Zahir by Paulo Coelho (ISBN:0060832819)

English (US)

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		Zahir
	
				(1477 reviews)			
(39530 Readers)

			Paulo Coelho		
	
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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
An inpsiring love story. The story of love and obsession begins with the parting of a couple. The love exists between  a novelist  and a woman that has left him. The story may be one of losing love but the trade off is the discovery of self. 

Through this  emotional  journey of  this lost love the novel explores many different situations that affect the human condition. Coelho explores all...more
 An inpsiring love story. The story of love and obsession begins with the parting of a couple. The love exists between  a novelist  and a woman that has left him. The story may be one of losing love but the trade off is the discovery of self. 

Through this  emotional  journey of  this lost love the novel explores many different situations that affect the human condition. Coelho explores all aspects of love. Love of self, erotic love and universal love. The novel correctly points out that our relationships are reflections of self. In order for a relationship to flourish you have to start with yourself. Our relationships are just part of our journey..they allow us to grow and develop and are presented to allow us to see things that we wouldn't recognize within ourselves. 

The novel is a beautifully written love story with a spiritual twist. It is not your typical boy meets girl etc....there is great character developement as well as amazing insight into the journey that we are all on. 

Beautifully done.   hide

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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
One often feels the need to plunge into something of substance when reading; something that provokes both mind and spirit to new heights. As ever, Coelho delivers. The Zahir is semiautobiographical, based on evens in the life of the author, who, as protagonist, in emboiled in a quest to find the wife who has vanished. Coelho's easy, approachable writing comes across like a Mystery play in print,...more
 One often feels the need to plunge into something of substance when reading; something that provokes both mind and spirit to new heights. As ever, Coelho delivers. The Zahir is semiautobiographical, based on evens in the life of the author, who, as protagonist, in emboiled in a quest to find the wife who has vanished. Coelho's easy, approachable writing comes across like a Mystery play in print, leading the spirit on in  a way just beyond comprehension of the mind and physical senses. The protagonist finds himself ranging far and wide, much like Santiago in Coelho's 'The Alchemist' and findfs in the end a lesson elusive to him previously. The Zahir not only erects a temple within the soul of its reader, it also calls attention to the wide and beautiful space left empty within it; a true Zen garden of a book.   hide

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							Shahida
						
							few weeks ago						
Typical Coelho book.No real story but just a way of writing down his spirtual philosophy that he  has gleaned from his membership of different new age groups and cults.However it does not work very well this time.The end specially comes as an anti climax ,and one feels cheated.Is that what the 300 odd pages were leading upto.Certainly not one of his best work.

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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
Since the book raised a lot of thoughts it must be a book worth reading for. The book talks not only about obsession but also about forgetting your personal history as a liberating experience. If in Alchemist Coelhos main character had to travel far to realize his objective had been near all a long. In Zahir the writer who is the story teller has to reject all what has become familiar to him in...more
 Since the book raised a lot of thoughts it must be a book worth reading for. The book talks not only about obsession but also about forgetting your personal history as a liberating experience. If in Alchemist Coelhos main character had to travel far to realize his objective had been near all a long. In Zahir the writer who is the story teller has to reject all what has become familiar to him in order to find his obsession which is in a remote place in Asia. 
What can I say? The journey seems to be more than a half from the destination.   hide

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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
Oh, Paulo, what can I say? I consider myself such a fan of yours, but with this book I was dearly disappointed. It is far more sparse on the typical Coelho mysticism, and I missed this aspect of him in it. Furthermore, it seems he is unable to make up his mind about what it means to respect one's own vs. another's needs. Through his characters Coelho makes light of extra-marital sex... it doesn't...more
 Oh, Paulo, what can I say? I consider myself such a fan of yours, but with this book I was dearly disappointed. It is far more sparse on the typical Coelho mysticism, and I missed this aspect of him in it. Furthermore, it seems he is unable to make up his mind about what it means to respect one's own vs. another's needs. Through his characters Coelho makes light of extra-marital sex... it doesn't matter because what really matters is that the person respects him or herself, and only when this happens there will be true love. So far so good. My real problem with the book was the ending: if the point of having Esther being pregnant by some random guy she fucked when her redeemed prince rides in on the horse (quite literally!) was to illustrate the complexities of what it means to actualize oneself, ok, but it's confusing to say the least. And how convenient for both Coelho and his main character that Marie just got "sick of things" at the end. What a romantic piece of crap it was!   hide

