Aleph (2011) by Paulo Coelho & the Power of Patience
Aleph is an inspirational story
Where Books and Readers Come Together
Aleph is an inspirational story
“The artist lives thus in two worlds — as do we all; but he, in so far as he knows what he is doing, in a special state of consciousness of this micromacrocosmic crucifixion that is life on earth and is perhaps, also, the fire of the sun, stars, and galaxies beyond.”
”The name Beowulf itself, ‘bee-wolf,’ apparently meaning bear, suggests affinities with a widely known folktale figure of prodigious strength, the Bear’s Son, the distribution of whose appearances, in North America as well as Eurasia, points to a background in that primordial cult of reverence for the bear discussed in Primitive Mythology, and which is still observed among the Ainus of Japan.”
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) by Joseph Campbell is the book that awakened in writers and storytellers in publishing and in screenwriting to the larger scope of mythology as metaphor and to the underlining structure of stories.
A guide for writers based on the work of Joseph Campbell and the years of research and contribution to storytelling Vogler spent in Hollywood.
One of the last sections is “The Functioning of Myth” and Campbell goes into great deal to extrapolate the introductory section. “The ends for which men strive in the world,” writes Campbell, “are three — no more, no less; namely: love and pleasure (kāma), power and success (artha: pronounced ‘art-ha’), and lawful order and moral virtue (dharma).”
Much of the book is loosely based on experiences of racism in Monroeville, Alabama.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Dr. Azar Nafisi is a memoir of a woman teaching literature in Islamic Iran.
A thrill to read, and fast paced. JLC at his finest.
Advice on Writing Poetry
Quite often it is upon the reader to make the emotional connections of what is beneath the surface.














