This book written by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian writer, is about Athena, a young women that, after divorcing her husband, searches for the meaning of her life. She gets involved in many different rituals and learns many different ways to worship "the Mother", which for her, and some other people, is a "female form of God". She gets in touch with the Mother by belly-dancing, doing calligraphy, and having rituals. By the end of the book she starts to teach others about her ways of life, and ends up being murdered because of the controversy she brought up.
This book is not written as a narrative, instead, the writer interviwed many people who closely knew Athena and published what they had to say about her. I personally found the Witch of Portobello to be a very insulting book because it constantly states that God is far away, up in the sky just telling us what to do. In some ways it reveals witchcraft, and some actions, which I believed to be Satanism, just as the towns people believed it to be at the time. I wouldnt recommend this book to a friend, and I also did not like the ending very much, even if it was a true story...
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I'm sorry you didn't like the book, I have never read it so I can't tell you if I like it or not. It sounds a little like Inot The Wild as far as the oragnization of the story. Krauker (I think that's how you spell his name) also used interviews with those close to Christopher McCandless.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad you wasted your time reading a book you didn't like. It doesn't seem appealing to me either. I can see how that would be insulting, especially people that take religion seriously.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely. o_o
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't sound very good.
I think I'd be very aggravated by this book, haha. But you explained it well, and I will most definitely take your recommendation to not read it. =]
Evelyn, I think you will find a lot of books that question religion. If your beliefs are strong, then your faith will remain unshaken. But one good thing about reading books like this is that you are forced to see another point of view. I thought I might liek the book, because I am very interested in cultures and religions that worship a female deity instead of a male one. I can see why people feel the image of God as in Heaven makes him seem far away.
ReplyDeleteThank you for opening your mind. I think you will find it helps you cement your own beliefs as well as understand others better.