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							Rosa Toste
						
							few weeks ago						
Gostei muito."O Zahir conta a história de um escritor de sucesso com uma vida confortável; um homem satisfeito.Até que, sem qualquer motivo ou explicação, Esther, a sua mulher, desaparece. Este acontecimento inexplicável leva-o a repensar toda a sua vida e tudo aquilo a que dava valor. Pouco a pouco, a sua necessidade e compreender o sucedido...more
 Gostei muito."O Zahir conta a história de um escritor de sucesso com uma vida confortável; um homem satisfeito.Até que, sem qualquer motivo ou explicação, Esther, a sua mulher, desaparece. Este acontecimento inexplicável leva-o a repensar toda a sua vida e tudo aquilo a que dava valor. Pouco a pouco, a sua necessidade e compreender o sucedido transforma-se numa obsessão que o leva a partir numa viagem para se reencontrar com Esther... e consigo próprio.O seu estilo fluido e cativante faz O Zahir uma das obras mais reveladoras de Paulo Coelho, uma reflexão autêntica e ponderada acerca do amor, da liberdade e do destino."   hide

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							vimalraj
						
							few weeks ago						
An inpsiring love story. The story of love and obsession begins with the parting of a couple. The love exists between a novelist and a woman that has left him. The story may be one of losing love but the trade off is the discovery of self. Through this emotional journey of this lost love the novel explores many different situations that affect the human condition. Coelho explores all aspects of...more
 An inpsiring love story. The story of love and obsession begins with the parting of a couple. The love exists between a novelist and a woman that has left him. The story may be one of losing love but the trade off is the discovery of self. Through this emotional journey of this lost love the novel explores many different situations that affect the human condition. Coelho explores all aspects of love. Love of self, erotic love and universal love. The novel correctly points out that our relationships are reflections of self. In order for a relationship to flourish you have to start with yourself. Our relationships are just part of our journey..they allow us to grow and develop and are presented to allow us to see things that we wouldn't recognize within ourselves. The novel is a beautifully written love story with a spiritual twist. It is not your typical boy meets girl etc....there is great character developement as well as amazing insight into the journey that we are all on. Beautifully done.   hide

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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
I've never been a fan of  novels written with a modern setting, for I always fancied that books are meant to transport us to another time, another place. The Zahir, daring to change my perspective, had opened my eyes like no novel had done so before. The very concepts I pondered over and wondered whether anyone had before were placed before me on paper. I felt so connected and so drawn, not...more
 I've never been a fan of  novels written with a modern setting, for I always fancied that books are meant to transport us to another time, another place. The Zahir, daring to change my perspective, had opened my eyes like no novel had done so before. The very concepts I pondered over and wondered whether anyone had before were placed before me on paper. I felt so connected and so drawn, not only in the characters, but also in their speech and all the things that plague us in out life. The pages flew by in a feverish, inspired state. I must say, I never expected such a response when I started that first paragraph, but I'm thrilled I continued reading.   hide

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							Kerie
						
							few weeks ago						
boring....can't get into Coelho's books.

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							A Reader
						
							few weeks ago						
I had a long conversation with a friend, about if we can call some experiences as a â€œcommon-share human experiencesâ€, if there are any ideas that we would share. In most of our conversation, we disagreed. He claims that nothing is universal, where Iâ€™m still sure that there are some experiences that define us as humans, and that we would react the same as love. Where we...more
 I had a long conversation with a friend, about if we can call some experiences as a â€œcommon-share human experiencesâ€, if there are any ideas that we would share. In most of our conversation, we disagreed. He claims that nothing is universal, where Iâ€™m still sure that there are some experiences that define us as humans, and that we would react the same as love. Where we sometimes agreed on common points, he prefer to call them â€œAdvanced Experiencesâ€, I prefer to call them â€œ Back-to-roots Experiencesâ€.

The Zahir, for me was a Proof Of Concept.

Where everyone has his own Zahir, my personal experience was much more than our writer friend. I have been there and I knew from the beginning that he was asking the wrong questions, as most of us do, but he had to go all along to find his answers.

It was somehow reading my own diary, same meaning different expressions.

The book was not that exciting from me, as I knew what was going to happen, but I did enjoy the details and how that they can be universal.

May you all have peace with your own Zahir.   hide

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