The Zahir (2005) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Narrator: a bestselling novelist who lives in Paris and enjoys all the privileges that money and celebrity bring.It's his journey to recapture his lost love.
• Esther: a war correspondent who, despite her professional success and freedom from the conventional constraints of marriage, is facing an existential crisis and disapears one day leaving her husband and authorities clueless
• Mikhail: His real name is Oleg.
• Marie: An actress, the lover of the narrator in the absence of the Zahir.
• Jan: the guide
• Dos: Grandson of nomad
• Mikhail: Add a description of this character.
• Pero
• El Zahir
• Creo
• Tiempo
• Cuando
• Ulises
• Kazajstán
• Roberto
• Tengri
• Dios
• Anastasia
• Camino De Santiago
• Oleg

Quotes edit see section history

• “When Someone leaves, it's beacause someone else is about to arrive - I'll find love again .”

• “I had to lose her in order to understand that the taste of things recovered is the sweetest honey we will ever know.”

• “Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try toimprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost andconfused.”

• “Stop being who you were and become who you are.”

• “There is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exists or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence”

• “Being with someone else and making that person feel as if they were of no importance in our life is far worse than feeling alone and miserable”

• “I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.”

• “That’s why it’s better to live cherishing a dream than face the possibility that it might all come to nothing.”

• “He died while he was still alive’’”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• “Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.

  Highlighted by 62 Kindle customers

• “The energy of hatred won’t get you anywhere; but the energy of forgiveness, which reveals itself through love, will transform your life in a positive way.”

  Highlighted by 61 Kindle customers

• Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

  Highlighted by 60 Kindle customers

• No one should ever ask themselves that: Why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.

  Highlighted by 56 Kindle customers

• freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose—and commit myself to—what is best for me.

  Highlighted by 55 Kindle customers

• “Finally, he explained to me that suffering occurs when we want other people to love us in the way we imagine we want to be loved, and not in the way that love should manifest itself—free and untrammeled, guiding us with its force and driving us on.”

  Highlighted by 54 Kindle customers

• The acomodador or giving-up point: there is always an event in our lives that is responsible for us failing to progress: a trauma, a particularly bitter defeat, a disappointment in love, even a victory that we did not quite understand, can make cowards of us and prevent us from moving on. As part of the process of increasing his hidden powers, the shaman must first free himself from that giving-up point and, to do so, he must review his whole life and find out where it occurred.

  Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers

• In the words of a Persian sage: Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured.

  Highlighted by 44 Kindle customers

• “Esther asks why people are sad. “‘That’s simple,’ says the old man. ‘They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people’s ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.’

  Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers

• All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step.   We humans have two great problems: the first is knowing when to begin; the second is knowing when to stop.

  Highlighted by 11 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Francia
• Almaty
• Asia Central
• Madrid

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Obsession: Describe this theme.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Paulo Coelho (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Kiklop Literary Award Hit of the Year (2006: Bestseller, #1)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 869.342

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Authors, A-Z › ( C ) › Coelho, Paulo
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Paulo Coelho's website

More Books Like This edit see section history