Unfortunately, this book left me cold.
For me it felt like a really good example of unconscious behaviour in action. Coelho might want to call this a mystical experience, but in reality it read more like the mid life crisis of a man approaching 60 who just goes the same stereotypical route of falling for a 21 year old and wants to label it a spiritual experience so that he can fit it into his marriage.
But this isn't just any man, the main character in the book is Coelho himself. He has a following and an awareness that people, particularly his fans, look up to him and hero worship him. He may not want that or ask for that but whether he likes it or not it's how it is and he has a certain responsibility to behave well, particularly towards a young rather unstable 21 year old fan.
The whole relationship with Hilal was wrong for me on so many levels. If the reincarnation part is real, which I believe it was for him, then I don't understand how he couldn't see that all he was doing was recreating the same use and betrayal of Hilal as he did 500 years before. It was all about him and his need to get to a resolution of his past behaviour and in doing so just repeated the cowardly, needy, position protecting behaviour all over again.
If you look at this book from Hilal's point of view none of her needs were met and she was treated more like a stray dog being tolerated and given scraps (of information and attention) rather than a person with thoughts and feelings and problems of her own. The ironic thing was that in the past she was in the right place 'spiritually' and even now, with all her issues, she was the more honest party yet again.
I know there are deeper things that occur when working through past life healings but if she did get to a healing place I feel it was in spite of and not because of Coelho's actions. There are ways to treat people in such situations and I didn't feel they were respected here.
However all that said the one thing about this book is that it was written honestly. Whether he realises it or not he didn't paint a pretty portrait of himself. He could have written in justifications and excuses with the benefit of hindsight, but didn't. But perhaps that is more likely because he truly believes that what he did was necessary for him and therefore fine.
The only character with a smattering of conscious awareness for me was Yao. I'd like to hear more about him.
I realise that all of this is my judgement and we can't ever know what's truly going on in someone's heart, however we are human and we do make assumptions based on the information provided. In this case I'd say that if you want to read a really good example of how, even when we think we have reached a certain level of wisdom, we can make poor judgements and mistake ego and unconscious motivations for "spirituality" then this book is a great example of that.
I gave it two stars because I did learn something from it, which is that life is a work in progress and that we will make mistakes and we can be very selfish at times. This book was a good reminder for me to learn from these life events but not to fool myself into promoting them as spiritual acts.
