Paulo Coelho
[...]
When I wrote The Zahir, the main character says exactly the same thing: writing is getting lost at sea. It’s discovering your own untold story and trying to share it with others. It’s realising, when you show it to people you have never seen, what is in your own soul. In the book, a famous writer on spiritual matters, who believes he has everything, loses the thing that is most precious to him: love. I have always wondered what would happen to a man if he had no one to dream about, and now I am answering that question for myself.
When I used to read biographies of writers, I always thought that when they said: “The book writes itself, the writer is just the typist”, they were simply trying to make their profession seem more interesting. I know now that this is absolutely true, no one knows why the current took them to that particular island and not to the one they wanted to reach. Then the obsessive re-drafting and editing begins, and when I can no longer bear to re-read the same words one more time, I send it to my publisher, where it is edited again, and then published.
And it is a constant source of surprise to me to discover that other people were also in search of that very island and that they find it in my book. One person tells another person about it, the mysterious chain grows, and what the writer thought of as a solitary exercise becomes a bridge, a boat, a means by which souls can travel and communicate.
From then on, I am no longer the man lost in the storm: I find myself through my readers, I understand what I wrote when I see that others understand it too, but never before. On a few rare occasions, like the one that is about to take place, I manage to look those people in the eye and then I understand that my soul is not alone.
Once I heard an interviewer ask Paul McCartney: “Could you sum up the Beatles’ message in one sentence?” Tired of hearing the same question myself, I assumed McCartney would give some ironic response, after all, given the complexity of human beings, how can anyone possibly sum up a whole body of work in a few words?
But Paul said: “Yes, I can.” And he went on: “All you need is love. Do you want me to say more?”
No, said the interviewer, he didn’t. There was nothing more to be said. The Zahir could be summed up in the same way.
Welcome to Share with Friends – Free Texts for a Free Internet
“Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.”
Norman Mailer
‘No Man is an Island’ – John Donne, Paulo Coelho talks about storytelling and his novel ‘BRIDA’ on http://www.wbqonline.com/feature.do?featureid=133
CUANDO PRONUNCIAS LA PALABRA “AMOR” CREO QUE SE LLENA TODA LA EXISTENCIA.
UN BESO PAULO, ME ENCANTAN ESTOS ESCRITOS.
bLESS yOU SAVITA
aND tHANK YOU paulo – for demonstrating in this story here some of the paths a writer takes and how the process feels and works ;o) it’s enlightening!!
‘On a few rare occasions, like the one that is about to take place, I manage to look those people in the eye and then I understand that my soul is not alone.’
Your words, my dear Paulo Coelho, have touched my heart! Yes the shortest bridge in the material world to the .. other islands, is in looking into the eyes. Then we may find we are not alone or that we .. really have found a .. wall and loneliness. Words may fool us, but never the expression of the eyes or the ’silent inner thoughts’ perceived by our intuition.
LOVE,
Thelma.
O Zahir foi minha companhia e eu dele durante 9 dias numa maravilhosa ilha portuguesa, em Dezembro de 2007. Amámo-nos
Hoje, estou arrumando minhas malas para ir de novo até lá pois dessa minha paixão me foi permitido gerar parir um sonho: adquirir, lá, um pequeno espaço. A ti Paulo Coelho, para além da minha especial e dedicada apreciação dos teus dizeres, desde há anos,és meu convidado a seres o padrinho.
Até breve
Nattalis Sollis
Dear Savita,
Your welcome sweet Savita, but don’t thank me, thank Paulo.
I’m just the observer in this case, not the initiator.
Love
Mariëlle
This evening I feel I would settle for PEACE – CONTENTMENT – in my life , to escape the love- ‘battle ship ‘-it used to be a ‘love boat’ but still can be a love boat some days !!!! : )
Breda
Dear Paulo,
Nicely written and well, said.
-”Love is beyond faith, religion and hope. Love is what makes and love is what which will fake, love can heal and at the same time love can kill.”
-”A book has a life of itself, very true and every object has life in itself, too.”
-”All life work of any artist cannot be explained in one sentence nor can it be explained in one century, it takes longer than time itself.”
-”Yes, we all need love and those who can understand, learn, keep believe, capture, share and dare to fight for love will always be legend.”
God bless you all !
God bless you all !
For karen, Marielle and, of course, whomever else might be interested:
Today I feel I have come full circle. This post on islands has led me to discover my own.
Another ibis has landed on my windshield, except this time it is not an ibis, but an island. Day before yesterday, karen made a suggestion to me on this blog, under this same topic, “In search of my Island – Part 1.” She suggested I use some of the pieces I have written on this blog, edit them and collect them into a book. She wrote:
“Your pieces which you write are your ISLANDS dumbo!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just realised.
