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 The Fifth Mountain  

The Fifth Mountain
Paulo Coelho

Harper Perennial, 1999 - 256 pages

average customer review:based on 57 reviews
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     highly recommended  highly recommended



A Struggle of the Spirit and a Search for the Truth

Written with the same masterful prose and clarity of vision that made The Alchemist an international phenomenon, The Fifth Mountain is Paulo Coelho's inspiring story of the Biblical prophet Elijah. In the ninth century B.C., the Phoenician princess Jezebel orders the execution of all the prophets who refuse to seek safety in the land of Zarephath, where the unexpectedly finds true love with a young widow. But this newfound rapture is to be cut short, and Elijah sees all of his hopes and dreams irrevocably erased as he is swept into a whirlwind of events that threatens his very existence. In what is truly a literary milestone, Coelho gives a quietly moving account of a man touched by the hand of God who must triumph over his frustrations in a soul-shattering trail of faith.




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Worth reading

If you are on a spiritual journey of your own then this book is written for you. The themes of the book are deep and the book will repay re-reading.
You aren't wasting your time with this one.


Beautifully written...

The writing of Paulo Coehelo inspires one to introspection. Although `The Fifth Mountain' could be digested quickly, I recommend a slower reading. The publisher obliges by cleverly placing bullets throughout the text, allowing one to pause at appropriate moments for reflection.

Despite the trials and tribulations, we must struggle onward to achieve our life's destiny.



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A Prophet's Humanity Revealed

The Prophet Elijah has quite a story to tell, but The Fifth Mountain only focuses on a small part of his life. After he is exiled from Israel as the enemy of Princess Jezebel, he goes to Akbar where God has instructed him to find a widow who will give him shelter. While discussions with angels and orders from the voice of God are not uncommon in Elijah's life, he still experiences doubt and frustration at God's ambiguous guidance. Elijah becomes even more disillusioned with the predicament of falling in love with the widow. He is unsure how to include this emotion into his obligations to God. His struggles are a demonstration of his imperfections and his humanity.

While we witness Elijah's miracles and his endeavors in Akbar, we never witness his greatest miracles in his defeat of Jezebel and her gods, we still get a great sense of the adversity Elijah overcame and how it shaped him into the prophet he became. We get to witness his conversations with angels and his resurrection of the widow's son, along with his prudence in the face of battle and his insight overcoming obstacles. This is a great narrative of one of the Old Testament's most prolific prophets.



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starts with a bang ends in a whimper

I'm a big fan of Coelho's work, and admittedly had high expectations for this book having just come off the Alchemist. The book starts off brilliantly, the text sucking you right back into Coelho's world of deceptively simple spirituality. But after a brilliant beginning, the book gets a bit aimless. It does pack many an emotional punch, but it the end, it just fails to deliver. In fact, the whole thing ends rather abruptly, as if Coelho just ran out of time. It is certainly worth a read, and if you like Coelho's style, you will be pleased, but it doesn't come near the Alchemist, and is damned by comparison


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Would have been better with less religion.

Coelho has rewritten this story from Old Testament and its kind of religious story - there are lot of references to the Bible and Gods. Sadly I'm true atheist and I'm against any kind of religion, so I didn't enjoy this book as much I wanted.

I changed the theme of Elijah talking with the angels and God with Elijah talking with himself, with his "inner angels". This made this story a little bit more readable for me. Maybe this is the way you have take religion, but still I don't like this kind of symbolism or view of world.

But the main ideas in this book are still valid, whether you are religious person or not. They are quite well explained in other reviews, so I will not replay them hear. Most of them weren't nothing new for me, some were similar to the ideas in "The Alchemist".

One of the ideas that I haven't thought before to much was:
'If you have a past that dissatisfies you, then forget it now.'
I know that I would live better life, if I would forget some things in my past that are causing negative emotions like grief, anger, hatred. They are stopping me finding my own path.

Although I didn't like this book as much I did like "The Alchemist", it was still worth reading and gave me couple of things to think about.



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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10



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