Book
The Zahir : a novel of obsession / Paulo Coelho ; translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780060825218 (hardcover : alk. paper)
- ISBN: 0060825219 (hardcover : alk. paper)
- Physical Description: 298 p. ; 22 cm.
- Edition: 1st U.S. ed.
- Publisher: New York : HarperCollins, 2005.
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Missing persons > Fiction. Marriage > Fiction. Compulsive behavior > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Portuguese fiction. Psychological fiction. Brazilian fiction. |
Available copies
- 6 of 6 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect.
- 1 of 1 copy available at Castlegar Public Library. (Show)
Holds
- 0 current holds with 6 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Castlegar Public Library | FIC COE (Text) | 35146001209915 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Dawson Creek Municipal Public Library | F COE (Text) | DCL103337 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Prince Rupert Library | COEL (Text) | 33294001459338 | Adult Fiction - Second Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Rossland Public Library | FIC COE (Text) | BR34894 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Sechelt Public Library | F COEL (Text) | 40171116 | Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
| Smithers Public Library | F COE (Text) | 35101000013024 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2005 July #1
Subtitled A Novel of Obsession, this tale is the philosophical and spiritual chronicle of one man's quest for self-discovery. Stunned by his wife's inexplicable disappearance from their Paris home and immediately suspected of foul play by the authorities and the press, the unnamed protagonist, a best-selling writer, is forced to reexamine both his marital relationship and his own life. What he eventually discovers with the help of a -mysterious stranger named Mikhail--a man he suspects is somehow involved in Esther's disappearance--is that he must first "find himself" before he can ever hope to find his wife. Although Esther is physically and emotionally lost to him, he rediscovers her as he retraces both her footsteps and the disintegration of their visceral connection. Finally able to release the past and his anger, he can accept the uncertainty of the present by traveling to Kazakhstan with Mikhail in search of Esther and the remote possibility of resurrecting a dormant love. As in The Alchemist (1993), Coelho continues to prove himself a contemporary fabulist, spinning irresistible stories while seeking enlightenment at the same time. Interwoven with details drawn from his life, the mesmerizing narrative offers a highly personal meditation on the meaning and the power of love. ((Reviewed July 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2006 July
The ZahirAcclaimed Brazilian author Coelho offers an unforgettable story about love and self-awareness that's international in scope and profound in its exploration of human relationships. The novel's narrator, a successful writer of international renown, resides in Paris. Sophisticated and wealthy, he has it all, until the day his wife Esther disappears. A respected war correspondent who left Iraq and returned to France just before military action began, Esther had been experiencing emotional problems before vanishing from Paris with her friend and possible lover, Mikhail. When the narrator is implicated in their disappearance, he produces an alibi that clears his name, then makes contact with Mikhail, who, without disclosing where Esther is, offers to take him to her. He has no choice but to follow Mikhail, thus embarking on a quest to find his wifeâa pursuit that completely consumes him. As it turns out, there is more to the search than an attempt to locate Esther and, guided by Mikhail, the narrator soon finds himself on a remarkable spiritual journey with stops in Central Asia and the Middle East. This suspenseful, literate page-turner showcases Coelho's considerable abilities as a writer. There are a staggering 65 million copies of his eight prior novels in print worldwide, and this latest book should win him even more readers.
A reading group guide is available at www.harperperennial.com. Copyright 2006 BookPage Reviews.
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2005 June #2
On the road again-to spiritual and sexual fulfillment, as promised by the megabestselling Brazilian author of The Alchemist .Coelho's latest (not to be distinguished from any of its predecessors) is the "story" of a rich and famous author of inspirational fiction (to whom the critics are really mean) whose wife, a distinguished war correspondent, inexplicably disappears, presumably in the company of her young translator, who hails from the Mysterious East. The narrator broods for 200 or so pages, repeatedly re-summarizes his life and opinions, charms every woman he meets, debates the ethics of spousal appropriation when the translator (Mikhail) reappears, then-following countless pages of rhetorical foreplay-undertakes a healing pilgrimage to Mikhail's territory (Kazakhstan). The wife he's seeking, you see, has become his "Zahir"-in Islamic thought, "something which, once touched or seen, can never be forgotten, and which gradually so fills our thoughts that we are driven to madness." (Like this book, perhaps?) Little happens en route, though upon arriving at a railway station the narrator perceives that "the tracks seemed to be saying something about my marriage, and about all marriages." (Wait! Yes, I hear them. They're saying "drivel, drivel, drivel.") Abstractions, bromides and oversimplifications abound, as Coelho's scarcely fictionalized narrator holds forth on freedom, love, the "Divine Energy" through which love flows and the enigma of self-realization ("Before I could find her, I must find myself"). Coelho's plain prose does go down easily, and is no more a challenge to the intellect than Jell-o is to the esophagus. Costa dutifully renders Coelho's pronouncements as blandness incarnate, politely declining to correct recurring syntactical barbarisms (e.g., "No one should ever ask themselves that").One final gem of wisdom: "It is always important to know when something has reached its end." The Zahir ends on page 298. You're welcome. Copyright Kirkus 2005 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2005 May #2
The author of best-selling inspirational fiction like The Alchemist tries something a bit different: the story of a famed novelist, living in France, whose wife has disappeared. Whether she was kidnapped or ditched an unsatisfactory life, she remains his zahir, a term from a Borges story referring to an obsession that takes over everything. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2005 August #1
Finding himself in the grips of "the Zahir," a Middle Eastern expression for an all-encompassing obsession, the narrator, a successful novelist, reexamines his life and marriage in an effort to break the bonds of his fixation. His wife, Esther, a war correspondent, has disappeared, last seen with a younger man in a cafâ, and the narrator's search for her leads him on an expansive physical and spiritual quest. From Paris to Kazakhstan, the novelist encounters a number of cultures and subcultures with varying views of and preconceptions about love and the achievement of ultimate happiness. Brazilian author Coelho, known for such best-selling inspirational fables as The Alchemist, has written an enlightening story of faith and the reclamation of pure love. Personal elements incorporating his own experiences as an author and his pilgrimages to various exotic locations lend the novel a highly autobiographical feel. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/05.]-Joy St. John, Henderson Dist. P.L., NV Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2005 July #2
The press chat cites 65 million copies of Coelho's eight previous novels in print, making the Brazilian author one of the world's bestselling novelists (150 countries and 56 languages). This book, whose title means "the present" or "unable to go unnoticed" in Arabic, has an initial staggered laydown of eight million copies in 83 countries and 42 languages. It centers on the narrator's search for his missing wife, Esther, a journalist who fled Iraq in the runup to the present war, only to disappear from Paris; the narrator, a writer, is freed from suspicion when his lover, Marie, comes forward with a (true) alibi. He seeks out Mikhail, the man who may be Esther's most recent lover and with whom she was last seen, who has abandoned his native Kazakhstan for a kind of speaking tour on love. Mikhail introduces the narrator to a global underground "tribe" of spiritual seekers who resist, somewhat vaguely, conventional ways of living. Through the narrator's journey from Paris to Kazakhstan, Coelho explores various meanings of love and life, but the impact of these lessons is diminished significantly as they are repeated in various forms by various characters. Then again, 65 million readers can't be wrong; the spare, propulsive style that drove The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes and Coelho's other books will easily carry fans through myriad iterations of the ways and means of amor. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
