Customer Reviews

The Witch of Portobello a Novel

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I have read quite a lot of Paolo Coelho's works, my favorites being The Alchemist and By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. This is another compelling work by Coelho. As in most of his works, there is an enigmatic main character, in this instance a woman who is dead at the beginning of the book - the rest of the book deals with piecing her life through a series of first-person accounts. Born of Gypsy origins, she is adopted by a Lebanese couple and later calls herself Athena. She also seems blessed with spiritual powers and is filled with a certain restlessness that leads her on an amazing if unfocussed personal journey finally finding a mentor in a woman called Edda who helps her deal with her spiritual powers. The story moves along and we get to read of Athena's rise and inevitably, her demise, made compelling mostly through Coelho's consummate narrative skills. As always, Coelho's stories are about spirituality & the search for inner truth/self & will apppeal to those who are interested in the subject matter.

Paulo Coelho of international fame for his book The Alchemist has here in The Witch of Portobello has woven a very unique and compelling tale. Part of what draws the reader in is the story itself and part is the very unique way it is written. Rather than a straight forward narrative, or a dialogue or even a series of letters this is a unique narrative technique. It is written as a series of first person accounts of individuals interactions with our unusual heroine Athena aka the Witch of Portobello.

These stories, taped interviews and letters have been compiled by a narrator we do not know until the end of the story. He has decided to let Athena's story be told as other's tell it, through their own words, and with all of their emotions, anger, support, respect or disgust. What we learn from these accounts is not only is Athena a bit of an enigma, from these accounts we could almost assume that almost every person encountered a different Athena, an Athena of the making in their own mind. The way the 'biography' is written it allows us to draw our own conclusions, rather than a traditionally researched biography that is colored by the lenses that cloud the vision of the biographer. Much as each of us look at the world through a series of lenses of our experiences, and cultural biases.

Athena is a young woman who tries to fill the spaces, the silences in her life. The more she tries to fill them the more dissatisfied she becomes. Until she learns that it is the silences between the notes that make the music so powerful. When she learns to embrace the silence, the spaces, she finds a power an energy. She becomes a spiritual leader, some see her as a saint and some see her as a sinner. She is both revered and feared. A saint and a demon. The compiled documents help us to see Athena for who she was.

So join our unknown biographer as we trace the life of a murdered young woman and journey around the world and into an unseen spiritual world. This book is better than some of Coelho's more recent offerings, and the narrative tool will draw you in and keep you turning the pages.

A warning though the book deals with earth religions and has some new age ceremonies in it, therefore it will not be for all readers.

(First Published in Imprint 2007-05-18 in the 'Book Review Column.)

I read and enjoyed The Alchemist a few years ago, and my wife wanted me to

try this one, but it sure didn't do it for me. While I'm intrigued by the

story-told-by-many-viewpoints technique, there is very little story to tell for most of the book, just the vague spiritual quest of a little-characterized but seemingly very self-involved girl trying to understand why she Feels Different. She falls under the tutelage of a Pagan priestess, comes to understand she Is Different, develops a relationship with the Mother Goddess, takes on the mission to Spread the Love, flirts with martyrdom, etc. etc.

I'm sincerely open to alternative religious exploration, but the belief system described here is nothing but the sort of hazy, hippy sentiment you'd hear in any freshman dorm room through a cloud of incense and dope smoke. (Dance to commune with the goddess; Take your clothes off to Really Communicate with each other; Give up your Gender Hangups to achieve Sexual Freedom... None of this is made up, by the way).

The characters are never real enough for the book to be a commentary on how religion works in the real world, and the Spiritualism described is certainly not concrete enough for this to be considered a serious religious exploration, so we're left with a meandering story that's supposed to be Profound simply because the characters tell us it is.

I didn't buy it.

I have enjoyed Mr. Coelho's books. This isn't one of them. Though finely crafted using interviews of key people in Athena's story (reason for my 3 rating), the plot is very thin. The new age stuff is boring; better read the authors quoted in the book that it came from. I agree with one reviewer the book is too long, and I began to scan. Athena, who is depicted as so 'gifted' takes forever to get much of anywhere at all. How to speak about spiritual journeys, much less love? It's difficult, if not impossible to make the subject truly meaningful- as Coelho's book proves. It would be much more helpful to the searcher to read Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Whatever translation you like.

It always occurs to me that rarely do readers review Coelho's books. One of the world's best loved storytellers.

