The Witch of Portobello: A Novel (P.S.)

El libro es un poco complejo y complicado, pero el final del libro hace que toda la lectura valga la pena :)

Me gusto mucho la manera que el autor presento la historia de Athena, la protagonista. Son sus allegados que nos la cuentan desde sus diferentes puntos de vista. Athena en busca de respuestas, nos lleva a conseguir algunas de nuestras propias preguntas. Es una lectura que cuando la comienzas, se hace dificil tener que dejarla, no deseas detenerte. Lecturas asi, son inspiradoras y nos abren un mundo diferente. Gracias a Paulo Coehlo!

Who is, or was, Athena? A troubled young woman? A seeker? A devotee of the Great Mother? A teacher? A charlatan? A failure at marriage? A cult founder? A dancer? The only way he could put her story together, the author says, is to interview people who knew her. And so he does, piecing together the wildly different accounts of her adoptive mother, her ex-husband, a newspaper reporter who fancied himself in love with her, a teacher, and many others. It's a mystifying story. Athena was brilliant but unstable, and she had a remarkable effect on people. When she went to work in a large bank--hired as a favor to her parents--she transformed the workplace with unexplained good will and energy by teaching her fellow workers to dance. Later, and shortly before her death, she was drawing huge crowds to lecture- demonstrations in her Portobello neighborhood. But what was she teaching? And where did it come from? Or, was she making it up as she went along? All these questions, and many more, are not answered by author Paulo Coelho. And I won't attempt to answer them, either. Still, the quest itself is intriguiing, even riveting. The book is beautifully written and engages so that you can't put it down. If you're interested in spiritual journeys and quests--of any kind--you're sure to find this book appealing. I recommend it highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

This book was captivating from cover to cover. An interesting story brilliantly woven with wiccan spirituality. For me it was a much better book than 'The Alchemist', the story had both more depth and appeal, and the spirituality much less fanciful. I look forward to reading more of Paulo's work. Entertainment: 5 stars Enlightenment: 5 stars

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.