Paulo Coelho: Valkyries. Valkyries - Paulo Coelho Paolo Coelho Valkyries

Paulo Coelho

J. and I agreed to meet on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro. I was in seventh heaven, as befits a writer whose second book has been published, and gave him a copy of The Alchemist. I said that I dedicated the novel to him as a token of gratitude for everything he had taught me over the years of our friendship.

Two days later I took him to the airport. By that time he had read almost half of my book. His phrase stuck in my soul: “What happened once may never happen again, but what happened twice must certainly happen again.” I asked him what he meant by this. He replied that I had been given the chance to make my dream come true twice, but I never took advantage of it. And he quoted a poem by Oscar Wilde:

But everyone kills their loved ones, -
Let everyone know about it -
One will kill with a cruel look.
The other is a deceptive dream,
Cowardly - with a deceitful kiss,
And the one who dares - with a sword!
(translated by K. Balmont)

I admitted that I had long dreamed of spending 40 days in the desert, and in response, J. offered me a wonderful idea that had come to his mind: to go to the USA, to the Mojave Desert, where an acquaintance of his lives, who would probably agree to help me in what for most important to me - in my work.

The result of that journey was the Valkyries. The events described in the novel took place from September 5 to October 17, 1998. I have changed the chronology a little and in some cases risked resorting to fiction - in order to reach the reader - but in essence my book is 100% true. The letter quoted in the epilogue is registered in the Archive of Official Documents of Rio de Janeiro under number 478038.

They had been driving for almost six hours. Once again he asked the woman sitting next to him if they had gone astray. Once again she looked at the map. Yes, they are moving in the right direction, although it’s hard to believe it, looking at the trees growing along the road and the river flowing nearby - and further, as far as the eye could see, the area was covered with greenery.

Let’s stop at the nearest gas station and find out,” she suggested.

Then they drove in silence, listening to the radio station, which was broadcasting old songs. Chris knew that there was no need to stop at a gas station, that they were going in the right direction - even though the surrounding landscape was not what they expected to see. But she knew her husband well. Paulo was very nervous, believing that she was oriented incorrectly on the map. She knew that if she stopped and asked for directions, he would calm down a little.

Why are we going there?

I have a task to complete.

“It’s a strange task,” she remarked.

Strange indeed, he thought. Isn't it strange to think that you can see your guardian angel with your own eyes?

Okay,” she said a little later. - I understand that you definitely need to talk to your guardian angel. But maybe you can talk to me first?

He didn’t answer: his attention was focused on the road. He was still afraid that his wife had taken a wrong turn. “It’s no use insisting,” Chris decided to herself. She could only hope that a gas station would come along soon enough.

They drove this car from the Los Angeles airport itself. Chris took over from her husband at the wheel, fearing that he would fall asleep from fatigue. It was completely unclear how much longer there was to go.

“I should have married an engineer,” she thought.

She could not get used to such a life - every now and then she would rush off in search of sacred paths or swords, for the sake of conversations with angels and all sorts of other strange things related to magic.

And then, before meeting J., he constantly abandoned everything without completing it.

Chris remembered the first time they met. How they slept together, and a week later her work table moved into his apartment. Mutual friends claimed that Paulo was a witch, and one night Chris called the priest of the Protestant church she attended and asked him to pray for her.

The fate of a writer is a path of self-discovery. And each of Paulo Coelho’s books is a revelation of the soul, a meeting with the mysterious, even mystical, a confusion of feelings, a reverent attitude towards everything he comes into contact with, as well as towards the people he loves.

Periodically wandering around the world, the writer set out to find the answer to whether he had chosen the right path. The search for his purpose in life brings him together with various interesting and extraordinary people who left a mark on his life and pushed him towards a new line of creative path.

One of the trips revealed poetic possibilities in him, the second - to study the world and himself through magic, and the third - helped him understand himself, the world of his desires, actions and thoughts, and restore faith in the power of God.

And the last 40-day trip to the Mojave Desert helped renew his feelings towards a loved one.

It was these wanderings that prompted the writer to create “Valkyries”.

Why are Valkyries in the title of the book?

