How do we find the courage to always be true to ourselves—even if we are unsure of who we are?
That is the central question of international bestselling author Paulo Coelho's profound new work, The Witch of Portobello. It is the story of a mysterious woman named Athena, told by the many who knew her well—or hardly at all. Like The Alchemist, The Witch of Portobello is the kind of story that will transform the way readers think about love, passion, joy, and sacrifice.
February 19, 2007
Multimillion-seller Coelho (The Devil and Miss Prym
, etc.) returns with another uncanny fusion of philosophy, religious miracle and moral parable. The Portobello of the title is London's Portobello Road, where Sherine Khalil, aka Athena, finds the worship meeting she's leading—where she becomes an omniscient goddess named Hagia Sophia—disrupted by a Protestant protest. Framed as a set of interviews conducted with those who knew Athena, who is dead as the book opens, the story recounts her birth in Transylvania to a Gypsy mother, her adoption by wealthy Lebanese Christians; her short, early marriage to a man she meets at a London college (one of the interviewees); her son Viorel's birth; and her stint selling real estate in Dubai. Back in London in the book's second half, Athena learns to harness the powers that have been present but inchoate within her, and the story picks up as she acquires a "teacher" (Deidre O'Neill, aka Edda, another interviewee), then disciples (also interviewed), and speeds toward a spectacular end. Coelho veers between his signature criticism of modern life and the hydra-headed alternative that Athena taps into. Athena's earliest years don't end up having much plot, but the second half's intrigue sustains the book.
April 1, 2007
In best-selling novelist Coelho's ("The Alchemist") latest, Athena Khalil foresees civil war in her hometown, Beirut; moves to London; and finds ecstasy dancing to Siberian percussion beats. After traveling to Transylvania to meet her birth mother, a Gypsy, for the first time, she begins a spiritual quest of learning through teaching and off-the-cuff rituals to break routine. By dancing against the beat, Athena conjures Hagia Sofia, an alternate part of her who can speak with ghosts and see auras, and she prophesies for a growing audience. Athena's story is narrated in turns by many characters, none of whom is well established or provokes empathy; however, they do provide a clear understanding of Athena's character and a good vehicle through the scene changes, from a bank job in London to calligraphy in a Middle Eastern desert to Gypsies in Transylvania. With all the trappings of otherworldly intrigue (e.g., a love triangle, a foredoomed adoption, mysterious pasts, and foreign travels), the plot is tired until the end, when the witch is revealed as an unsettled, egotistical martyr performing for a cultlike crowd in a warehouse on London's touristy Portobello Road. Coelho's spiritual fables risk becoming commonplace, as changes in scenery may no longer be enough to inspire the awe his books solicit. Purchase for likely demand from Coelho's fan base. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/07.]Anna Katterjohn, Library Journal
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 15, 2007
Best-selling fabulist Coelho continues to transform his trademark combination of mysticism and storytelling into spellbinding examinations of the human soul. In this deceptively simple novel, a bereaved lover attempts to chronicle, dissect, and comprehend the often-twisted path followed by Athena, otherwise known as the Witch of Portobello Road. An orphaned Romanian gypsy, adopted as an infant by adoring Lebanese parents, Athena recognized and struggled with the power of her magical gifts at an early age. Spurred on by truths and passions inaccessible to most of her contemporaries, she traipsed around Europe and the Middle East in search of acceptance, enlightenment, and a truer path. Developing a cultlike following, she became the object of a modern-day witch hunt that seemingly culminated in tragedy. Unable to construct a typically straightforward chronicle of her life, her would-be biographer relies on the divergent recollections and reflections of the people who knew--or thought they knew--her best. Narrated from multiple points of view, the portrait of Athena that emerges is as provocative and spiritually complex as one would expect from the author of " The Alchemist" (1993) and " The Devil and "Miss Prym (2006).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)