By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

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.

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