Aleph is a quest story, an odyssey of self-discovery of a spiritual writer. The meaning of the word Aleph, according to Paulo Coelho, is a moment when space and time--past, future, and present—condense into one singular magical occurrence.

In this book, unlike his earlier work, Paulo Coelho himself is the protagonist, a successful person but tired of routine, disconnected from what’s important to him, uninspired and quite unhappy with his present circumstances. After the advice of his mentor to change everything and move ahead, an opportunity presents itself, and Coelho takes up the Russians on the promise of letting him travel from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian railway, a distance of 9,288 kilometers.

Wanting to regain his spiritual euphoria, the author starts to trust the signs the universe offers him, and he follows up on them. In Moscow at the beginning of the journey, he meets a twenty-one year old Turkish girl, Hilal, who is a violinist with a bright future. Hilal pushes herself into Coelho’s tour group. Coelho realizes Hilal is an important person for his reawakening, and he must get her forgiveness, because of what he did to her in a past life through his sinful negligence, which he finds out within Aleph moments. Hilal, too, has her own search and her own agenda.

The pace of the novel speeds up as the train nears the end of the journey. What happens during the journey and at its end is up to the reader to find out.

In the book there are many wonderful sayings in Coelho’s style that address spiritual concepts. Although some of those sound like repetitions and clichés, I couldn’t see how else he could have said them, sayings like “Life is the train, not the station.” On the other hand, some brilliant passages exist that leave a reader breathless, such as: "Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second --at the end of life-- and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: I made some mistakes but I wasn't a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do."

some of the ideas in the story and the fact that this Coelho book has strong characters and a viable plot.

is Paulo Coelho, a world-famous Brazilian, who writes from his own spiritual viewpoint. Some of his other books are: The Alchemist, Zahir, Warrior of the Light, The Pilgrimage, Eleven Minutes,By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, Veronika Decides To Die, Miss Prym, The Witch of Portobello, The Valkyries, Fifth Mountain.

I think it is the second best book of Coelho's after the Alchemist.

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Created Jul 31, 2013 at 8:04pm • Submit your own review...