Number of pages, Edition:
300 pages, HARPER
Narrator: The author himself.
Main characters
- The
principal character: the author himself.
- The author’s
wife: she first accompanies him in his journey but decides
to let him continue alone so that he learns more.
- Samil: the Tunisian guide, he helps the author know more
about the reincarnation in Islam.
- Hilal: a Turkish girl who plays the violin. She
insists on accompanying the author in his trip and falls in love with him.
- Yao: The translator. When his wife died, he started losing faith in religion and changing his vision of life and death.
Summary
Like many of Paulo Coehlo’s novels (The alchemist, The
Zahir…), the story is about a journey whose purpose is the quest of truth and
peace and which is inspired from his own vision of life.
The author is a successful person; he has a soul mate:
his wife, he is a famous writer and people all around the world read his books,
he doesn’t have health problems and he is rich. However, he still feels
spiritually unstable and he believes that many things have to be discovered
somewhere else. So, he decides to go on a long journey to find the peace he is
looking for, by accepting the invitations of all publishers to hold signing
meetings in their countries.
In every visited country, he tries to come in contact
with people and learn from their own stories and lives. During the last station
of his journey, Siberia, he meets a Turkish girl called “Hilal” who insists on
accompanying him because she was spiritually lost and she was sure he is the
one who can help her finding peace and happiness.
Once in the train carriage, he and the girl get in the
Aleph, a time tunnel where the past, the present and the future become the same, he
discovers then that he knew her in the past and that he couldn’t help her when she needed him. Since this, he tries to help her regaining her self-confidence
and her love for life, and tries to make her forgive him for his past mistakes.
He even starts desiring her as a woman, but he can control his desire because
he is sure he’s already found his soul mate.
This journey was very useful to the author because it gave
him the possibility to return back to his past and ask forgiveness from Hilal,
and it was useful to Hilal too, because she became more tolerant with others
and with herself and she decides to continue her life with optimism.
Principal ideas
- The Aleph is a place when the past, the present and
the future become one thing.
- For the author, the present contains all other times: In
our memories, we can see some situations in the past as if we still live them,
and in our dreams, we can see future events.
- If we want to know ourselves, we have to know others
first.
- Life is like a train with many compartments, people
live in those compartments without knowing each other, but they can meet
between compartments or by moving from one compartment to another.
- A life without a cause is a life without effect.
- Travel is primordial to break the routine, to meet
other people and to discover new things in this world.
- To continue our life, we should be able to forgive
our mistakes and our sins, love ourselves and others, learn from our past and focus
on our present.
Writing style
- The novel is translated from Portuguese to English, that's why its style is very simple and easy.
- The author uses narration and description but he
focuses more on dialogue.
Points of agreement
- The past and the future exist in the present through
memories and dreams.
- Death is not the end of life; it’s only another
compartment of the life train. People are immortal, only their bodies die,
but their souls move to another world and wait for the resurrection day. Then, they
live eternally in Heaven or Hell based to God judgment.
- Our memories can influence our present negatively,
which makes us prisoners of our past and prevents us from evolving.
- We should acquire the ability to forgive ourselves
and others because it makes us free and light, and it helps us continue living happily.
Points of disagreement
- We can’t learn everything from people.
Example: If we want to know more about a religion, we
mustn’t ask people, we should get back to basics (for the Islam: the Holly
Coran, for Christianism: the Bible), because people can distort
religions by traditions and bad interpretations.
- I don’t agree with the author in his vision of love,
sex and loyalty, and this is a topic repeated frequently in his novels.
- If a married woman is desired by a man other than her
husband, this makes this latter proud and happy! (The feeling of Igor in “The
winner stands alone”).
- A man can sometimes be in relationship with another woman if he will finally return to his wife, and the same thing for a woman. (in the
Zahir, the hero doesn’t care when he finds her wife pregnant of another
man).
I think the relationship between the man and the woman
should be more serious. Love is a precious and pure feeling. So, each of us must respect his partner, be loyal to him at any
circumstances and feel jealous if he belongs to another person, this is what
protects any relationship.
- As always, the author uses superstition in his book
and bases the story on it (All what the Moroccan clairvoyant says happens).
- The author repeats sometimes the same situations in
many books (Swimming in the cold water in “Aleph” is similar to walking on the
ice in “the Zahir”).
- Some scenes are, in my opinion, off-topic (some sexual
scenes between the hero and Hilal, the scene of drinking in the restaurant…).
Evaluation
I think the novel story is similar to other novels;
it’s a journey where the hero is seeking his internal peace. Furthermore, I think
the novel contains many interesting thoughts, but I don’t agree with many
others. So I rate the book 3/5.
Amal.
