Paulo Coelho’s book The Witch of Portobello is the story of a woman, Sherine Khalid, also known as Athena, told by the people who knew her; mother, her spiritual “teacher,†her ex-husband, a journalist, and a Bedouin calligrapher. Athena, in search of a the "female face of God," travels from London to Dubai, where she meets the Bedouin, and then to Romania in search of her...
more Paulo Coelho’s book The Witch of Portobello is the story of a woman, Sherine Khalid, also known as Athena, told by the people who knew her; mother, her spiritual “teacher,†her ex-husband, a journalist, and a Bedouin calligrapher. Athena, in search of a the "female face of God," travels from London to Dubai, where she meets the Bedouin, and then to Romania in search of her biological mother. Along the way she encounters several people who each have their own interpretation of spirituality and connecting with God. She ultimately finds her niche, and a following develops when she teaches how to connect with God, or The Great Mother, through dance, with unforeseen consequences.Coelho’s technique is to use the different voices of the people Athena encounters, but we never hear the voice of Athena herself. This leaves the reader to discover Athena along with the various interpreters of her life, and to form their own opinions of her without the worry of ethics or moral connections that one usually makes when reading about a character through either first person or author omnipotence. Through Athena’s travels we learn along with her: she learns about a “dance that brought the dancer into the light from the Vertex.†(52) Athena, whose roots we know are Gypsy because she was adopted in Romania and the certificate is available, already has a great affinity for dancing, yet when she discovers this dance, she immediately connects with the people who have formed this small dancing sect through spirituality:“Then one night, while I was dancing, I felt that I’d been cured. If we were talking about some physical ailment, we’d probably call it a miracle, but it was a spiritual malaise that was making me unhappy, and it suddenly vanished.†(54)Later, she teaches all her co-workers at the bank how to do this dance before work, and as production and morale at the bank skyrocket, Athena is given a promotion to a bank in Dubai. It is while there that she meets the Bedouin calligrapher who teaches her the opposite of what she learns from the dance—to slow down and become patient, to seek out “the blank spaces.†(83) The calligraphy teacher teaches her both calligraphy and that “the intention of the writer must be in harmony with the word.†(81) I must confess this was my favorite part! After she has learned all that she can from the Bedouin teacher, she understands that “when I write, when I dance, I’m guided by the Hand that created everything,†(84) which sends her on her quest to find her birth mother in Romania because “… I don’t know the hand that first rocked me in the cradle. The hand that wrote me in the book of the world.†(84)In Romania she meets her mother, which helps her in her quest to feel complete, and returns home to London where she starts the cult of dancing she calls “The Dance of the Vertex,†and through trance, or through “touching the deepest part of the river that flows through her soul, she had come into contact with the Mother.†(192) She becomes a speaker known as Hagia Sofia, who tells the audiences philosophical and inspiring things. The following becomes so large that the “meetings†are moved to an abandoned warehouse on Portobello Street, where she becomes dubbed by the news media as “The Witch of Portobello.â€Since Athena’s intention was never to begin a cult with a following, she disappears, and the book takes a different turn. In the end of the book we find the answers to some of the secrets about her that Coelho was brilliant enough to insert so as to keep the non-spiritual reader interested. This book is one of the best I have read in a long, long time, both for the content and the technique that Coelho uses in writing about the protagonist, or main character, through the voices of others. This book is inspiring from many different aspects.
There aren't the right words to use to accurately describe the magnificence of this book. It is at once a wonderful tale of Athena, the "Witch of Portobello," and a book full of wisdom. This is definitely a book to read twice--once to enjoy and again to digest the portions that speak to your soul. Absolutely the best book I have read in a long, long time.
Great book. Just, wow.
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