lit. letter 9

 The Valkyries

Author: Paulo Coelho

                I guess I have been having high expectations from Mr. Paulo after I read his book The Alchemist. I give this book a ‘B’. Although I am not quite finished with it yet, I could not take more interest in it. However, its relation to Islam intrigues me at times. Mr. Paulo writes quotes and sayings that actually exist in our religion as well. It is pretty interesting knowing he would relate them to his life or his fictional stories.

               “Angels will sound the trumpet on the Final Day of Judgement”. We know even in Islam that when the Judgement time will occur, there actually will be a sound of trumpet that will notify us about the Time that has come.
               Also, there is one of the famous tales about God that is mentioned quite surprisingly in the book. It was about a master and his disciple that stop to take a rest during their journey. While the master sets up the tent, he assigns his student to tie the horses. ‘My master is testing me. He said that God is aware of everything, and then asked me to tie up the horses. He wants to see whether I believe  in God’, thought the student. And so, instead of tying them, he says a long prayer and leaves the fate of the horses in God’s hands.
               When they wake up the next morning to find out that the horses have disappeared, the pupil complains to the master that he doesn’t only distrust him, but also God since he asked Him to take care of them and He did not. The master replied, ‘God wanted to take care of the horses, but in order to do so, He needed to make use of your hands to tether them to the stone.’
               The tale certainly has a huge lesson for those who lose faith in Him rather quickly.

               The story of this book is not so great, but I still like Mr. Paulo’s usage of philosophy. The main character in the book has been himself. So far, I learned that he is on the path of deep magic. Specifically, he wants to converse with his angel, thus he nearly travels around the world to see the right people who can teach him how to do so. It is pretty odd. Let’s see how the ending turns out to be.

     

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