I’ve read at least a a couple of Paulo’s books before, including the Alchemist but for some reason never realized they were translations. Paulo’s Aleph seems to be directly inspired by his fellow countryman, Jorge Luis Borges, which I’ve also read and which Paulo references. Coelho’s novel (I think I’ll call it that) reads like an autobiography but the spirituality and theme of prior lives and reincarnation do lend the air of fiction to those not inclined to believe such things. I take it that Paulo is Catholic as he threw down the marker specific to them alone–Transubstantiation although that could also mean Eastern Orthodox but he’s from Brazil.

It’s a love story between an older man and a young woman who were in love in a prior life, 500 years earlier, and there remains unfinished business. I liked the way they were brought together, and the relationship that developed over the course of the story, which was that of a journey across Russia. I found myself laughing often and looking things up, like Lake Baikal and the Spanish Inquisition. I like reading prose that places you in the story, and it’s like you’re not really reading, but you are. Sometimes, writing is so gorgeous that you have to stop and read it over because it’s so awesome, or you’re not sure you read it right the first time or it seems just out of reach of comprehension but worth the effort (or you’re too stupid to get it the first time) and so you realize that, yes, you are reading. This wasn’t like that, so I suppose that puts this more in the commercial fiction genre, but it’s better than that. I liked it and read it all in one day, finishing before midnight. Well done, Paulo.