My Book Review on By The River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept
By Paulo Coelho
Translated By Alan R. Clarke

By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept is a story of two lovers that come together again after 12 long years. The woman is named Pilar who has become independent and strong. Her childhood friend has become a handsome spiritual leader. She has learned to bury her feelings, while he has turned to religion as a refuge from his inner conflicts.

The book discusses life’s big questions and presents realizations on our contemporary religion. It also showcases insights about love and the other elements that love encompasses.

The story’s beginning is its ending. It started by Pilar’s recollection of what had transpired in her reunion with her childhood friend. The work is structured through the use of dates in a span of one week. It helps to understand and visualize the situation they are in. it also justifies how the two major characters spent a day of being together again after 12 long years of longingness and concealment of their true feelings.

The story is told from the perspective of the woman (Pilar). She is revealed to the readers as someone who longs to see her friend since she was a child. To take a woman’s perspective would present emotions and ideas that are once not free from the biases and prejudices of the society. It also implies that not only men have the monopoly over things that concern insights and ideas on love, life, societal issues, and religion.

Pilar and her childhood friend (whose name was never mentioned) in the story, and the other minor characters represent the many conflicts that besiege us in our quest for love. The characters that were not named represent anyone who sees themselves to any of the characters in the story. They conveyed to us that sadness, suffering, and abandonment are elements of ‘love’ that we need not fear of experiencing. The characters are fictitious, but they let us realize that we have to overcome our fears, because the spiritual path can only be traveled through the daily experience of love.

The time setting of the story is conventional and the place set is Spain and France. The story did tackle of religions of the human race and the place setting helps the readers understand where the characters are coming from since Spain and France are nations enveloped with religion.

A crystal-clear discussion on love and life is fascinating. This book talks about love and life that go hand in hand, and is equated to saying that this book is fully-fascinating.

The book also tackled the possibility that God has a feminine face. Enough to say that this book used the perspective of the feminists. I respect Coelho’s idea but I decline to delve on that matter, not because I close my mind regarding it but because I chose not to go beyond the religion I grew up knowing. Moreover, our faith keeps us going and the truth resides where there is faith.

By The River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept is the fourth novel of Paulo Coelho that I have read. The other three are The Alchemist, Eleven Minutes, and Veronika Decides To Die. All these books were able to touch my heart’s soft spot. Coelho’s works moved me and appealed to my senses. The Brazilian author never fails to let his readers appreciate life more and give clear-cut thoughts about it.

Publisher: Harper-Collins Publications
Number of Pages: 180 (excluding the Author’s note)


To Love is to Lose Control… marcky_24