The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho

The Portobello Witch is a novel by Paulo Coelho. Perhaps there is already a division. There are readers, many of them, for whom the author evokes a world from another universe, perhaps, where, within the unknown but knowable self, anything can be discovered. Likewise, there is another group for whom this trivial pseudo-religious self-discovery comes close to nauseating. First, the bones of the plot.

Sherine Khalil was abandoned at birth by her Romanian gypsy mother, at least in part because her father was a foreigner. Whether these origins, a rejection born from a persecuted minority in a context of political oppression are relevant is an academic question, because we spend so much time inside Sherine’s head, albeit from the outside, that we often lose sight of any larger context.

Thus abandoned, the girl is adopted by a middle-class Lebanese couple and raised amidst the political turmoil in the Middle East in general and the war in Lebanon in particular. None of the scenarios are examined in the book, although they are cited as possible influences on Sherine’s development, although the specific consequences do not appear to figure. Sherine changes her name from Aurora, grew up Christian and has visions.

Aurora goes to London and to university to study engineering, but leaves her, marries and has a child, because she realizes that this is what she really wants. The marriage breaks down and she achieves the status of a single mother, a status she seems to claim as an act of martyrdom. He does several things to make ends meet before becoming a real estate agent in Dubai, a lucrative activity.

But at all times, there is a side to Aurora-Sherine’s personality that is not of this material world. It is associated with the Virgin Mary, the mother and with Hagia Sophia and other phenomena. By the way, we can always know if an emergent concept is both real and transcendental because we can notice that it always has a capital letter even in speech. I’m digressing …

Aurora returns to London and teams up with a seemingly blasphemous cult based on Portobello Road, though what she’s selling is apparently not second-hand. Amid all the navel gaze and self-realization through universal personal discovery, there is room for religious difference. The fingers are pointed. Charges are made. Let’s leave it there.

Sherine-Aurora’s story is told by a number of people who knew her. The criticism of the work arises because these reminiscences of different people do not really offer the different perspectives that one would expect. None of these people, for example, outright dismiss Aurora’s claims about herself. In some way, they are all converts.

Personally, I have just used this form in my own novel, Eileen McHugh, A Life Remade, so perhaps I am too aware of its possible flaws. For me, however, these different testimonies from Sherine-Aurora’s life were just two consistent ones to convince the reader that they could be the memories of a varied group of people with different memories and interests.

I began by defining apparently opposite reactions to Paulo Coelho’s work. Obviously I’m in the latter group, so why should I choose to read this book? Well, I read it in Spanish as a way to develop my fluency in the language. Personally, it was a means to an end, and as such the delivered book, its calculated simplicity of style, and associated simplicity of language were perfectly suited to my linguistic goals.

And by facilitating my personal goals in this way, opening up new possibilities for my own self-expression and discovery, it may have conveyed the message of self-realization that I have apparently wanted to dismiss. It becomes an illustration of whatever an artist has intended to create a work of, it is ultimately what the receiver experiences that endures. Perhaps there is always an element that looks inward when we experience our universe.