The Witch of Portobello (P.S.)

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Although Coelho, in an interview about the motivation for writing the book, noted he wanted to explore the feminine side of God, for me, its scope was even broader. It is a study into the personal and spiritual meaning of life, happiness and self-fulfillment in a society built on rules and conventions. The writer elucidates the opinion that the Church has deviated by its stringent rules to the point where it no longer serves Jesus Christ, or as put in his words in one of the interviews: "It's a very long time since they've allowed me in there [the Church]". YDSTIE: In fact, I think some scholars suggest the Virgin Mary and the veneration of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic religion is actually vestigial goddess worship. The main character, Athena, discovers that there could be more to life after going to her neighbour's flat to complain about the loud music. What she sees when she arrives is a group of people dancing around to music - eyes closed, unaware of anything around them. She questions this with her neighbour who advises that he'd found some writing from his father, that spoke about dancing being a way to connect the participants to their inner self, and in turn to the light and The Mother. Athena then embarks on her own spiritual journey. This book is more of a spiritual life lesson than a real novel. There is no real plotline - Athena travels around and learns lessons, but thats the extent of the storyline. This doesn't matter though, as it's the meaning behind the plot that makes this book so wonderful.

This novel made me sad for Paulo Coelho because I was disappointed, the only good in this novel is a novel way and style in the narration is to talk about the protagonist of the novel but the perspective of those who were in her life, we can say such as investigative journalist but a very deep language and philosophical The concentration and joking needs a very high understanding.

About the author

I decided to read this as part of a string of Paolo Coelho novels in a sort of marathon. This is the fourth in a row, and I must say the worst, by far.

Normally, a women has to choose from one of these traditional feminine archetypes, but Athena was all four at once” Mr. COELHO: I do believe that for many centuries, religion or the quest for the spiritual realm was linked to the male figure, so God is the father, God is the one who get to rule us. We forgot totally that above all, God is love, and love is, in my opinion, in my understanding, it is simplified because, of course, God has no sex, but love belongs to this feminine face of the Lord, of the divine energy. So "The Witch of Portobello," the main character, tries somehow to bring this love, this universal love to her life.Athena’s business/career side as a successful real estate agent in Dubai is only lightly referenced, mainly to explain how she financially supports herself in her multi-year-long journeys to different parts of the world in search of who she is through dance, calligraphy and ceremonies. Athena was bringing to the surface the immensely rich world we carry in our souls, without realizing that people aren’t yet ready to accept their own powers. That’s why the writer describes her as a woman of twenty-second century living in the twenty-first, and making no secret of the fact either. That was her biggest problem. I think that the fact that it is told from multiple narrators really enhances the story. It is interesting to hear the different opinions on Athena and her teachings. I've encountered multiple narration in other books and hated it, but in this book it works very well. My only criticism is that because the characters are never really explored in depth, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the different narrators, however this is a minimal issue. In this book, Coelho works with the return to the goddess religion, the interpretation of love, and the feminine part of the Divine within the theme of searching for one’s true self and opening to the energies of the world. [1] The question central to the story is "How do we find the courage to be true to ourselves - even if we are unsure of who we are?"

The rest of the novel is set as transcripts of interviews with different people in her life leading to her death in an effort to reveal who she really was. This is performed artfully by Paulo Coelho who strings a cohesive, intriguing story of the development of the protagonist and simultaneously presents the complex and differing views of who Athena is through the eyes of all the characters. As the book begins, Athena is dead. How she ended up that way creates the intrigue sustaining the book. [2] The child, Sherine Khalil renames herself Athena after her uncle was discussing with her mother on how her real name will betray her origins and something like Athena gave nothing away. As a child, she shows a strong religious vocation and reports seeing angels and saints, which both impresses and worries her parents. The Witch of Portobello’ by Paulo Coelho is not a straight biographical book or the opinion of the writer on its main protagonists. It’s what the other people transcribe the writer about the women, the Witch of Portobello.Amazingly, Coelho survived these horrific experiences. He left the hippie lifestyle behind, went to work in the record industry, and began to write, but without much success. Then, in the mid-1980s, during a trip to Europe, he met a man, an unnamed mentor he refers to only as "J," who inducted him into Regnum Agnus Mundi, a secret society that blends Catholicism with a sort of New Age mysticism. At J's urging, Coelho journeyed across el Camino de Santiago, the legendary Spanish road traversed by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He chronicled this life-changing, 500-mile journey—the culmination of decades of soul-searching— in The Pilgrimage, published in 1987. According to the writer, there are four classic archetypes of women who search for a meaning to their lives or for the path of knowledge:

The central character is abandoned by her birth mother because the father was a foreigner (gadje) and later adopted by a wealthy Lebanese couple. Our main character had aspirations for her life and thought she knew what would bring her happiness. Athena went off to college and found young love, then dropped out of college, got married, and had a baby – it was all part of her plan. But something was always missing. Athena was unsettled within her marriage and the restrictive rules of the church that inhibited her search for God and herself. While venturing to understand it all, she discovered spiritual guides along the way that brought her closer to the answers she was looking for. Shreine Khalil, known as Athena was born in Romania and her parents, a successful industrialist family of Beirut adopted her, as their much loved, much-wanted daughter, who grew in wisdom and beauty. From an early age she had a strong religious vocation and knew all the gospels by heart, which was a blessing and a curse. She had the secret desire to become a saint someday. She had everything one can ask for, and yet it didn’t satisfy her restless soul. Her adopted mother, who was always ready to take care of her, give her all the love and comfort she could, want to see her win in whatever she does, though didn’t understand her, who felt that “a mother doesn’t have to understand anything, she simply has to love and protect”. A father, who loved her, was ready to be by her side in whatever she does and believed and respected her opinions as most correct even when she was just a child. The best of education that she left before completing; got married and divorced with a son in twenty; left the Church, on which she had deep faith from her childhood, after it forbade her from receiving sacrament, due to her divorce; a good job in a bank what she left when she was being just more than successful; took the job of selling land in dessert and left that too when she was earning more than enough, a successful Journalist, whom she left, who was ready to leave everything to love her. She was a restless soul, whom the success and comfort couldn’t content, who was learning all her life to suffer in silence, abandoned again and again by her birth mother, then by her husband and then by the Church she was so attached to, was trying to understand the meaning of life, through dance reaching Vertex and through calligraphy and passing this energy, the secret of rejuvenation to everyone else. Normally a woman has to choose from one of these traditional feminine archetypes, but Athena was all four at once.” — Deidre O’Neill (pp. 12) Mr. COELHO: I totally agree. I totally agree. And I think that religion, like the Catholic Church, is a body that it is our life and changes, it does not change fast but it changes. So I would say that at the end of 2,000 years - 200 years, you will not be here, I will not be here. But somehow A, they're going to allow women to celebrate the Mass, which is forbidden today; B, they are going to allow priestess to marry, which is also forbidden, and finally, they were to understand that somehow the Virgin Mary is the manifestation - the way that we you worship the Virgin Mary is the manifestation of the feminine face of God.

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If you would like to read more of Paulo Coelho’s books, then here is a review of another book, ‘ The Alchemist.’ Give it a read. I will see you with the next post, till then keep celebrating life!