Product Description

From Paulo Coelho, author of the international bestseller The Alchemist, comes a poignant, richly poetic story that reflects the depth of love and life.

Rarely does adolescent love reach its full potential, but what happens when two young lovers reunite after eleven years? Time has transformed Pilar into a strong and independent woman, while her devoted childhood friend has grown into a handsome and charismatic spiritual leader. She has learned well how to bury her feelings . . . and he has turned to religion as a refuge from his raging inner conflicts.

Now they are together once again, embarking on a journey fraught with difficulties, as long-buried demons of blame and resentment resurface after more than a decade. But in a small village in the French Pyrenees, by the waters of the River Piedra, a most special relationship will be reexamined in the dazzling light of some of life's biggest questions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19869 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-01
• Released on: 2006-05-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061122095
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
This first United States paperback of By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept comes after huge worldwide sales of the novel of faith, romance, miracles, and the importance of following the heart's true path. The inspirational tale follows Pilar, a young woman from the Spanish countryside who, sparked by the teachings of a now-mysterious man she has known and loved since childhood, leaves her graduate studies and embarks on a spiritual pilgrimage through the Pyrenees Mountains and reevaluates her life and her future. Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, author of the international bestseller The Alchemist, is considered to be one of the most widely-read Latin American writers in the world.

From Publishers Weekly
Before James Redfield there was Coelho, whose fiction laden with spiritual messages has proved more popular overseas than here. (The Alchemist, first published in Brazil in 1988 and here in 1993, glanced PW's paperback bestseller list but has sold two million copies in South America.) Though likely to please the author's fans, this new novel, a didactic love story set in modern-day Spain, may not extend his reach. Its heroine is Pilar, 28, who, in the company of her former boyfriend, learns over the course of seven days that "the spiritual path is traveled by means of the daily experience of love." That may be music to Coelho devotees, but others will note the surrounding cacophony-the incessant lapsing from narrative into lecture; the stilted characters, who lack motive and verisimilitude (after 10 years of separation, the ex, a former seminarian, now an esteemed miracle worker, invites Pilar for coffee and declares his love for her). Coelho's message, though, informed by his adherence to the Roman Catholic sect of the Order of Ram, is invariably heartfelt and challenging, emphasizing the feminine aspects of the divine and the charismatic aspects of worship. "Some day," Pilar learns, "people would realize... that we can perform miracles, cure, prophesize and understand." Whether that understanding will encompass Coelho's reasons for sacrificing dramatic integrity to polemic, and for insisting on cloaking sermons in fictional trappings, remains to be seen. $75,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Coelho's The Alchemist (1994) was a surprise smash and made him the second most widely read Latin American author (after Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Here he offers another parable, this time about love, both personal and transcendent. The story's heroine, Pilar, remeets an old childhood friend, a charismatic seminarian who centers his devotion on Mary and the feminine face of God. Pilar, who has deliberately chosen a narrow life, is literally swept away by her unnamed friend as he takes her on a trip to the French Pyrenees. Each must search their hearts to discover whether the love they want to share can become compatible with the young man's vocation. Although the story has its charming and vibrant aspects, it is also occasionally muddled, especially in its theology, which is only vaguely explained. Readers will have only the dimmest sense of how (and, for that matter, why) the young man is torn between heaven and earth. Given that lack of definition, it's no real surprise when the couple gets together at the end. Still, the path they take to get there has a few interesting twists and turns, and Coelho's familiar message about the spirituality of love will please his devoted following. Ilene Cooper

