by Paulo Coelho

This was an amazingly fast read, although it was over 200 pages. It tells the story of Mata Hari, starting with her execution and then flashing back to begin her life story and how she became who she was.

The writing, as anything by this author, flows poetically and draws the reader into its depths, involving the reader so completely in the story that it would be easy to imagine oneself as Mata Hari, sharing her experiences.

It is divided into three parts with no chapters to break it up further, but I had no trouble reading part two, about 50% of the book, in one sitting. This part took me through some quick personal history up to the beginning of the war and how a dancer got caught up in the war machine. Though an intelligent woman, one bad choice changed everything for her.

History gives us spoilers, but reading about the events that led up to the conclusion we started with was fascinating. I do need to read more by this author.

I’m prepared to accept that this book by Paulo Coelho was intended perhaps as a parable, deep and insightful, from which the reader could glean an important lesson for life. Unfortunately, for me, its depth was rather undermined by a torpid, meandering tale, which fostered little empathy with the main character and minimal interest in whether her stale marriage would survive a bout of premeditated adultery.

Linda is a journalist and lives in Geneva. She is married to a wealthy husband and together they have an only son, enjoying a clearly privileged life, in one of the safest and most stable countries in the world. And, the author suggests, therein lies the problem. For safe and unchanging, read predictable even boring and a metaphor for Linda’s sense of unhappiness. Throughout the book, Linda’s partner is never named, but referred to as ‘husband’ and like their country regarded by Linda as ‘perfect’, yet uninspiring and anonymous, safe and functional, but lacking in emotion or passion for life. By contrast, her lover-to-be, politician Jacob Konig incites in Linda spontaneity, fear and risk, but also a feeling of being alive, of shaking things up.

For all her rather hollow exploration of what is perceived as impending depression, Linda disregards the implications for her child, or husband, of gambling with their marriage. Rather, the initial guilt erodes and the apparent antidote to her gnawing loneliness and unhappiness is even rationalised as “the present that I deserve after behaving for so many years”. The key character is an intelligent, beautiful woman and yet her response, which she describes as sordid, selfish, even sinister, is apparently beyond her control. Even though she anticipates her illicit affair is destined to be time-limited and is anxious about being discovered, Linda is addicted to the window into herself that Jacob has opened. Yet, her artificial creation of the ideal family and the perfect lover reek of weakness and a tragic, but pathetic attempt to distract from an unsatisfying life.

Fundamentally there is nothing new here. The grass is not always greener, beware what you wish for, treat others as you would wish to be treated, etc. Ironically perhaps, what may be viewed as self-indulgence, may also invite others to shape the immediate future. A test for even the taken for granted, ‘perfect’ husband. 

by Paul Coelho

Non-fiction

This is an interesting take on an interesting era. It's the 1960s-1970s and all over the world people are questioning social structures and getting experimental with everything from drugs to free love to world travel for the purpose of spiritual awakening. So many documentaries have been made about the era, usually focusing on London or New York or San Francisco. This one is written from the perspective of someone from Brazil.

He makes the pilgrimage to Machu Pichu and discovers that the high altitude can be dealt with by chewing Coca leaves, gets arrested as a terrorist because his girlfriend is from a Communist block country and goes through many other adventures that are generated by the times and social movements.

I found it fascinating to see his travels through the eyes of someone who wasn't either American or English. His time in Amsterdam made me smile as my own visits to the city, decades later, were very similar.

The writing was wonderful and had a certain dreamy quality that seems to come with writers from South America. This was a trip of nostalgia for a time and place I've never been and was a very enjoyable read.

Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who's on his way to see a girl he once met and fell a little in love with. Before he gets there, however, some stuff happens that I can only vaguely recall. Something about a fortune teller, who tells him that a dream he had about the pyramids in Egypt will lead him to a great treasure. A mysterious man who turns out to be something more convinces Santiago to abandon his ordinary and comfortable life as a shepherd and begin his quest - the pursuit of his Personal Legend.

I'm making a conscious effort to get through more books in my collection that I figure I'll probably be okay with either selling or donating when I'm done. This seemed like a good candidate - I picked up a copy ages ago at a conference, and while it seemed vaguely interesting, it wasn't the sort of thing I'd normally read. When I saw that my library owned the audiobook version via Overdrive, I figured that'd be the perfect way to get through it. I'd listen to it, use my paper copy to help me with any name spellings or other details in my review, and then offload it.

Audiobook was probably the best way to go. Jeremy Irons' voice was wonderful to listen to and made the four hours of listening time almost bearable.

That said, I hated this book. Hated it. Had it actually been a fantasy adventure about a boy on a quest for treasure, I might have liked it a bit more, but in reality this was more a self-help book in story form.

Its basic message was this: if you listen to your heart, follow your dreams, and go after your goals with everything you've got, there's nothing you can't accomplish. The entire universe will assist you. The only thing that can stop you is fear of failure.

It's a cruel message. It says "If you're not managing to succeed at this thing you're trying so hard to accomplish, it means that the problem is you. You're somehow still not doing enough, not trying enough, not wanting it enough." It's such an insidious lie, and it made me angry that Coelho had chosen to build an entire world around it.

Santiago really could accomplish anything he wanted to, just by putting his whole heart and soul into his quest. Any other boy might have starved to death after selling all his sheep to go after a treasure he'd seen in a dream, but not Santiago. Every experience he had and every person he met was just another lesson or sign that would lead him to his ultimate goal, his Personal Legend. Thieves left him penniless and theoretically hungry, but he was never truly in danger of starving as long as he kept his goal in sight. At one point he was beaten, but the pain might as well have been a light bruising for all the attention Santiago paid it. Everything always came back to his stupid Personal Legend, the only thing that seemed to leave any sort of lasting impact on him, except maybe Fatima. But more on Fatima later.

In the real world, a person can put everything they have into their goal, pursue their dreams with all their heart and soul, do everything right...and still not succeed. This is not an indicator that they didn't work hard enough or want their dream badly enough, as The Alchemist would suggest. Maybe they didn't have a rich friend or family member who could give them an interest-free loan. Maybe they got sick and suddenly had their health and medical bills to worry about. Maybe they had a family to support and didn't want to be complete jerks towards their loved ones (families didn't seem to factor into this whole Personal Legend thing at all - basically, if they really loved you and supported you, they'd take care of themselves until you accomplished your Personal Legend).

Which brings me back to Fatima, the young woman of the desert Santiago fell in love with (no relation to the young woman he was initially kind of in love with but utterly forgot later on). Her Personal Legend, if I remember correctly, was Santiago. All she had to do was wait in the desert for him. That's it. Why did Santiago's Personal Legend involve a multi-year quest that he had to actively participate in, while Fatima's just required her to exist and be pretty and unmarried? And then, when Santiago left to pursue his Personal Legend, she had to sit and patiently wait for him to come back, however long that might take. They had only spoken a few times and definitely weren't married, so she was basically just waiting for a near-stranger. It was Coelho's version of a soulmate romance. Man, I wish I'd been reading an actual soulmate romance novel rather than this book.

All in all, I don't recommend this, not even with Jeremy Irons' wonderful narration.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Some quick context: the alchemist gave the main character's life savings to some warriors as part of a deal to keep them from both being killed (there's also a second part they have to accomplish three days later, so they're not out of the woods yet). The boy is a bit upset that his entire life savings have been given way.

The alchemist:

"Your money saved us for three days. It's not often that money saves a person's life."

You can add this to the list of the many things in this book that I take issue with. Money saves people's lives all the time. Just talk to some people who are trying to survive without enough of it.