Product Description

Una novela sobre la sorprendente historia de Brida O’Fern, una de las más jóvenes maestras en la Tradición de las Hechiceras, donde la magia habla todas las lenguas del corazón del hombre

"Un texto anónimo dice que cada persona, en su existencia, puede tener dos actitudes: construir o plantar.

Los constructores pueden demorar años en sus tareas, pero un día terminan y quedan limitados por sus propias paredes. La vida pierde sentido cuando la construcción acaba.

Los que plantan pueden sufrir tempestades y pocas veces descansan. Pero el jardín jamás cesa de crecer, y aunque exige la atención del jardinero, también permite que la vida sea una gran aventura. En la historia de cada planta está el crecimiento de toda la tierra."

Paulo Coelho

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #570634 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-01
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Coelho's brilliant tale of young Brida, an Irish girl who wishes to become a witch, is a compelling and vivid fantasy epic. Sadly, narrator Linda Emond's uninspired and monotonous reading is a disservice to this fantastic tale. Though the story is set in Ireland during the mid-'80s, Emond makes no attempt at a regional dialect or even the slightest shift in tone for any of the characters. Her narrative voice is dull and uninspired, read with a soft whisper that will surely put most listeners to sleep before it ignites their imaginations. The story would be much better served with a narrator more willing to put their performance skills to the test and dive into the story. A Harper hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 28). (July)
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From Booklist
Coelho’s loyal fan base will welcome the U.S. publication of Brida, another mystical pilgrimage from the master of the genre. Readers familiar with The Alchemist (1993), The Zahir (2005), and The Witch of Portobello (2007) will recognize the common themes—mysticism, discipleship, and a quest for fulfillment—that are incandescently woven into the fabric of most of his fiction. Brida O’Fern, a young Irishwoman, embarks on a voyage of self-discovery, ultimately resulting in a spiritual awakening and an acceptance of her own supernatural powers. While seeking initiation into the Tradition of the Moon, an ancient Wiccan ritual, she also discovers her soul mate and learns that love is the most divinely liberating emotion to be recognized and valued on the path to true wisdom and knowledge. Slighter than some of Coelho’s philosophically meatier novels, Brida is still a journey well worth taking; librarians should expect high demand. --Margaret Flanagan

Review
New Age savant Coelho (The Witch of Portobello, 2007, etc.) whitewashes witchcraft. This true-to-life tale of Brida, a young Irish sorcerer's apprentice whom Coelho met during a pilgrimage, was originally published in the author's native Brazil shortly after his breakout work, The Alchemist (1988). Twenty-one-year-old Brida seeks out the Magus, a wizard exiled to a forest, to learn magic. The Magus immediately recognizes Brida as his Soul Mate, but since Brida is unschooled in the Tradition of the Moon, the feeling isn't mutual. After an initial trial (an overnight stay, alone, in the Magus' woods) proves her worthy, Brida's path toward witchy enlightenment leads her to another teacher, Wicca, who guides Brida through the tarot and a series of trances, immersing her in the eclectic ragout of bromides that is spirituality according to Coelho. This benign rubric incorporates ancient Celtic pantheism (this is the only apparent reason for the setting, Ireland, because for all the local color the story could happen anywhere) but also the teachings of Saint Paul, Saint Augustine and Saint John of the Cross. The closest Wicca's queens of the night get to wickedness is hand wringing over their misunderstood sisters who were burnt at the stake. These witches call upon the Virgin Mary to stand by whenever they invoke the power of the Serpent, and they eschew the ultimate sin of attempting to control humans. In fact, that very sin consigned the Magus to his sentence of loneliness: He used Black Magic to drive away his rival for a woman - not even his Soul Mate, just a brief fling. An intriguing episode featuring one of Brida's past lives, during the persecution of the Cathar heretics, is all too brief.This patchy melange of vaguely Gnostic sounding aphorisms and not much action - climaxing with a BYOB witch-initiation party - will mostly appeal to Coelho's diehard devotees. (Kirkus Reviews)

Customer Reviews

A nice introduction to a great writer
I've never read anything by Paulo Coelho before, so I was rather surprised by the pagan spirituality of this little novel. It's the story of Brida, an Irish girl in training to become a witch. It is full of beautifully worded prose--I found myself making little tics and stars beside many paragraphs to go back and examine again (my apologies to those who get the ARC from me, lol). There is some seriously high minded spirituality folded into this simple book about a woman's quest to learn to use her powers and her heart. I was especially intrigued with the Catholic Christianity woven within the more traditional magical teachings and philosophies. This is, apparently, one of Coelho's earlier works that has finally been translatted from the original Portuguese. I found it a good way to whet my appetite for his other works before I come to a decision of what it is I think of him as a writer.

El mejor libro, The best book
Este es el mejor libro que he leído, Coelho usa un lenguaje simple, facil de entender.La historia de Brida puede ser la historia de todos nosotros(al menos en ese libro pude leer mi historia),como dice otro lector, es un libro para los que creemos que necesitamos a nuestra otra parte para alcanzar la felicidad total en nuestras vidas.Si todos buscaran sus sueños sin importar lo que diga la sociedad,si todos pudieramos vencer nuestros miedos,nuestra noche obscura, y seguir nuestro corazón,nuestros sentimientos en lugar de encasillarnos en una rutina y dejarnos llevar por la corriente del conformismo, este mundo sería diferente, si pudieramos decir no a la rutina y salirnos de la monotonía de la vida para buscar las respuestas a nuestras preguntas, si supieramos entender la diferencia entre el verdadero amor(nuestra otra parte)y la costumbre de estar con alguien, encontraríamos la felicidad eterna que todos deseamos.
Brida is a great story about the search of answers to your questions, about the quest for love and happines, and realizing your dreams by folowing your heart, told in a very clear way and easy to read and understand.I strongly recomend this book to everyone who believes that we need our other half to reach total hapiness.
i would have given it 7 stars if i could but 5 was the top.

Beautifully Simple
The fact that it presents something so complicated as love with such a simple explanation as wizardry, makes a person who is not able to read between the lines,think of it as a uninteresting book. I loved the way the book calls to the feelings of each one of the readers to be for or against the beliefs of the character... Read it if you can!