Title: The Fifth
Mountain
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher:
HarperCollins, 2012 (First published 1998)
ISBN: 978-81-7223-514-7
Pages: 244
This is the fourth
review of Coelho’s works here, including The Alchemist, By the River Piedra
I Sat Down and Wept, and Like the Flowing River. I sincerely wish
this is not the last, but the recurring theme in all of Coelho’s collection
seems to be the same that reading another book of his doesn’t warrant the loyal
attention. In plain language, it gets boring after a certain point. I struggled
with Aleph, another of the author’s adventures, but dropped it halfway.
Possibly intoxicated with The Alchemist’s phenomenal success, the author
appears to have fallen in a groove, which churns out morally uplifting stories
and articles for the depressed. The works are carefully designed to accommodate
the worries and tribulations of people who’ve erred in the past, and are in
search of a paradigm to move forward in life. They find their own anxieties
expressed by Coelho’s characters in the book who get them quenched in the
ebullient flow of wisdom preached by another set of characters. I have lost
track of counting the number of times the phrase ‘Warriors of Light’
appear in his books. It seems to fill his literary yield. The huge number of
readers vying to get hold of his works should not deter us from taking a close
scrutiny of his writing under the cold light of reason. We would be struck
aghast at the pointlessness of some of his creations – some parts of them, at
least. The driving theme of his masterpiece, The Alchemist, which runs “When
you strongly desire for something, the whole universe conspires to get it to
you” is one such idea. It is beautiful and so consoling to the ailing
heart, but, what does it mean practically? Absolutely nothing, to say the
least. So, the idea revered by many people falls to the level of a candy, which
is sweet to taste – for a short time, after which the harsh and bitter reality
comes biting back.
The Fifth Mountain
is also written and produced in the same mould. It concerns about the flight of
Israelite prophet Elijah from his homeland where the foreign-born queen Jezebel
has tempted King Ahab to adopt Phoenician gods and kill all Israeli prophets.
Elijah flies to Lebanon and reaches the town of Zarephath, which its
inhabitants call Akbar. He finds accommodation with a young widow having a boy.
The child dies, and Elijah returns him to life, by performing a miracle his god
kindly grants him. Though he rises in stature among the society, he falls foul
of the machinations of the High Priest who is disgusted with the spread of
writing and alphabet. The priest worries that when writing becomes universal,
the priests have nothing to memorize about and the knowledge will be shared by
all. In his wicked desire to destroy the city, he persuades the governor to
intensify provocations against the Assyrian army which was camped outside the
city walls. Ignoring the invading Army’s appeal for peace, the Governor kills
an envoy and invites the wrath of a numerically superior armed force. They
attacked one night, decimated the city’s warriors and torched the houses. All
young men fled for their lives, leaving the women, children and invalid to fend
for themselves. As the governor also fled, Elijah assumed leadership of the
town to rebuilt it in memory of the young widow whom he loved and who was
killed in the Assyrian attack. The town prospered beyond recognition under
Elijah’s guidance, which he left to go back to Israel according to his god’s
command.
Coelho turns the
trials of Elijah into an inspiring story of how faith and love can ultimately
triumph over suffering and that those two feelings are not mutually exclusive. Elijah’s
inner struggle when he realizes that the widow’s love was bothering him in
following the path which god had set before him is notable for the
reconciliation he achieved in the end. The book is easy to read, though not
definitely a page-turner. Being a translation, or in spite of, the text is
smooth flowing and appealing to all classes of readers. Definitely, you can
have a try of this book, if this is one of your first Coelhos. Otherwise, for
those who know his style and work from his earlier volumes, there is nothing
much new to discern from this one. Whatever we may highlight against the work,
there is no denying that Coelho is an enchanting storyteller, and inspires
people all over the world to see beyond the ordinary and into the remarkable.
The book is
recommended.
Rating: 2 Star
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