Aleph is a 2011 novel by Paulo Coehlo that explores into the theme of pilgrimage as a means to explore one’s spirituality and find the meaning of life. The theme has also been used in his previous works like the much acclaimed The Alchemist or the Road To Santiago. It has also been cited that due to lower acclaim of novels like The Winner Stands Alone, Coelho used the formula of spirituality to regain his status.
The book is written in an autobiographical narrative, but given concepts like incarnations and shamans it is difficult to treat the book as non-fiction. The book starts with the writer in an existential crisis. He has no ‘peace’, and is looking for the meaning of life, which is ironic since he has been looking for the meaning of life all his life through spirituality and writes books on the topic. He wants to become the ‘king of his kingdom’ again.
His mentor J and his wife advise him to take a pilgrimage and so the writer agrees to a series of book signings in different countries over three weeks. He travels different countries and meet different people who bring something new to his outlook, but the most significant of these is Hilal. She is already the subject of a prophecy which comes true later in the book and introduction of her character is what speeds up the narrative.
She is wild, passionate, spontaneous, highly unstable and a musical genius. She declares all these elements as a result of sexual abuse she suffered when she was ten years old. The relationship between her and the narrator has a sort of love-hate, celebrity-groupie dynamic. The narrator claims to have met her in his previous incarnation and needs her to enter the Aleph, a powerful stage of energy where the narrator can exist as an omnipresent entity. He constantly refuses her due to their massive age difference but has sexual fantasies about her regardless. Hilal’s behavior borders on antisocial, and occasionally gets violent.
Although the book tries to be spiritual, it invokes a feeling of skepticism instead of the positive mysticism of The Alchemist which ends on a much happier and humble note.