Then when I think of it it is really hard to review his books. They are literary conceptual extraveganzas that stay with you and you should keep a copy of it until you reach 70 and above.

In his latest riveting novel set in London, Athena, or Sherine ( the name she was baptised with ) tells her life through a series of recorded interviews with those people who knew her well or hardly at all. Brilliant. Her parents, colleagues, teachers, friends, acquaintances, and her ex-husband.

Athena is a mysterious woman, she was an orphanage in Romania, had a childhood in Beirut, then she moved with her adoptive family to London after teh war broke out. Then everything in her life changes.

Athena, who has been dubbed 'the Witch of Portobello' for her seeming powers of prophecy, disappears dramatically, leaving those who knew her to solve the mystery of her life and abrupt departure ...

If you are a Coelho fan then the rest is a challenging ride with love, spirituality, relationships, destiny, and freedom. Coelho trademarks.

Again, if you are a Coelho fan, you will find this review helpful since there is no easy and firm discribtion neither of his plot nor writings. He is more of an beautiful incident that just a writer.

I you sadly haven't read Coelho yet, go give yourself a kick start with The Alchemist and come back later to this review.

Hope I was useful. It's such an honor being allowed to comment on such a writer's magical work.

I picked this up at an international airport. It was displayed at the front of the store, and included the comment: "sixty-five million readers can't be wrong" by Publishers Weekly. Tagged onto anything, this is a false but tempting statement.

It reads quickly and the subject matter is unique. The message is not new: the church is hypocritical and society enforces conformity at the expense of individuality. If a new fictional journey is more appealing to you than a new message, then this is a book that makes you curious about what happens in the end. And if you read it, there appears to be tens of millions of people you can discuss it with!

The Witch of Portobello quietly but eloquently leads the reader along a journey into depth and discovery. With each new expose, written in the voices of Athena's family, friends, and acquaintences, she is gradually and seductively revealed.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect aspect of this novel lies in Coehlo's ability to gently expose the dramatic difference between how a person is understood by others and who that person really is. Yet, ironically, it is through the eyes of others, of those who love her, who resent her, and who try to emulate her, that the character's authentic ethereal nature emerges. Athena's story resonnates with anyone who has ever felt misunderstood, particularly on a spriritual level.

The novel is not without a broader political message, one that rejects fear-driven bigotry and embraces the idea that, despite deep ideological differences, people can learn not only to understand and accept one another, but to love one another as well.

Without sinking to gratuitous or manipulative sentimentality, Coehla leads the reader on a journey to Athena's heart that is, at times, painfully sad. None the less,the reader is left with the assurance that the possibility of redemption-through-community remains a distinct and shining possibility.

Like the other books I have read of Paulo Coelho, Once I started reading I couldn't put the book down!!! He manages to engage the reader's attention, is amazing!

This is the story about a young woman named Sherine, who used to go by the name Athena, who has a spiritual gift, she was born with it, and followed her intuition to developed it further!

Paulo Coelho is a genious!!! He wrote this book in the form of a series of interviews with the people who knew her and were close to her. You can see the theory of people projecting themselves in other people, in action here! For example a man who was in love with her, projecting his feelings into her, and assuming whatever he wanted to assume from her, and a women projecting her insecurities into her, and assuming what she wanted to assume to suport her theories about Athena, both of them wrong, and so on with most everybody else. Some of this people changed their view, once the surrender their expectations, and learned to just be and let others be, others in this case mainly Athena, which actually is a free spirit who learned to connect to her source, and live her life taping into this source, this flowing river of life, which has no limitations, which is pure love and no judgement. Athena seemed to me like a being with no agenda, except the propagation of the Love for the Universal Mother, and with no judgement. She seemed only concerned with fulfilling her mission in this world and taking care of her family, her consciousness was very high, as also her ability to manifest prosperity, she was also a very nurturing being.

You can also see from this novel, that the witch hunt does continue in other forms.

People should just respect others people beliefs without judging, and love unconditionaly. The comandment says love your neighbor like yourself, it doesn't say love your neighbor who goes to your church like yourself.

I've never read this author before, he was recommended by a friend. The story had interesting pieces, but in the long run I found it difficult to care what happened to the main character. End was disappointing and seemed somewhat contradictory to the beginning.

I am a big fan of Coelho's books and The Witch of Portobello did not disappoint. It is a fast read, the middle does drag a bit but the ending pulls everything together. What I like most about this book was the interesting POV, the story being told through different people's perceptions of a single woman. Very enlightening and beautifully written.