Here’s looking at you, kid!?!

Read Brida by Paulo Coelho. Read the first quarter at a stretch. First impulse after putting the book down was to grab the mobile and call/SMS people to tell them to get a copy, the book is brilliant.

Then I slowed down, thought I’d do that after completing the book.
Well, aren’t I glad I didn’t jump the gun.

The book read like one of our many Hindi movies—a neat story, or in this case ‘line of thought’, but bad treatment. Especially that Casablanca line – ‘Here’s looking at you, kid’ killed it. Just killed it.

Quite unlike a Coelho! In fact this is probably the first time I’ve come off feeling like this after a Coelho!!

There seemed to be too much of a Christian – anti-Christian element about the book. Sure, Coelho often touched upon the subject, but there was always a certain subtelity that would make you smile to know what he was getting at. But this was too much in the face. Not offensive, personally, but just too obvious.

Brida is good. Especially the beginning. The first half is revelatory and quite thought provoking, but it just didn’t carry till the end. The second half is too fast and abrupt. The second half also reminded me of Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code, where I felt Dan Brown was writing all that stuff with the sole intention of creating a ruckus/controversy. Indeed, it felt as though the first part of Brida was written by Coelho while Dan Brown took over in the second part.

Maybe like the author says in the book, the complexity of certain rituals [mentioned in the story] has a simple solution hidden in them. [Maybe there was a hidden message in those parts that I found humdrum!]

But…

Found it to be a little too filmy… Tch.

PS. But somebody please read it and tell me how you felt.