Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3533 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-06
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Synopsis
This is a modern-day adventure story featuring Paulo's supernatural encounter with angels -- who appear as warrior women and travel through the Mojave desert on their motorbikes. Haunted by a devastating curse, Paulo is instructed by his mysterious spiritual master to embark upon a journey -- to find and speak to his guardian angel in an attempt to confront and overcome his dark past. The Valkyries is a compelling account of this forty day quest into the searing heat of the Mojave Desert, where Paulo and his wife, Chris, encounter the Valkyries -- warrior women who travel the desert on motorcycles, spreading the word of angels. This exotic spiritual odyssey is a rare combination of truth, myth, imagination and inspiration. Ultimately it is a story about being able to forgive our past and believe in our future.

Customer Reviews

A review of The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho
I found Paulo Coelho's The Valkyries a bit of an enigma. I suspect the author at least partly intended it to be so. In a nutshell, the author seeks to discover new aspects of his psyche, to develop new angles on his existing skills. After a consultation with his mentor, he and his wife set off for a jaunt in the Mojave Desert to find what it is that they seek. Our author is in engaged in a quest, a search for his personal Angel. The reader, I am sure, will be convinced from the start that she accompanied him throughout.

They wander off in full sun one day, take their clothes off (for some reason) and have to be rescued by Gene, who has seen it all before. He reassures the travellers that they will find their valkyries. And they do. They turn out to be a band of leather-clad women on motorbikes, ladies who have profound mystic powers which they practise amidst their regular partying.

I was a bit perplexed by the narrator who claimed to have trained as an engineer in one breath and then discussed the existence of the universe in terms of ancient Greek elements. I suspect that the high performance motorbikes relied on a rather more complex analysis of matter. But honing the skills of a magus apparently requires the application of ancient knowledge, no matter how wrong, whatever the context. And sure enough the revelations come flooding in and lives are duly transformed. I have just a suspicion that there is something in the observation that no matter what one does with reality, spirituality is necessarily a personal experience, its significance purely internal, even when shared with others.

The Valkyries has all the Paulo Coelho elements. There are short scenes presented in a variety of literary shorthand. The text is suffused with magic, religiosity and self-realisation set in an earthly medium. It's a quick and easy read but ultimately a satisfying one, even for someone like myself, who cannot suspend belief long enough to share in the book's experiences.

But Paulo Coelho is a magus and a magician of the highest order. He has sold over 90 million books and, as a writer myself, I will read more of his books in the hope that I might discover his magus touch, his waft of a wand that will reveal his secret. Even without sympathy for the detail, it's a lovely, rhythmic read.

disappointing
I was disappointed with this story. I found it in places to be hard going and quite repetitive. There was definately morals to be found and it was thought provoking as with all his other books but something was lacking for me with this one. I would recommend that someone read it but there are other books in his series that are worth a look first.....

Not Very Impressed
I was expecting this book to be as thought-provoking and meaningful as some of Paulo's other books but it fell far short. The idea of searching for your angel and meeting wild women in the desert to help with this quest was a great concept but I think the way the whole story played out was very wishy-washy and not riveting at all. I appreciate that it was a true story and that it was written in such a way as to portray the journey as it transpired in it's true entirety but I found myself completely unmoved by it. I particularly found Paulo's arrogance off-putting in the sense that he kept referring to himself as a great magus and seemed to undermine others who were not privy to a certain type of knowledge, when spirituality can be sought in many different ways, and not with such an ego. I personally wouldn't recommend this book though I highly recommend The Alchemist and Veronika Decides to Die, 2 of Paulo Coelho's books which I highly rate. Unfortunately, not this one though.