Books : The Fifth Mountain

Rating: - A Poignant Emotional Journey
The Fifth Mountain reflects Coehlo's progress since he wrote "The Alchemist". This work is more mature and better crafted. I was impressed by the unique historical circumstances chosen by Coehlo as the background for this novel. Coehlo does a brilliant job of avoiding the temptation of making Elijah seem too much larger than life, and treating him as a superhero to whom most readers could never relate. Rather Coehlo creates the portrait of a man who is very human, undergoing a very real struggle to find his faith and understand his mission in life, love, and its consequential suffering. I agree with the reader who pointed out the flaw in "The Alchemist" in that that there are many questions unaswered and unexplored, such as to why the boy was chosen for the journey. The historical background of "The Fifth Mountain" avoids this weak link by clearly establishing Elijah's historical role as the savior of Israel from Jezebel. This prevents the reader from wondering aloud "why him?" and makes for a more fluid read. This work can also be understood as a lesson for peoples of the world to recognize their common humanity and put aside centuries of hatred and misunderstandings. Despite the fact that Elijah is an outsider in the community, he is soon respected as one of its wisest members. His relationship with the young boy of the woman whom he loved is a very touching brush stroke on this work as well. This is a must read for anyone searching for a spiritual, uplifting masterpiece.

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Rating: - Better than Alchemist!
I read "Fifth mountain" first and then "Alchemist". I would give "A" 2 stars and "F" 5 stars. In A, the boy's success is dependent on a lot of miracles, and I feel that the boy is chosen and I'm not. In F, Elijah's success in life is less dependent on miracle (although there's still some miracles around to help him out). So I feel more motivated cos Paulo makes it a stronger case that everyone is chosen in their own way. In my 31 years I had about 3 miracles to help me out, so the frequency of occurence is similar to Elijah's life. I think everyone has the same share of miracle i.e. 0.1 per year.:-) After reading F, I feel chosen too and thus stronger at difficult moments. I look forward to Paulo's writing a book about someone's life which has miracles yet none of those miracles is beyond common people's understanding of physics.

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Rating: - A masterpiece that will help me live my live to the fullest!
I have read The Alchemist this summer, and since then, I am looking for every book of Paulo Coelho to read. The second book I read was the Fifth Mountain. This, without a doubt, one of the best and most inspiring books in my life. Everybody, who wants to live their life with more quality should read this book. It gives so many answers through a simple biblical tale about Elijah. It is not Elijahs life that is important, it is important that you identify, find yourself in the situations that Elijah is going through. I have to admit that I even cried reading this book, but I enjoyed it (this is the first book that i cried reading it) Give your soul a treat and read this book!

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Rating: - Great idea, poor execution.
Coelho had a wonderful idea--a fictional account of Elijah to give us more insight into the life of a fabulous and not widely known Old Testament Prophet. Unfortunately, Coelho's execution of the idea is poor. The story is often silly, he attributes to Elijah thoughts that are not in the Old Testament and are often directly at odds with it, but there are gems of wisdom and occasionally good writing. Curiously, the most important part of Elijah's life--his confrontation with the priests of Baal on Mt. Carmel--is avoided entirely and dealt with only by quoting the Old Testament. His death and ascent to heaven, the second most important element of Elijah's life, isn't dealt with at all. This book could have been so good, but unfortunately, it isn't.

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Rating: - Didn't like it!
I read the first 105 pages and I need to say it was not entertaining at all, even if there were some real wise and good sentences sometimes. I wrote these sentences down and this was it. After the 105th page (approx.) I stopped. No, this is not the way I see it. The Assyrian got killed and somehow it gave the impression that god is only there for the prophets like Eliah and the "chosen ones". But god is there for everyone(!), this book is more of a hero story and the other people don't count. No, this is not the way I see it.