Title: Aleph
Author: Paulo Coelho
Year 2011
Pages: 320
This autobiographical novel is more than two people who once again become kings of their kingdoms. It is not just a trip that Paulo Coelho made through the Trans-Siberian Railways; it is a journey through the silent distance that separates two souls who do not know that they have touched from eternity. To understand how everything in time and space can exist in one place and time, Aleph is what you need.
Aleph is the story of a book tour of several countries that Coelho undertook in 2006 when he was experiencing the pain of the futility of all that he had dedicated his life to. He was distraught over his spiritual stagnation. He could no longer bear the awakening that despite years of searching, he could not, and would probably never find, peace. He was losing touch with himself; his soul. Most of all, he was tormented by the idea that he would never be king of his kingdom again. Little did he know that this impulsive journey he made through Africa, Europe and Asia would end up joining him with a Turkish beauty who will guide him back on his way, and towards the end of the 9289 kilometers through Russia, he would have regretted it. in addition to being caressed, the moment he decided to undertake this journey. And, most importantly, this trip would have made him ‘the king of his kingdom’.
This trans-Siberian trip introduces you to the most annoying and stubborn woman whom you first avoid and then lust after. He later learns that it was this woman whom he was destined to take this tedious book tour. Hilal is not just one of the eight women he had betrayed in one of his past lives, she is the woman who died because she loved him. She, along with the other seven women, persecuted him throughout his current life, and also in the previous ones, without him knowing why. He is adamant in finding the answer to this question in this incarnation and during this journey. The answer awaits him in a train car when he experiences Aleph with Hilal. Coelho keeps his readers interested throughout the novel by hinting at the cruelty he had inflicted on the eight women. However, with each clue readers’ curiosity grows, until there comes a time when it takes a lot of effort not to jump to the last page.
The setting for this novel is a train and its rail car where 6 people are made to enjoy and support each other for 9289 kilometers across Russia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, in the spring of 2006. And, the setting of this novel is every place on this earth during every second of the past, present and future. Its characters are Coelho, Hilal, seven women and their torturers, a translator, an editor, an editor, a shaman, tens of thousands of Coelho readers and the many men and women who have lived his life, are living his life and his Will. live their lives in the future. To understand all this, you may have to read this novel more than once, as Coelho himself comments; “Why did it take me so long to write about this pilgrimage? Because it took me three full years to understand.”
We don’t have to agree with Coelho’s philosophy to like this book. Filled with wisdom and spiritual insight, Aleph has the ability to bring light at the end of the tunnel to even the darkest of pessimists. Simply put, it is an interesting book and you will never regret reading it.