The Zahir (Paulo Coelho)

Lately the universe seems to be conspiring towards introducing me to as many books on spirituality and self-discovery as possible. I found The Zahir on my girlfriend's bookshelf, and even though I've seen it there for months, for some reason now seemed like a good time to take a look. Paulo Coelho is a great author—I've already read The Alchemist, The Devil and Miss Prym, and By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, though several years ago now—but I'd begun to think of him as a one-trick pony. He writes books on the power of love and discovery and the way we all should live our lives. After avoiding him these past few years, as I tend to do when I overexpose myself to any writer (I did the same with Chuck Palahniuk around the same time, actually), I decided to take one more look at Coelho and see if he had anything new to offer me.

Synopsis

The Zahir tells the story of a man whose wife, Esther, mysteriously disappears one day from their home in Paris. All of the evidence available leads the man—a famous writer of the same kinds of books Coelho writes—and the authorities to believe that Esther was not kidnapped, but has simply run away. A small scandal erupts in the tabloids, and for a while the writer has a difficult time getting his life back on track. Eventually he writes a new book that deals with his loss. The book becomes a best seller, and the writer rejoins the world he once knew, only to find himself feeling empty without the love of his wife. Then, at a book signing event near his home, the writer is confronted by the man who he believes his wife ran away with. This man ultimately helps the writer begin a spiritual journey that will hopefully reunite him with his estranged wife.

All of Coelho's books are about a spiritual journey of some kind. The Alchemist is one of my favorite novels, because the story is so simple and the message so powerful. In The Zahir, Coelho's beliefs have seemed to evolve somewhat, and while the depth of spirituality feels like a natural evolution from his other works, I'm not yet convinced I feel he made the right choice. It's difficult to objectively critique a book that does its absolute best to make a reader question themselves and the way they live their life—in a good way—by forcing them to take a look around and think about what's really important to them. The Zahir talks a lot about things in life that people focus on too much or too little. The word "Zahir" itself refers to an object, person, or idea that someone cannot get out of their head no matter how hard they try. The Zahir takes on mythical, or even mystical properties, leading the person to believe that their life would be complete if they could just find this one missing piece. In the novel, the writer's missing wife is his Zahir, and he spends most of his time worrying about how to get her back instead of how to improve himself as a person. As is usually the case, I understand and appreciate most of what Coelho writes about in The Zahir. I think he has a tremendous gift for writing down ideas in ways that are easily accessible. That being said, I'm still not sure how I feel about this book.

As I mentioned, I love The Alchemist. It's an exceptionally well-written novel. Coelho's message is framed in such a way that the story can be enjoyed on its own, without the reader feeling weighted down by the spiritual subtext. It's subtle, beautiful, and filled with little one-line mantras that are easily remembered, like "When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too." The Alchemist reads like a fable, and a reader can take what they are ready to take from it and hopefully grow from there. The Zahir doesn't work that way, though. It's not a fable at all, it reads more like a memoir. The narrator—the writer who loses his wife—is basically Paulo Coelho, except some of the titles of his previous books are changed, along with the names of the people in his life. My main issue with The Zahir, though, is that it feels inaccessible to anyone who is not reading it at the exact right time in their life. It is at times quite preachy, and the message is heavy-handed and repeated often: give up your personal history; live in the present; let the energy of love flow through you. As you guys know from the last few weeks of reviews, I've been reading a lot lately about how, more or less, the energy to change a person's life resides within that person. The Lost Symbol was all about discovering apotheosis and the god inside of man. The Gnostic Gospels, while boring, discussed an early form of Christianity that had more to do with an individual's spiritual rebirth than with the physical resurrection of Jesus. The Zahir really dives into an aspect of this type of thinking, the idea that the universe conspires towards your happiness as long as you see the signs and do your best to keep improving yourself. It's just a little too preachy. There were too many characters who seemed to have all the answers, and while I found ways to apply some of their theories to my own life, I wasn't able to connect with them. Maybe it's because I'm young, and unmarried, and not looking back at twenty years of marriage wondering why I don't love my wife the way I did on our wedding day. Or maybe it's because I'm not spiritually ready to let go of my personal history and assume complete responsibility for my happiness. I don't know, though, I've been very happy lately. I'm on a personal journey that's allowing me to do things that I really enjoy and can see myself doing for the rest of my life, and much of that is thanks to a positive attitude I picked up from The Alchemist years ago. The Zahir just didn't hold the same power for me, not at this point in my life anyway.

Rating

The Zahir
by Paulo Coelho

Story—6.9
This seems like the same product in a different package, and the new package isn't as good as the old package. I needed to connect with the characters a little more.

Style—7.5
I'll give the guy props for staying on message, and for having the talent and wisdom he has to write this book as a novel instead of a work of nonfiction. The problem, though, is again that he's done this same thing in the past, but better.

General—7.63
It's a very interesting book, and it's a quick and painless read. I was intrigued by the narrator's journey and did want to know how things turned out in the end. It's possible this is the kind of book that takes a while to sink in, and maybe in the long run it will change my life, but I think it could have been written better.

Overall—7.34



If any of you have read this one before, please feel free to comment. I'd love to hear what others thought about The Zahir since I'm still kinda up in the air myself.

Keep reading, Genoshans!

The Gnostic Gospels (Elaine Pagels)

After reading The Lost Symbol last week, I thought I should take a look at a book that addressed some of the religious ideas that Dan Brown mentions in the novel. I took a look at what I had on my shelf, and noticed The Gnostic Gospels, which I remembered purchasing as book #3 off the "Buy 2, Get the 3rd Free" table at Barnes & Noble a while back. Gnosticism refers to a group of religious movements that centered around the idea that God resides within the human body, which just happened to be the kind of thing I was looking to read about this week.

