Brida - Paulo Coelho

Having trouble reviewing Mr Coelho books. The Alchemist was one of a kind. A different track story with measured amount of philosophy, it exhumes you from the depth of indecisiveness in real life, every time you read it but sadly I cant say the same about Brida.

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"

- W B Yeats

Brida, a 21 year old young Irish lady is in search of knowledge- to learn magic, to become a witch. In the process  she meets a teacher and loner Magnus who describes her that true knowledge can be obtained by following the tradition of moon and the tradition of sun. He leaves her in the middle of the forest to understand the tradition of sun but she gets confused with his process of teaching henceforth finds another teacher, named Wicca who teaches her the tradition of moon. After some rituals, a journey through self and a witches sabbath of spring, she finally discovers the very thing she was searching for.

Any story with a plot of Witchcraft is supposed to be intense and consuming, isn't it? I was unable to understand the core of the story. The witchcraft plot with frequent mention of tradition of moon and tradition of sun, neither explains what Brida really wanted in life (except finding her soul mate), nor explains her special gift or whether she found what she was searching for. And the voice she kept hearing; it was supposed to be the voice of the ancestors, right? But what were they trying to imply? 

"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly" and making a world out of non existent things is a work of a brilliant mind (or may be the insane one but both of them are just a line apart). Being a potterhead and living half of my teenage days submerged in imaginary world, I don't mind an offtrack story with plot that begs to be different. Witchcraft is such dark yet fascinating plot but Brida fails to hold my attention. The attempt is fickle. 

The only thing the book was trying to shout out loud repeatedly was to find your soul mate by looking at the light in their eyes and light over their shoulder or something (duh-uh). And i sincerely doubt finding oneself means finding a soul mate and surrendering yourself emotionally and physically. The twist again is that you can have more than one soul mate in one life. (Kill me!!!) And falling in love with your 'non soulmates' is possible and so is being jealous if your love interest find their own soul mate... Argh... Can you make any sense out of this? Why not ditch the brilliant witch plot and make a simple high school drama of love triangles.

The only part of this book that i really appreciated was when the writer explains that everything has an explanation. The fish wonders how the birds fly and the bird wonders how the fish breath under water. But is it a mystery? Well its not. You don't know the reason does not mean its a mystery. You just need to change your perspective and have an open mind.

Besides this, all the soul mate and surrender mumbo jumbo glided over my head. I think i am gonna stick with the tweets and status updates in facebook by the writer for a while cause although "the stories" have no story, his one liners are brilliant and good enough to inspire.


My favorite lines: 

• When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
• Nothing in the world is ever completely wrong. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
• None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.
• Every moment in life is an act of faith
• Accept what life offers you and try to drink from every cup. All wines should be tasted; some should only be sipped, but with others, drink the whole bottle.
• How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.
• Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God.
• You will never be mine, and that is why i will never lose you.” 
• Feelings do not grow old along with the body. Feelings form part of a world I don’t know, but it’s a world where there’s no time, so space, no frontiers.
• Finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.
• Being human means having doubts and yet still continuing on your path.
• I’m afraid of love, because it involves things that are beyond our understanding; it sheds such a brilliant light, but the shadow it casts frightens me.
• Love is above everything else, and there is no hatred in love, only the occasional mistakes.
• Emotions were like wild horses and it required wisdom to be able to control them.
• The most important and the most vulnerable of emotions -love.
• Problems of the heart always bruise the soul.