pp 320. Harper CollinsPaulo Coelho does not need any introduction as an author. After Reading the Alchemist, Picking up the Zahir was natural. And since then I ended up reading every one of his publication.
Zahir in Arabic means obsession- a thing which completely fills your mind.
Through a fiction written in first person, Coelho highlights many fixations in us. But the beauty of his writings in that he goes into the depth of them to introduce us to the root cause and then takes us to understand the ways to overcome them.
The protagonist is a best-selling Novelist living a luxurious life in France. He believes that he has a happy marriage, till one day his wife Esther (A war correspondent) disappears under mysterious conditions. However his misery starts when he realizes that she had deliberately left him.
For two years after that he tries to get on with his life convincing himself that he would be fine without her. However he soon has to face the realization that he loves another human being more than himself and that is his wife. From then on he sets on the long road to find his dear wife or rather to face his Zahir.
This journey that he takes up to reach Esther is the same that Esther had once taken. The clues that Esther had left for him were such that he would have to take up the same path and understand the facts of life that Esther wanted him to understand.
Among these lessons are some traditional knowledge shared by an old tribes-head. When asked, “What is life?” he replies, “It is just a story that other people tell us about the world and about how we should behave in the world”
And to another question, “Why are people sad?” the answer is, “… they are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if the plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people’s ideas and it is more than they can possibly cope with and that is why they forget their own dreams…thus becoming unhappy”
Powerful concept indeed. Personally, I am becoming aware that most of the books that I pick up are pointing towards this same concept, BE YOURSELF.
And then I am again reminded by Coelho, “Our natural tendency is to want to please, even if the person to be pleased is us”…How true!!!
To explain the fact that how much we are bound by the ‘Others’, he says, “Mostly we learn to do everything reasonably well, but there is always a point where we get stuck…why…because according to the story we are told, there always comes a moment in our lives when we reach “Our Limit”!!!
Since I read it, I have strongly recommended “The zahir” to many. More than the story, it is the character description, dialogues and the connectivity in the philosophy that touches the core and sets one thinking.
I liken Paulo Coelho to one of those favorite teachers who can deliver powerful lessons through stories that appeal to us. Like most of his work, this is also a beautiful mix of autobiography and fiction.
One of my favorites.
Zahir in Arabic means obsession- a thing which completely fills your mind.
Through a fiction written in first person, Coelho highlights many fixations in us. But the beauty of his writings in that he goes into the depth of them to introduce us to the root cause and then takes us to understand the ways to overcome them.
The protagonist is a best-selling Novelist living a luxurious life in France. He believes that he has a happy marriage, till one day his wife Esther (A war correspondent) disappears under mysterious conditions. However his misery starts when he realizes that she had deliberately left him.
For two years after that he tries to get on with his life convincing himself that he would be fine without her. However he soon has to face the realization that he loves another human being more than himself and that is his wife. From then on he sets on the long road to find his dear wife or rather to face his Zahir.
This journey that he takes up to reach Esther is the same that Esther had once taken. The clues that Esther had left for him were such that he would have to take up the same path and understand the facts of life that Esther wanted him to understand.
Among these lessons are some traditional knowledge shared by an old tribes-head. When asked, “What is life?” he replies, “It is just a story that other people tell us about the world and about how we should behave in the world”
And to another question, “Why are people sad?” the answer is, “… they are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if the plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people’s ideas and it is more than they can possibly cope with and that is why they forget their own dreams…thus becoming unhappy”
Powerful concept indeed. Personally, I am becoming aware that most of the books that I pick up are pointing towards this same concept, BE YOURSELF.
And then I am again reminded by Coelho, “Our natural tendency is to want to please, even if the person to be pleased is us”…How true!!!
To explain the fact that how much we are bound by the ‘Others’, he says, “Mostly we learn to do everything reasonably well, but there is always a point where we get stuck…why…because according to the story we are told, there always comes a moment in our lives when we reach “Our Limit”!!!
Since I read it, I have strongly recommended “The zahir” to many. More than the story, it is the character description, dialogues and the connectivity in the philosophy that touches the core and sets one thinking.
I liken Paulo Coelho to one of those favorite teachers who can deliver powerful lessons through stories that appeal to us. Like most of his work, this is also a beautiful mix of autobiography and fiction.
One of my favorites.
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