Put your islands into a book!!!!!!!!!!!”
So, as I never save anything that I write on this blog, I set out last night to begin collecting from the archives everything that I have written here, to see what might be usable in some way. I thought the best way, the most systematic way, to do this would be to find the first post I ever made on this blog and then just work forward from there, copying and pasting everything into Word, for later editing. I knew that I had started dropping in on this blog sometime around September of last year, so I went to the archives and started searching there. When I finally got to it and realized what my the very first post to this blog was, my heart skipped a beat, maybe even two, or three. The first entry I made was dated September 8. The topic – Free Association of the Week: The Island!
Thank you, karen. Thank you, Nanci. Thank you, Marielle. And, of course, most of all, thank you, Paulo!
If, as your main character in the Zahir says, writing is getting lost at sea, I may have just found myself. As you note, Paulo, it is a great source of surprise to me too to discover that other people might also be in search of that very island that I am writing from. “…And what the writer thought of as a solitary exercise becomes a bridge, a boat, a means by which souls can travel and communicate. From then on, I am no longer…lost in the storm: …I understand what I wrote when I see that others understand it too… and then I understand that my soul is not alone.”
Love,
Savita
Mysterious God
your life reminds us
that relationships are at the heart of reality.
Deepen our experiences of your presence
in our life
Save us from false isolation
that inhibits all peace & joy.
bring us back again into the light of your love,
for herein we find life & graced joy*
(R.F. Morneau)
Yes, communication, communication, communication or sharing, sharing, sharing. Each single soul is so precious… we need to be extremely gentle listening to others, to be able to love and respect each other. To go through those lonely moments… to find oneself, gives back a much more integrated person who is able to understand and have empathy, too see the loved one and give him/her a supreme attention.
It is so true Paulo!! We readers find ourselves in your words time and time again. It was one of my dreams to look you in the eye, tell you all that you have done for me and thank you….I got to do just that!!!! It was no question for me how it was going to happen, just a matter of WHEN. 5 years after I read the last page of ‘The Alchemist’ I was standing in my favorite city in the world (Paris), standing right in front of you, shaking your hand and telling you how much you have shown me about life, love, and the pursuit of dreams.
You were the catalyst that catapulted my dreams and deepest desires into action. And I can say that on this VERY day and everyday after…I am living the life I was meant to live, living my personal legend, and will never again choose anything but what my heart yearns for.
You are a gift to the people of the world Paulo. You are loved.
Jenovia
Dear Paulo,
Thank you for baring your soul to us, your readers. I think your kind of writing and the kind that many of us strive to do is a result of the constant courage to speak your truth and to remember that there is only love and that it is the only thing that matters. It is about remembering, acting from, and not getting lost. Not easy, but when you have done it, you can’t imagine doing or being anything else…
Love,
Sherry (http://evolutioninconsciousness.blogspot.com/)
Freedom and Piece in Substitution for Happiness? “I know about my span,that fortune’s jurisdiction has fixed;but for my heart to beat I must wake up with the conviction that somehow that same day we’ll meet..”(A.S.Pushkin)
“Love is something eternal, the aspect may change but not the essence.”
Van Gogh
:)
Thank you so much. Its exactly answers for my questions. But, is valid in your case, and in the case of some writers, to be understood so well by so many people. Is about talent, empathy , good luck, I am still not sure.I might say why I like your books, but the miracle that other hundreds of millions do like them same way, I cant explain.Your books talk about love, but also are so optimistic, surprising turns of the situation in the end , happy endings, universal symbols, stories of common people who are able to change their fate. But other authors use all these things,more or less, and still no one love them. Here comes the magic, the alchemy.Your personal touch. Love,
Alexandra
“The soul can not live without love, it is always something to love because it is through love that God has created”
Sainte Catherine de Sienne
(Now I read on my calendar that it was his party, so I am pleased to write this for you today;is a phrase that is dear to my heart, that I wrote in the header in the book I sent you “Aimer, c’était donc ça”
« L’âme ne peut vivre sans amour, il lui faut toujours quelque chose à aimer puisque c’est par amour que Dieu l’a créée »
Sainte Catherine de Sienne
( aujourd’hui j’ai lu sur mon agenda que c’était sa fête, alors je suis heureuse d’écrire cela pour vous aujourd’hui ; c’est une phrase qui me tient à coeur , que j’ai écrit en en-tête dans le livre que je vous ai envoyé “Aimer, c’était donc ça”