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    Aleph
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    Aleph
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    Aleph
    Audiobook8 hours

    Aleph

    Written by Paulo Coelho

    Narrated by Mark Bramhall

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    Transform your life. Rewrite your destiny.

    In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved The Alchemist, Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to begin again: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him.

    Setting off to Africa, and then to Europe and Asia via the Trans-Siberian Railway, he initiates a journey to revitalize his energy and passion. Even so, he never expects to meet Hilal. A gifted young violinist, she is the woman Paulo loved five hundred years before-and the woman he betrayed in an act of cowardice so far-reaching that it prevents him from finding real happiness in this life. Together they will initiate a mystical voyage through time and space, traveling a path that teaches love, forgiveness, and the courage to overcome life's inevitable challenges. Beautiful and inspiring, Aleph invites us to consider the meaning of our own personal journeys: Are we where we want to be, doing what we want to do?

    Some books are read. Aleph is lived.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 27, 2011
    ISBN9780307943972
    Author

    Paulo Coelho

    Paulo Coelho is the author of The Alchemist, he was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Being the author of 30 books that have sold over 320 million copies in 170 countries, he has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Paulo Coelho is the recipient of over 115 awards and honours, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Grinzane Cavour Book Award and the Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur, to name a few.

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    Reviews for Aleph

    3/5

    185 ratings12 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Extraordinary book! Full of wisdom. It changed my view on many things regarding life and love!
    • 3/5
      só tem em inglês pensei até em assinar algum livro ou até comprar mas até do Paulo coelho está em inglês
    • 1/5
      "You are an egotistical man who thinks the world owes him something" says the character Hilal to the "character" Paulo. Truer words never spoken. I almost bailed on this book, but didn't have anything else to listen to. I liked the Alchemist, but this was a sore disappointment. The narrator (author?) cannot sustain happiness in his life and is seeking for some understanding of this predicament. He embarks on various trips with his wife, but only when he leaves her behind, rides the Trans-Siberian railroad for 9000 kilometers and travels back into a past life with Hilal, (the Turkish violinist who randomly shows up at his first appearance in Russia and insists on joining him), is he able to get a grip. This is a completely self-absorbed, selfish, self-important undertaking and the way he uses Hilal is so irritating. He had wronged her egregiously in a past life (which did not ring historically true -- Spanish Inquisition) and only with her help can he enter the Aleph, a type of portal which allows him to see and re-live part of that life to understand that he must ask forgiveness. It felt like a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo from start to finish. Only interesting parts were the idea of Aleph (first letter in the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic alphabets) representing the oneness of God and the concept of time like a train -- all connected and sequential but each train car represents a different era or life that we can fluidly move between. We don't change, but the surroundings do. That was 5 minutes. The other 5 hours were wasted.
    • 3/5
      This book was listed as non-fiction but it was a better written fiction than the author's acclaimed The Alchemist. Although Coelho is a brilliant spinner of yarns, he obviously has no clue about reality or how the world works. Strangely, that works to the reader's benefit because we get to enjoy the fruits of the author's over-active imagination and flights of fancy. It might even work out better that he pretended this was a real account from his life because it adds the air of legitimacy that makes the lunacy within more enduring.
    • 5/5
      Indescribably amazing book. But probably not everyone's cup of tea. Paul Coelho has really changed the publishing industry. He puts his books online for free in many places and then asks only that if people like the book, they then buy a copy. He also interacts with his readers on social media and that is very exciting. He actually discusses his books with his readers as he writes them.

      This is a book for people who spend their time questioning the meaning of their lives, who undertake the work of a spiritual warrior in their quest to find out and who are interested in esoterica and spirituality. If you are a skeptic of magic/alchemy/spiritual tradition then this book is probably not for you. It has been a very long time (a significant number of years) since I have spent time underlining passages in a book. Within the first few pages I was looking for a pen and getting busy.

      SPOILERS NOW

      The story starts with the author in a spiritual malaise. He goes to visit his "guru" for want of a better word and in the typical mystic tradition, provides few answers and more questions to encourage the spiritual quest. "When a sense of dissatisfaction persists, that means it was placed their by God for one reason only: you need to change everything and move forward." To this end the author undertakes a grueling book tour but the focus is primarily on a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostock.

      The author, his translator, his publisher and a small entourage are ready to set off when a young violin prodigy, Hilal, approaches the author revealing that she has been called to follow him and that she is in love with him, despite the fact that he is happily married. Because of a complex issue that he is trying to resolve, he asks her to travel with the group.

      As it turns out, the author, Hilal and the translator Yao are all on personal spiritual journeys. At some point, I boarded the Trans-Siberian railway and joined them. A conversation about becoming a writer between the author and Yao resonated with me: "Don't be intimidated by other people's opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren't afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. They are precisely the kind of people who change the world, and after many mistakes, do something that will transform their own community completely."

