The Witch of Portobello

Paulo Coelho

By the time she was an adult, Athena knew she would follow her own way no matter what. She had been adopted in Romania, raised in Lebanon until the civil war, then her family moved to London. She was married and had a son before she was 20. Within a couple more years she was divorced and raising their son on her own. Her son was one of the most important things in her life. As she discovered herself, he was always with her or safely with her parents when she traveled.

She learned to dance to connect herself to the earth and the gods and goddesses. She took that dance and taught it to her coworkers at the bank. The bank's profits and business increased. She was transferred to a branch in the Middle East. There she learned calligraphy. She left the bank and started selling real estate. She used these lessons and experience to connect herself more fully into the earth.

When she went to Romania to find her birth mother, she also found Edda. Edda became her teacher. From Edda, she learned secrets for teaching others. She found her inner self and her attachment to the Mother Goddess. Then her body was found murdered.

The author collects the reminincences of the people who met Athena or knew her throughout her life. Her story is told through the eyes of men who loved her, her mother, people she only met once or twice, people who hated her and people who followed her. Thoughout the stories there are two themes - her son and her inner quest.

I'm not quite sure what to think of The Witch of Portobello. I found it hard to follow. I feel Paulo Coelho tried too hard with this novel and it doesn't come together right. At one point I considered it "New Age-y", but later New Age thinking is ridiculed in the text. I liked the style of the book - using others to tell Athena's story from each unique point of view. At the same time, that made it harder to grasp what Athena was about.

I suppose the best test of this novel for me will be time. If I'm still puzzling over it in a year, then it had more impact than I'm feeling at the moment.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell

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