Themes of supernatural witches have circulated since humans developed the ability of story telling. Paulo Coehlo’s recent novel ‘The Witch of Portobello’ carries on the tradition of a female entity in a modern story revolving around the character Sherine or Athena Khalil.
This Athena, the name she chose for herself after a saint, comes from mysterious origins, and traveled widely. One wealthy Lebanese married couple, who are unable to produce their own children, went to Transylvania in order to adopt a child. The woman, Samira Khalil, chooses a girl, and the adoptive agency tries to persuade her against her choice, stating the baby is illegitimate gypsy off spring, and therefore not to be trusted. Mrs. Khalil persists and they take the child back to Lebanon. As Athena grows the wars of Lebanon start, and the family moved to London. As a twenty year old single mother Athena, successful at her work, travels to Dubai, and then to Romania to seek her birth mother. She returns to London with her power.
This power of Athena was noticed as a child with her religious fever. Throughout the novel Athena’s spirituality grows. As a single mother she moves into an apartment, and notices the landlord’s loud music. At first complaining she goes to the landlord, and gets introduced to a dance ritual that connects the participants to their inner self. The landlord, who fled Poland during World War II, carried on this folklore, and became a teacher to a few. Athena took this knowledge and showed it to her co-workers at a bank. As a result productivity at her work increases immensely and she gets promoted. Her promotion takes her to Dubai. There she meets another teacher, this one of calligraphy and Islamic philosophy. This man shows Athena his art with the message of the blank spaces between words, and if you fill those spaces you know your personal meaning. Athena’s last teacher was her ‘protector’ that lived in Scotland, who showed her how to connect to ‘The Great Mother.’ Then about two thirds of the way through the novel, Athena goes from being taught to being the teacher.
Multiple narrations are the vehicle Coelho used for this novel. Athena had a huge effect on the journalist, Heron Ryan, and years after her apparent death he decides to compile her story. For this, he finds Athena’s adoptive mother, the landlord with his dance, Athena’s boss at the bank, the calligraphy teacher in Dubai, Athena’s mother in Romania, Athena’s protector, Athena’s pupil, and others. This journalist compiled statements from these characters about Athena. Another contemporary author, Louise Erdrich, uses multiple narratives in some of her novels as well. The effect can be gratifying for the reader. Imagine a popular sporting event watched nationwide, and ten separate viewers see the same thing but because of personal qualities experience it differently.
Through these multiple narratives the story climaxes to where Athena holds group heeling events that change everything. From a trance driven state that connects Athena to ‘The Great Mother’ she points to people in a crowd and tells of their ailments. One became aware of his cancer in time, and others became aware of their problems. This unorthodox approach enraged organized religion. Up to this point Athena continued to search to fill her blank spaces or void, and she does fill them which results in her being too powerful. Controversy ensues, death threats get made, and near the end her murder becomes news. Then in the final segment a new narrator states how she is alive and the murder staged which seems far fetched but clever enough because of the one making the statement.
As for my opinion on this novel, I enjoyed most of the ride. The writing is clear, early on a narrator makes a statement of the archetypes of supernatural women which are The Virgin, The Martyr, the Saint, and the Witch. Each type gets explained in one clear sentence or two, and the idea is conveyed acutely to the reader. All of the philosophy and religious references are stated in laymen terms, instead of convoluted. On the negative side, I hoped that Athena would be more evil, early it states of her murder, and this made me want to read some demonic content, but her intentions are too good.
Overall, I felt this was a strong novel and utterly different from ‘The Alchemist’ enticing me to read more of Coelho’s novels.