It begins with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession.
Is your life too-organized? Are you just okay with whats happening in life? Do you still have a desire to tread the unknown? Or have you put that in the dark closets of your self? Well, most of us prefer to play safe and not look beyond the obvious. We try to keep ourselves content with whatever we have and in the process, lose sight of our ‘destiny’.
In ‘The Zahir’, Paulo Coelho shakes you up and leads you to ask yourself questions - What's my obsession? What’s my greater truth? The book demonstrates insights into the different possibilities of life, its purpose. In search of your destiny, you will often find yourself obliged to change direction.
The book written in Coelho's typical story telling style is a powerful intriguing tale of love,passion and destiny. 'The Zahir' has the ability to transforms lives. It is basically a follow up after Paulo's 'The Alchemist'. The book should be read slowly, savored and absorbed.
And for those madly in love with another person, the book can be 'magical' and has the ability to cure.
Zahir, in arabic means means extreme obsession, a thing, which cannot go unnoticed and completely fills your mind, and you cannot think of anything but that. This can be termed a state of pure holiness or complete madness. Its a thing which can't go unnoticed. It you intend to control it, it is bound to make you its slave!
Story/Plot :-
‘The Zahir revolves around the unnamed narrator’s search for his missing wife (Esther). The narrator of this book stays in France, lives a comfortable life, is a best seller novelist too (gets a grand money out of the royalties). His wife has helped him all through of pursuing his dream of becoming a writer. Like everyone else, he too believes that he is happy with his marriage and there is nothing majorly wrong. He too like millions across the world is happy with the status quo, happy with the constant distance between a love relationship/marriage as between the railway tracks as he did observe one day in between the book.
Life goes on until one day the narrator gets up only to find Esther, his wife (a war correspondent) missing. She leaves him without even telling him and without even leaving a trace!
He goes mad. On one hand he thinks now he is a free man and on other feels wretchedly alone. Many feelings, questions, doubts, suspicions cross his mind during the beginning. Was she kidnapped or murdered or simply eloped? (with a guy called Mikhail about whom she once told to her husband).
He realizes his inability to keep the women he loves by his side and wonders whether to find her or persuade her to come back. He remains utterly confused. Meanwhile he finds a girlfriend Marie with whom he chooses to live. But the Zahir returns every time he tries to run away from it.
He sees her in his inner cathedral. She fills everything. For the first time in his life he realizes that he loves a person more than he loves himself.
The narrator writes “A time to rend and a time to sew” dedicating it to his zahir(Esther) which becomes a bestseller. Time moves on.
The narrator meets Mikhail (who hears voices and wants to spread the energy of love in this world), who promises to take him to Esther. His life starts to change. Mikhail tells him her address but urges him that before finding his wife he must find himself.
Meanwhile narrator meets with an accident. There in the hospital he finds time to introspect and contemplate his own past. He observes Zahir disappearing and love returning. He feels reborn. He realizes that we have to discard the unnecessary baggage from our past to make way for things that make our present. Life would be beautiful then. His journey towards finding his zahir leads him to the beautiful landscape of Central Asia where he goes and meets her and rediscovers love again. After meeting her he realizes that love is a disease no one wants to get rid off. Thus he completes the circle. He realizes his capacity to love which at the end proves to be as enormous as the steppes. Everything starts making sense to him. What begins a search for his wife ends up in a journey into his own soul.
Moreover, in between the author introduces the beautiful concept of ‘Acomodador’ i.e. the giving-up point; the event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress. Be it pursuing a hobby or be it being an expert billiards/snooker player, I too have experienced a point when I say to myself, enough. I can't go further.
The same happens in marriages/relationships too. Instead of working to make the marriage successful, a point comes when each one simply gives up on the other person and says - Its all about getting used to the day to day fights, getting accustomed to forgetting the 'love' which brought them together. However, one should go beyond this point, and conquer the acomodador point — in order to find oneself and thus 'love'.
By - Akhil Sharma
Paulo Coelho’s stories usually have some sort of a spiritual quest as their basis; “The Zahir” is no different. The name itself signifies a Sufi concept of something that just refuses to leave your head. The unnamed narrator has many traits in common with Coelho himself – he too is a best-selling author with immense fame and success.
ReplyDeleteBut this book is much more different and difficult, as compared to the Coelho’s other books that I have read. One, it tackles tricky questions like what leads to a successful relationship, meaning of love, commitment and freedom within a marriage and the discovery of one’s true inner-self. As a result much of the novel consists of the protagonist struggling with these philosophical doubts in this mind, which is why I call this a difficult read.
The story-line has already been covered well by the reviewer. So I would like to emphasize on the various themes identifiable within the novel.
First there is the disappearance of Esther, which shatters the earlier misplaced sense of security and smugness of the narrator. It also brings to fore the hollowness of celebrity-hood and that you are all alone on the top.
The ensuing bouts of endless thinking about his wife and why she left him turn into an obsession and Esther turns into THE ZAHIR. Apparently, the narrator cannot let go of her. I personally think that the narrator is tormented not so much due to the love and longing he feels for her absent wife, but due to the hurt this incident had caused to his ego (which is much bloated as shown by other incidents). Meanwhile, he finds a love-interest Marie to fill try and fill in the gap.
The scene clears for him with the appearance of Mikhail who is kind of a mystic and who goes into epileptic fits at short notice. He tells him to do some ’soul-searching’ before attempting to find Esther. The subsequent car-accident provides him with ample time to do so. The novel culminates in the expansive steppes of Kazakhstan.
Stylistically, the abundant use of obtuse dialogues and parables only adds to the confusion. I feel, as the books raises pertinent ethical questions regarding the degree of faithfulness and compersion (an emotion opposite to jealousy felt when one’s partner obtains joy from outside sources) - desirable in a marriage, this book is recommended for mature audiences only.