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The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession | 
| Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 15190
Media: Paperback
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0007220855
EAN: 9780007220854
ASIN: 0007220855
Publication Date: May 2, 2006
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| Customer Reviews: Read 36 more reviews...
 Self-indulgent disappointment November 27, 2008
This was my first dip into Coelho; I bought it as it appeared to be one of the few books by a decent author at Manchester airport. Unfortunately, I am left hugely disappointed by a book that is repetitive, self-indulgent and wholly lacking in depth; I felt no empathy for any of the characters and feel none the wiser nor enriched for having stuck it through to the end. I look forward to reading The Alchemist but can only hope that it is a class above the juvenile drivel on offer in The Zahir.
 not one of his best August 26, 2008
Obviously everybody who reads this book will probably have a different opinion about it, but after reading several of his books I was a bit disappointed with this one.
It's still written in his usual style and I love how he expresses himself, but the storyline was a bit of a let-down for me. I expected more from Paulo Coelho.
What really matters? July 28, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is not the best I have read from Paulo Coelho, but as always I know I'm going to remember some of the profound messages it portrays. I'm still thinking about 'Eleven Minutes' more than 4 years after I read it, and 'The Alchemist' was apparently life-changing for many of the 27 million who have read it (so far). Of course the writer has his critics but I wonder if some of those are on his wavelength, or even have the capacity or desire to be. In The Zahir, a man with no name wonders why his wife of ten years has left him, and as is the case with most of Coelho's novels, a pilgrimage begins which leads the central character to question his or her purpose in life and the things that truly matter. In this novel the unnamed man is a very successful writer, which I personally found uncomfortable because I was constantly wondering if this tale was partly or even wholly autobiographical; Coelho acknowledges that at least one of the characters is based on a person with the same name and nationality, and the book itself is dedicated to the author's wife Christina - could she be, in fact, the Zahir who becomes something of an obsession in the unnamed writer's life? Personally I found this lingering doubt to be a distraction, particularly because the writer speaks somewhat arrogantly if not egotistically about his career and achievements, and I would hope that this differs from Coelho in real life.
Despite the theme of love and its eternal energy that we are indirectly urged to embrace, the central unnamed character gives the impression of a man with somewhat shallow feelings; he has been married three times or more and even in his latest marriage he concedes to occasional acts of infidelity which in my view serve to undermine his credibility as a man worthy of the woman he is married to. He finds new `love' not long after his wife's unexplained disappearance and continues to flirt, or invite sexual encounters, so I for one felt unattached to his emotional dilemma.
In spite of that, there was plenty to make me think about some of those intellectual, philosophical and spiritual issues that seem to occur in most of Coelho's work. Some of his observations border on the cynical, for example his compartmentalisations of relationships in high society or simply between a husband and a wife, the observations made have a touch of condescension about them yet maybe they are more accurate than some of us would like to think. Central to this line of thinking is that age-old question : `What is love?' and to an extent the author tries to offer his ideas of what love is and more often his opinions of the hypocrisies and denials many of us live within during our married lives. As in Eleven Minutes he dehumanises love (or at least our popular conception of it) and presents us with a picture of the love that we can find at the end of a spiritual tunnel, a painful one that we seem to have to traverse in order to find it. It's a difficult subject to approach and is bound to attract criticism but the open-minded reader will find it interesting and perhaps worth pursuing. I don't think I read anything categorically new in The Zahir but it was elegantly written and is a worthwhile read for anyone looking not so much for the meaning of life, but the purpose of it, and the things that really matter.
 A tale of love, longing and obsesssion June 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Without a doubt this book is a truly great piece of work. Not the simplistic and beautiful message we can easily absorb and receive in the Alchemist... nonetheless a powerful read. It does get a bit heavy and circuitous in the middle chapters for sure but I think having read many Paulo Coelho books he uses the weightiness of his story to show us sometimes how life can be.... we get weighed down with life before we find our path once again.
Read this book if you have ever found yourself lost or unhappy with what you have become in your life... its a soulful search for the man he had lost ... the one his wife could no longer live with. Each person has their own Zahir - its finding the courage and the way to follow your heart's desire that eventually takes us to ourselves.
 Finding yourself in searching for another June 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've returned once again to one of my favorite authors to review his latest work. Paulo Coelho of international fame for The Alchemist, 11 Minutes and The Devil and Miss Prym, has released his latest The Zahir. According to the book, the Zahir in Arabic means present, visible, incapable of being unnoticed. It is something that grabs our thought, mind and spirit and demands our full attention. It is believed to lead to either Holiness or madness. In this book, the Zahir is a woman, an idea of a woman, a longing. Our main character sounds very familiar to our author; in fact our hero is a famous author now living in Paris, with his books being published in nearly every language. (which sounds like Mr. Coelho. This book is being published in 50 countries/languages this year alone. [...]) The author writes books that millions love, adore, and claim changes their lives. Yet he appears to have stopped living the type of deliberate life he writes about. He has settled into a complacent life.
Then one day his wife disappears. Over time she becomes his Zahir; he writes a book about love and for a while the Zahir fades. Then he meets the man he believes she had left with and the Zahir returns.
This is a wonderful story about becoming, and remembering who you were meant to be, not who you settled into. It will stir in you a passion to be more than you think you can be, and, to give more, and love more purely. Follow a man who goes in search of an estranged wife, only to find himself.
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