Ouroborus

So as you've probably noticed, I'm working my way through my third Paul Coelho book, Eleven Minutes. I've also read Veronika Decides to Die and The Alchemist within the last six months or so, upon the recommendations of friends. And I've enjoyed all of them.



If I had to pick my least favorite book of the three, however, I would without question pick Veronika. Yesterday I was mulling over why this was and I came to this realization: his books (or at least the presentation of the messages within them) feel very much like parables. I was quite fond of this fact with The Alchemist as the plot/characters/context seemed to complement its parable-like quality. I wasn't so fond of it in Veronika because the events of the book are not quite so mystical (they deal with suicide and mental institution rather than a sort of mystical journey into the abroad) and so seemed a bit out of sync with this parable-like quality.

What startled me last night while I was reading is that the main character, Maria, suddenly reminded me of a character from one of Ayn Rand's novels.

How in God's name could I possibly even entertain the thought of similarities between the two author's writing? For various reasons...

#1 -- The main character/protagonist of each writer's novels is an idealization/embodiment of the author's philosophical outlook--they are the embodiments of the perfect and philosophically-sound human being. Strangely enough, this seems to be rather uncommon in novels and maybe that's why it's so startling and appealing. Coelho's and Rand's characters are heroes in a world where the typical heroes of our novels/movies seem to be anti-heroes (Holden Caulfield, Lester from American Beauty, etc.) serving to remind us that the state we're already in is ok rather than giving us something--some ideal--to strive towards. They represent the real as opposed to Coelho's and Rand's representation of the ideal. Coelho's and Rand's characters move with certainty and clarity. They "know" or at least move towards knowing with few complications. They are philosophical abstractions given human form.

This is obvious in any Rand novel--her main characters are these philosophically muscular and independent beings who stand up against the world and defy being absorbed by the collective. These characters are pretty much impossibilities--they are the idealized embodiment of one author's intellectual pursuit. They are what the author believes to be the way a human being would function if he/she only recognized the truth of this philosophy and adopted it.

Coelho's characters are very similar (but obviously represent a much different philosophical viewpoint than Rand). Maria puts into practice Coelho's abstract and idealized philosophical views about sex. She is an impossibility given possibility through writing.

#2 -- Both authors' main characters are usually absurdly cerebral and reason-oriented, regardless of the focus/topic of the book. Again, this is obviously the case with Rand--her heroes use abstraction and reasoning to achieve her own kind of "enlightenment." Reason = truth. Strangely, this is also the case in Eleven Minutes (so far) despite the fact that its topic is the most unreasoning topic of all--love and sex. We have a main character who is delving into her own understanding of love and her life as a prostitute and how sex fits into this vision of love. And yet even as she acknowledges her own jealousy (and its foundation in a lack of reason), she is able to break it down in logic, as a sort of equation, "developing methods" and therefore reach a reasoned clarity: "if you want to achieve your objectives, you have to be prepared for a daily dose of pain or discomfort." In a book focused on love and where love fits in with sex, it is startling to see such a cerebral analysis, such a head-y discussion of the heart.

#3 -- Both authors' books are essentially how-to, self-help manifestos on how to "achieve enlightenment according to [insert author's name]". There is something both unsettling and yet very attractive about this.

I've always been a long-time fan of Rand much to some people's dismay (*COUjefGH*)--I've read all of her novels and many of her philosophical works. (You can actually see a bit of The Romantic Manifesto rubbing off on me earlier in this blog.) Her characters have a strange attractiveness to them, one perhaps best shared by our monolithic cinematic heroes--people who fight against the wrong and stand like stone in the name of honor. They are attractive. They suck you in. They are unachieveable ideals, attempted embodiments of an abstraction that fail to calculate in natural human fallibility--a philosophy that swallows its own tail simply because it cannot be put into practice.

And yet, what is so attractive to me about Rand is her constant life-long attempt to consistently embody her own philosophy... It is a flawed philosophy in so many ways (its view of women, its view of capitalism, etc.) and yet she put every ounce of energy into practicing it. It's hard not to respect this in an individual seeing as we're such a wishy-washy crew usually when it comes to our morals and ethics.

I am drawn towards Coelho's books for similar reasons; they are simple and speak simply and have beautiful and affirming things to say. His characters are strong and represent what he deems to be an achievable ideal. He clearly has a much more benign and easily acceptable (and accessible) message. He etches out individuals who embody a much more simple philosophical viewpoint than Rand's, but they share a weird affinity to them in that they represent something to strive towards but something that perhaps doesn't recognize the complexity of human nature and in that respect, can only function as an unattainable ideal.

And yet, despite being compelled towards these characters, admiring them, their function as ideals is slightly undercut by a slight sense of dishonesty that lurks within them. They seem a bit hollow, a bit dishonest, because they mark themselves as characters and as characters only--as ideals that could only exist within the confines of a book. In the "real world," things are much more complicated.

And yet, all that being said, I really value these sorts of books. They give us something to strive for, especially in a world of literature whose message oftentimes just serves as a reassurance that it's ok to have problems, to sop around in the norm, that sympathizes with our struggle but does not offer us a way of dealing with it and something to strive for. For this reason and this reason alone, I think it is a good thing to pick up a Coelho book or, dare I say it, even a Rand book and give it a whirl.

It may surprise you.

-------