      Which brings me to the Aleph. This is the first letter in the Jewish alphabet but for those familiar with the bible, it is the beginning and the end - a timelessness in which all things are always occurring at every given moment. A small aleph occurs when you find yourself at a place and time stands still so to speak. You enter the perfect moment. A large aleph occurs when two people with a strong affinity for one another meet in a small aleph and their energies merge into one. Most people think of this as "meeting one's soul mate" but that is only one example. Two people can be together for a long time or meet only once and part, but the message is one from the divine bringing two people together to manifest love - many times people miss the opportunity for a whole variety of reasons - timing, place whatever - and so must continue meeting over "time" until they achieve their mission. In his description, the author says "Love is the only thing that can save us" and that "Dreamers will never be tamed.

      The mission of the author and Hilal is to resolve a past life conflict. To this end there is some meditative and esoteric practices that unfold the back story of their past lives. There is also the unfolding story of Hilal's unrequited love for the author. It is a complicated and delicate matter well handled in the end by both.

      But there is a parallel mission between the author and his interpreter Yao. Yao is attempting to recover from the loss of his wife and to this end, has made repeated trips to a place in Siberia known for its shamans. He is seeking meaning in his wife's death and meaning for himself to keep going. In a serendiptious turn of events, all three go to see the shamans. Hilal experiencing an event with the female shamans and Yao and the author with a male shaman. It is a very well described and explained experience and for anyone who has spent time with a mystic, it will immediately resonate.

      Again there was a passage for my spiritual journey that helped me progress. It explains leaders and shamans and how originally shaman's were women. Leadership changed and became corrupted and when men had secured and corrupted the leadership role, they then usurped the role of the shaman. "Force won out over harmony. The natural qualities of women were ignored; what mattered was their power....whenever they (women) put themselves forward however they were treated as heretics and prostitutes. If the system felt threatened by them it did not hesitate to punish them with burnings, stonings and in milder cases, exile."

      Bottom line - much is learned, some things are resolved, some are not. Time is reinterpreted. A trip is taken and completed. The mystical tradition is experienced and explained. A book is written and read.


    • 2/5
      Hard for me to get engaged on this one.... I found it dry and was put off by the what I considered the smugness and condescension as well as sexual bravado. A little bit let down.
    • 5/5
      A review of this work cannot be properly elucidated on account of its metaphysical nature, which, when read, will be tailored to each reader's inner state. On that note, this book will speak to the masses, and read as though it was written for the audience of one. A masterpiece, which for me, upstages 'The Alchemist' by the same author.
    • 5/5
      This novel marks the beginning/continuation of the journey we all need to venture.
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this but couldn't get into it. Quit reading for now.
    • 4/5
      Once again Coelho provides another modern day parable. The tale begins with a midlife crisis heading into adventure to renew his sense of self. As the journey starts it is filled with a plethora of aphorisms and platitudes that begin to exude the smell of cheddar. My advice is to push through this because what happens in the second half is the deep, inner work of learning how to forgive yourself. Here's some good one-liners: "Go and reconquer your kingdom, which has grown corrupted by routine.""To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.""Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.""I remember the many occasions on which help has come from precisely those people whom I though had nothing to add to my life.""When faced by any loss, there's no point in trying to recover what has been; it's best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.""Hell is when we look back during that fraction of a second [at the end of life] and know that we wasted an opportunity to dignify the miracle of life. Paradise is being able to say at that moment: I made some mistakes but I wasn't a coward. I lived my life and did what I had to do.""That is what marks out the warrior: the knowledge that willpower and courage are not the same things. Courage can attract fear and adulation, but willpower requires patience and commitment.""When a sense of dissatisfaction persists, that means it was placed there by God for one reason only: you need to change everything and move forward.""No life is complete without a touch of madness..."
    • 3/5
      I would've liked this book a lot better had it been a novel. Although I believe in spiritual journeys, I'm neither comfortable nor convinced about entering a "past life" to detect and remedy a fix for the present life.Hilal is such a bizarre character, and frankly, it's what makes her interesting. She's emotionally immature and insecure--perhaps quite normal for a 21-yr old, but she's also aggressive, insensitive, rude, and refuses to accept no for an answer. In a strange way though, I admire her ability to defy people and circumstances to pursue her goals (obsessions?).Paulo is downright honest about his thoughts, feelings, and fantasies throughout the journey, and elucidates them in a flow of words that leaves a lasting impression on the reader. The train makes an ideal setting for his life-transforming journey and serves as a perfect metaphor for life's journey.I know from my own personal journey of self-discovery that when the right people gather in the right place at the right time, the combined energies can set the stage for spiritual growth and renewal.On a side note, in Dec 2011 I rocked and rollicked across Australia on the Indian Pacific w/ author Steven Lewis. In Jan 2012 I shuddered across Russia on the Trans Siberian w/ Paulo Coelho. I'm all stirred up about the rickety possibilities February might bring -- Palace on Wheels??
    • 3/5
       Normally I love what Paulo Coelho writes, but perhaps because the story he is telling mirrors my own in many ways, I found it to be disconcerting and angrier somehow than his usual material is. Much of what he discusses I can relate to and I also understand how the healing occurred in this case. The book tells the story of his trip across Russia and the two major characters that travel with him: Hilal, a girl/ woman who is convinced her healing lies with him and Yao, his Russian translator who is trapped in the sorrow of having lost his wife.