Avoiding Choices

I know I know. Where in the world have I been? I could sit here and make lots of excuses about why it has taken me so long to write about The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho.

I could blame the holidays and all the frenetic-ness that implies. I could blame this stupid cold-sore-throat-from-hell-it-feels-like-I-have-hot-coals-in-my-chest-thing that won’t go away. I could even blame my recent weekend away or my newfound obsession with Downton Abbey.

But the more I thought about it, the more I had to face facts. I was choosing to avoid talking about this book. Which I guess is fitting since at the core, this book is about choices. The choices people make. 

Don’t make. Wish they had made. And avoid making.

I really love Paulo Coelho. He is a master and a genius and I would and will read everything he has written. Down to his grocery list, which for some reason I assume is full of exotic fruits and spices.

His are the books you read with a pen in hand. Where you read and reread pages and lines because they are so beautiful they make your heart ache and you want the pleasure of reading them again. I hold my breath when I have a Coelho book in hand – and yes, with him, you buy the REAL book – because I know I am reading something important, something big and beautiful and amazing.

I should have been jumping for joy to tell everyone about this amazing story. Instead I chose to spend a month ignoring the fact that as much as it pains me to say it… I didn’t love this one. (It literally just took me a whole minute to write that sentence)

The thing I love about Coelho is the way he distils life down to its simplest terms. He has a way of taking the big things; life, love, death, dreams, courage, those meaning of life ideas, and putting them into perspective in one simple line. You walk away feeling like you discovered something, figured something out. Here though, I walked away wondering why in the world this brilliant man spent his time with such a frivolous and annoying bunch of people.

Now - I should have loved it. It’s got all the things I love; Coelho, celebrities, glamour and gossip, a complex story with lots of characters popping in and out, even a bit of a mystery. But when you put it all together it was just a little…off. Sort of like when a toddler gets to pick their own toppings at a frozen yogurt bar. Individually, chocolate, mint, fruity pebbles and pop rocks, are all awesome, but together… not so much.

The amazing thing is, even though I didn’t fall head over heels for this one, I’m still head over heels for Paulo. Always will be.