Paulo Coelho – The pilgrimage (05-049)
Nov. 4th, 2005 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerbiePaulo Coelho – The pilgrimage (05-049)
At the end of the trip; 2 hours wait, 10 hours flight, 2 more hours by train lie ahead, yet nothing to read. Major relief when the bookshop at the airport turns out to have several shelves of English and Spanish books. Now what to choose; I prefer to avoid Grisham and King. The Da Vinci code is not high on my priority list. Classics make it complicated; I’ve got several already, though I haven’t read many of them yet.
So the choice ends out thematic. If in Brazil, one tries to read Brazilian. Coelho being the most famous author from that country, I only had to make sure to pick a good one. With The Alchemist waiting at home, I picked The Pilgrimage.
To put it short: I was disappointed. I read a few hours in the plane, had to finish it back home. The idea of walking to Santiago de Compostela is not new. Writing about it either. Yet somehow Coelho never managed to grab me. He tells about his days, about the exercises his master taught him and then explains the exercises. It doesn’t feel like a novel, nor like an instruction book. To me it was like I was reading one of those self help books I managed to avoid since decades.
I will probably still try The Alchemist, his masterpiece, but he has to take away a lot of distrust I’m afraid.
Number: 05-049
Title: The Pilgrimage (Orig.: O diario de um mago)
Author: Paulo Coelho
Language: English (Orig.: Portuguese)
Year: 1992 (Orig.: 1987)
# Pages: 265 (9480)
Category: Literature
ISBN: 0-06-073629-1
At the end of the trip; 2 hours wait, 10 hours flight, 2 more hours by train lie ahead, yet nothing to read. Major relief when the bookshop at the airport turns out to have several shelves of English and Spanish books. Now what to choose; I prefer to avoid Grisham and King. The Da Vinci code is not high on my priority list. Classics make it complicated; I’ve got several already, though I haven’t read many of them yet.
So the choice ends out thematic. If in Brazil, one tries to read Brazilian. Coelho being the most famous author from that country, I only had to make sure to pick a good one. With The Alchemist waiting at home, I picked The Pilgrimage.
To put it short: I was disappointed. I read a few hours in the plane, had to finish it back home. The idea of walking to Santiago de Compostela is not new. Writing about it either. Yet somehow Coelho never managed to grab me. He tells about his days, about the exercises his master taught him and then explains the exercises. It doesn’t feel like a novel, nor like an instruction book. To me it was like I was reading one of those self help books I managed to avoid since decades.
I will probably still try The Alchemist, his masterpiece, but he has to take away a lot of distrust I’m afraid.
Number: 05-049
Title: The Pilgrimage (Orig.: O diario de um mago)
Author: Paulo Coelho
Language: English (Orig.: Portuguese)
Year: 1992 (Orig.: 1987)
# Pages: 265 (9480)
Category: Literature
ISBN: 0-06-073629-1
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Date: 2005-11-06 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 10:55 pm (UTC)Coelho
Date: 2005-11-15 10:36 am (UTC)bibliofilos
http://bibliofilos.blogspot.com
Re: Coelho
Date: 2005-11-15 07:38 pm (UTC)