her on a journey through the French Pyrenees, a magical landscape that has been home to holy visions and miracles through the ages.

Dreams mean work.

Veronika Decides to Die (1998)

Veronika seems to have everything she wished for; yet is unhappy. So On 11th Nov. 1997; she takes an overdose of sleeping pills, only to wake up sometimes later in Villete, the local mental) hospital. There she is told that although she is alive her heart is damaged and she has only a few days to live...Zedka, Maria, Dr. Igor, and Eduard.

The Devil and Miss Prym (2000)

A stranger arrives in the small mountain village of Viscos. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives. This book illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson


All the three books  (Trilogy) also makes one ponder on what is good (Ormuzd) and what is evil (Ahriman) as in the Persian legend or in the story of the garden of Eden.

When there is God, why is there so much of suffering in this world?

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Aleph:

The book not much liked; but few things were indeed wonderful:

Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, our needs change, but the train keeps moving.....and we change from one compartment to the other......????

Each end gives us the opportunity for a rebirth.


Love is like a river.   The Aleph is an encounter with our fears and our shortcommings - a search for love and forgiveness, and the courage to confront the inevitable challenges of life. Each end gives us the opportunity for a rebirth. On his journey through Trans-Siberia covering 9,288 kms, he meet Hilal- the women he loved 500 years before - and there is a mystical voyage within this journey on train, through time and space, through past and present.....  

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