By the River Piedra I Sat down and Wept     by Paulo Coelho, Translated by Alan R. Clarke Original title: Na margem do rio Piedra eu sentei e chorei Original language: Portuguese Country: Brazil   Published by HarperCollins (paper) Pub. Date: May 1997 Format: Paperback, 224 pages Dimensions: 0.53 x 8.26 x 4.88 in. ISBN: 0060977264 List Price: $13.00 Buy online from Amazon.com for $10.40 Published by Harper: San Francisco Pub. Date: 1994 Pub. Place: USA,UK Format: 210 pages Not available for ordering

Indeed I wept. A macho book written from the perspective of a woman, all about the feminine, By the River Piedra I Sat Down & Wept is another one of Paulo Coelho’s tales of the search for wisdom. This time, however, we are not in a desert (as in The Alchemist), nor in the Bible (as in The Fifth Mountain), but in the French Pyrenees, and learning the wisdom inherent in loving. The ‘spiritual path can only be travelled through the daily experience of love’, and that is why ‘sooner or later, we have to overcome our fears’. Pilar and her nameless lover, her estranged childhood companion, travel the journey together of understanding this. They are fictitious, ‘but they represent the many conflicts that beset us in our search for love’.

However relevant and interesting a theme, Paulo Coelho’s take on it is to be appreciated only by those who are deeply involved with the occult, and for those who are not too bothered about style when they read. The themes deal, as in his other work, with a process toward understanding. The prose is very elementary and irritating for its repetitiveness.

To some also, it might prove disturbing, for once again, Coelho makes reference to a religious figure, the Virgin Mary, meanwhile re-interpreting Christianity, all the while claiming that all religions are the same. In this book we learn of God’s feminine face, that all religions all over the world have a Goddess figure, a Virgin Mary, a Great Mother, though her presence, or importance, may seem to have been forgotten. And it is she who encourages us to love, for loving a partner, and marrying, is the only way of serving God. Though in this story it all seems a little one-sided, the woman’s role being reduced only to that, and to following her mate.

There is also some reference made to the Carmelite Order, and a rather brash account is given of Saint Teresa of Avila, a Carmelite nun revered for her writing. Science is ridiculed and the book reads like a burst of enthusiasm for a kind of syncretic religiosity, a charismatic and mystical Christianity.

The book, and its popularity, is perhaps a statement that many believe that prevailing Western ideas and lifestyles leave us seriously out of touch with the means to happy human contact.

I don’t want a lesson in religion, Padre. I’m in love with a man, and I want to know more about him, understand him, help him. I don’t care what everyone else can do or can’t.

The padre took a deep breath. He hesitated for a moment and then he said, ‘A scientist who studied monkeys on an island in Indonesia was able to teach a certain one to wash bananas in the river before eating them. Cleansed of sand and dirt, the food was more flavourful. The scientist who did this only because he was studying the learning capacity of monkeys did not imagine what would eventually happen. So he was surprised to see that the other monkeys on the island began to imitate the first one.

And then, one day, when a certain number of monkeys had learned to wash their bananas, the monkeys on all of the other islands in the archipelago began to do the same thing. What was most surprising, though, was that the other monkeys learned to do so without having had any contact with the island where the experiment had been conducted.’

He stopped. ‘Do you understand?’

‘No,’ I answered.

‘There are several similar scientific studies. The most common explanation is that when a certain number of people evolve, the entire human race begins to evolve. We don’t know how many people are needed but we know that’s how it works.’

‘Like the story of the Immaculate Conception,’ I said. ‘The vision appeared for the wise men at the Vatican and for the simple farmer.’

‘The world itself has a soul, and at a certain moment, that soul acts on everyone and everything at the same time.’

‘A feminine soul.’

He laughed, without saying just what he was laughing about.

‘By the way, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was not just a Vatican matter,’ he said. ‘Eight million people signed a petition to the pope, asking that it be recognised. The signatures came from all over the world.’

‘Is that the first step, Padre?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The first step toward having Our Lady recognised as the incarnation of the feminine face of God? After all, we already accept the fact that Jesus was the incarnation of His masculine side.’

‘And so...?’

How much time must pass before we accept a Holy Trinity that includes a woman? The Trinity of the Holy Spirit, the Mother, and the Son?’146-8