Synopsis

Back in 1945, a collection of ancient books and papers were discovered hidden in a clay jar that had been buried in the side of an Egyptian cliff. After a brief stint on the black market, the books finally found their way into the hands of the Egyptian government, who sent them to the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The books were a collection of gnostic gospels, written between the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. by early Christians outside of the main catholic church, that had been condemned and labeled heretical and blasphemous. Elaine Pagels was one of the first scholars given access to the texts, and The Gnostic Gospels identifies some of the findings produced from her research.

Now, I guess I can't really be upset because I didn't actually pay for this book (and even if I had, it's been sitting on my shelf so long that it wouldn't matter). I was a little disappointed, though. While Pagels definitely writes about her findings in a clear and accessible way, it's not a terribly interesting book. She briefly touches upon some of the specific teachings and "mysteries" behind the gnostic religions, but for the most part this is an analytical history book, comparing the main "orthodox" branch of the early Christian church to its gnostic counterparts. There's a lot of citation and referencing, and the book reads almost like a college dissertation. Many of the passages Pagels quotes are either repeated frequently or are very similar to other passages. From a purely academic standpoint, sure, it gets the point across quite well: the early orthodox Christians were different from the early gnostic Christians. Okay, but that's not necessarily all that interesting. Pagels fails to delve into some of the more sensational aspects of early gnosticism, or to even speculate on what the findings might mean to the church today. In her conclusion, she remarks that, had these texts been discovered before the modern era, they would have most likely been burned for being heretical. Since they were found so recently, however, scientists have been able to preserve and study them without much interference from the church, without fear of their existence having damaging implications for Christianity in general. That's about as far Pagels takes it, though. If you're someone who is interested in the scholarly pursuit of religious history, then this book might be for you. Otherwise, you can probably leave this one alone if you see it on the bargain table at your local bookstore.

Rating

The Gnostic Gospels
by Elaine Pagels

Story—N/A
No story here. Pagels chooses to use the writings of a few contemporary philosophers and early Christian figures as repeated references, but not to the point where it doesn't still feel research-based.

Style—7
This is all very important stuff if you care at all about religious history and the evolution of the church. Otherwise, it's just a research paper.

General—6
Pagels is repetitive and doesn't choose to sensationalize her findings, instead using excerpts from letters written at the time to support the idea that the gnostics were Christians not supported by the church. That's about it, though. She discusses some of the practices of these gnostics, but presents them merely as facts and addresses them as they pertain to the doctrine they were competing against. Had she put forth any notion that these gnostic practices might affect faith and the church of today, it might have been a little more interesting.

overall—6.5



Sorry this week's book was a bummer. I was excited to continue along the religious/spiritual path that I had started from reading Dan Brown last week. Unfortunately, the real world isn't quite as absurd as Brown would like us to believe. Oh well. Keep reading, Genoshans!

Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)

There must be something wrong with me, because I went back and read another nonfiction book. I was punished severely for it.

Synopsis

The cover of the book really should've tipped me off on this one: Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. Some points:

a) I don't like jazz.
b) I went to Catholic school for many years, so I've got more than enough thoughts on Christian Spirituality.
c) That title is actually a lie, since most of the thoughts were VERY religious. And poorly written.

I don't usually get quite this emphatic regarding the awfulness of a book, but I was really disappointed, because I thought I would be given some fresh insight into the spiritual world. I was not. It was mostly a book of random events in the life of a guy who says he has trouble connecting with his faith on one page, but then tells stories in which he's the most religious guy he knows on the next. And the writing is really bad, I'm sorry. He basically makes a statement. Then maybe he'll he make another statement. Often he'll make a third statement. Each of these statements will be their own complete sentence. Most of these sentences will be very simply constructed. He very rarely uses commas. I felt like I was in third grade. When I was in third grade I took my first religious classes. Stop dumbing things down, Donald Miller.

I'm pretty sure that this might actually have been a decently interesting book if it were written a little better. It's really frustrating when the author talks at length about something you actually might be connecting with, like wondering how people can be so sure of their faith when he is not, and then immediately jumping to how he tries so hard to convince his friends that Christianity is the way to go. Hold on, didn't you just say you weren't sure if it was the way to go? And I thought this was a NONreligious view on Christian spirituality? It sounds to me like a cheap ploy to get people to buy into your religious views. Mind you, I SHARE his religious views and I still got that feeling. Bad writing is bad writing, no matter how devout you are.

There really isn't much more for me to say. I hate to seem so closed-minded in a review, but aside from the random touching story of the miracle of how someone came to embrace Christ in their life blah blah blah, it's really bad. Don't read this book.

Rating

Blue Like Jazz
by Donald Miller

Story—N/A
There are stories included, but no real story. I'm gonna cut the guy a break and give him an "N/A" instead of a 2 or something.

Style—4.67
I guess journal entries on the glory of Jesus is stylistic?

General—3.83
Mindless rambling about vague spiritual dilemmas interspersed with fairly pointless stories of how people saw the light. Yeah, I got nothing.

Overall—4.25

Genoshans, I have a challenge for you. I challenge you to find me a competent book on religion/spirituality/whatever. Please. I'd really like to think that it's a coincidence that the two books on religion that I've reviewed so far were the two worst books I've read. Help me out, here. And as always, keep reading, Genoshans!