Customer Reviews

Well written, a bit heavy on religion
I begin by noting that I love Coelho and find his prose to be almost poetic. I found this book - as always - beautifully written but a bit heavy on religion. Let me explain before you boo me off the stage, Coelho lovers! Usually, I find his thoughts on God and religion to be beautifully written but also subtly drafted. For example, in his masterpiece "The Alchemist", God and fate and religion were infused throughout the story, but subtly so. Here, the religion is very in your face. I found it bearable but a bit much, a bit unnecessary. Coelho is such a gifted writer that he doesn't NEED to be so blunt with religion and god. That said, this novel - as his others - is well constructed, a quick read and one in which we quickly become involved in the main characters lives. I found myself rooting heartily for the two main actors. The ending was something of a surprise, but as always left me on the edge of my seat with my mouth open and my mind racing. The book does what any good book should - leave you with the belief that you have read an excellent story, as well as give you many things to think about and relate to your own life. "By the River ..." is well worth a read, and Coelho continues to inspire with his almost non-stop beautiful prose. Each page contains at least one gem which I underline, think about, come back to, chew on, and then think about some more. A great read - if it was by anyone else I'd give it a 5; I give it a comparative 4 only in relation to his other books. While this one is great, his others are even greater.

A nice read a quiet afternoon in a bathtub drinking chamomile tea and surrounded by lit candles
A love story in which the two main characters, Pilar, who is a student in the town of Zaragoza, and her childhood sweetheart who she new as a girl in the small Spanish village Soria, `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' weaves ideas about God, religion, and carnal love into a nice, if not a bit obscure work of fiction. Perhaps because this book was not read in its English translation and not in its original Spanish, something was lost in the process.

Pilar receives a message from her childhood friend that he will make a speech in Madrid. When Pilar reaches Madrid, she realizes her friend has become a very influential and powerful leader of a religious movement that embraces the femininity of God. Shortly after the event, her friend professes his love for Pilar, a love that had been a part of his being since the two were children back in Soria, and he bades her to join him on a journey. On this journey, Pilar learns that her friend has not only become a leader of a religious movement, but that he also has the power to work miracles. At the same time, Pilar deals with "the Other," the part of each of our psyches that manifests itself as fear, regret, and other counterproductive emotional responses that prevents us from achieving our full potential as human beings. During this journey through the French Pyrenees, which includes stays at hostels and visits to churches and chapels, the two find themselves at the monastery at Piedra where the two had played as children. It is at Piedra where Pilar's friend must ultimately choose the path of his own life.

Often described as poetic, Coelho's prose in `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' is artistic and almost dreamlike. Throughout the book, Pilar actually seems to be in some sort of dream in which she willingly floats from place to place with her friend as she searches for her true self. At the same time, Pilar wonders and worries, as a result of the existence of the Other that lives inside her, what will become of the love that she has for her friend and the love her friend has for her. So, what has the potential to be a powerful and moving story of love is actually blunted by the almost ennui of the writing.

While the reader knows he or she is not reading a Tom Clancy novel, there is not a great deal of action in the story. The majority of the action actually occurs inside of each of the characters. Even the conflict between the two protagonists (assuming either religion or the Other are the antagonist) is muted. As such, `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' is really a nice read on a quiet afternoon in a bathtub drinking chamomile tea and surrounded by lit candles, (ladies), but the story and the message leave a little to be desired, I think, for many other readers. It's well done, but just a little cryptic and ambiguous for a lot of folks.

The Faces of Love
"By the River Piedra" shows us how love redeems, how it sets free, how it complicates life to make it richer. In the story love in its varied guises visit the couple--philia, the love between life-long friends, romantic and erotic love, and love of God.

Coelho says: "The heart decides, and what it decides is all that really matters." He elevates love to the highest position possible. Love is what really matters, just as St. Paul announced that love is the greatest, just as in myths and tales love always triumphs, even if death may come for it love survives for not even the grim reaper can arrest love's heart.

Coelho observes: "To love is to lose control." How true! When love finds us it tears down the walls that have kept us within our safe little abode. We are ushered into a freedom, a soulful experience that cuts the cords that bind us to earth. We move into a surreal realm that all at once looks and feels more real than the world we've just left behind.

Coelho's works speak to our spirit and our soul, to a part of us that some pejoratively call our naiveté. Those who have been disillusioned and enthralled by Reason and who no longer believe in anything except the things they can see and touch won't appreciate Coelho's stories of Personal Legends and the heart's call, of angels' tidings and the Soul of the World. Yet for most of us who still bask in our childlike inheritance of imagination and fantasy and intuition, Coelho is an elixir in a world that adulthood daily turns into a dreary desert.