The answer is in the story itself. These are nymphs, that is, God's messengers, who appear in different images: they can appear both in female form and in the form of warriors. They inspire and lead.

These mysterious Valkyries, which Paulo Coelho chose in some mystical way, acting as women show that they can lead an ordinary lifestyle - nothing earthly is alien to them. At the same time, they are also warriors who are able to lead and force them to carry out their will.

Valkyries are a search for oneself through magic and the return of faith in God through internal cleansing.

Thanks to the Valkyries, the main character comes to the understanding that without self-confidence, nothing in life can be achieved. All the main things happen only thanks to faith in yourself, your dream and the path once chosen.

Perhaps this is the point - the hero and writer at a certain time in his life lacked inspiring power, which he showed through the images of the Valkyries.

The book conveys the main idea: people periodically need to be alone with themselves, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, in order to understand their actions, actions, thoughts. And at the same time, find peace in your relationship with a loved one.

The writer set out to meet his guardian angel because he was told that this was possible. At first, Paulo thought it would be an ordinary meeting under unusual circumstances.

The Valkyries help him go through the path of self-discovery through suffering and purification, to look at himself from the outside, from a different point of view, to understand one important thing: the world is as complex as it is simple.

It happens that a person leaves the main path - his main dream - and stops fighting for something, letting everything take its course. It is at this moment that a person begins to rush from side to side in search of himself. Losing faith in his own strength, he seeks an answer from God. He is waiting for a guardian angel to help him, not really understanding what kind of power this is, how it manifests itself, whether it is visible or invisible.

Through a journey in the desert, the writer tries to understand not only himself, his thoughts and actions, but also his wife. At the beginning of the journey, the writer’s relationship with his wife was very fragile, the spouses no longer understood each other.

Christina herself volunteered to go on the journey with Paulo, because she understood that she also needed to understand herself.

His main character - himself - goes through a journey of 40 days, during which he enters into a struggle with himself through various situations, agreements, meetings with different personalities and nymphs who help him understand what he could not understand for many years himself.

On the same journey, the main character of the book reveals the role of love in life: thanks to it, a person grows, and the understanding comes that everything begins with love.

Ultimately, it is faith. Only she can lead. Faith is a beacon that helps to cope with doubts and internal hesitations.

Chris, the wife of the main character and the real fourth wife of the writer, goes through a similar path of internal struggle.

This parallel - the main characters and real people - goes side by side, and only fantastic images separate them, leading them into the plot of the story.

About the plot of “Valkyries”

The book begins with an introduction, like any other. The writer makes a small announcement about the inspiration and friend who directly and indirectly contributed to the writing of the book about the Valkyries - a certain J.

The plot itself is simple. The main characters come to the desert: Paulo wants to meet his guardian angel so that he can help him understand himself.

Chris - his wife - accompanies the main character and also wants to understand himself. Recently, she began to doubt whether she did the right thing by marrying Paulo. Being an absolutely religious person, she does not always understand her husband’s hobbies, especially his practice of magic.

Much attention is paid to the Mojavo Desert itself, its beauty and unusualness.

Throughout the entire narrative, the writer’s feelings and internal turmoil are described.

Tuk leads him to the Valkyries, who must help Paulo meet his guardian angel. He compares them to angels, expressing the point of view that the world of angels is neutral, good or evil - they don’t care.

A certain part of the book is devoted to communication with Tuk and his assumption of a meeting with a guardian angel.

During conversations, Chris begins to understand her husband and her love for him is reborn.

She is especially shocked by the news that a person has two types of consciousness.

And finally, the meeting with the Valkyries that Paulo had been so eager for. At the same time, he was afraid that he might not meet them. For him, the Valkyries became a starting point into himself, a kind of connection to a guardian angel whom he hoped to meet in person.

It shows how much he was looking forward to meeting the Valkyries, not knowing in what form they would appear before him. They appeared in the form of strong female warriors and caused true delight and amazement in the main character.

The Valkyries presented him with three tasks and said that he needed to have the courage to solve them, only after that he could meet his guardian angel. They quickly found a common language with each other, since they were connected by magic. From the very beginning of the meeting, Paulo asked them to help him meet his guardian angel.

The book describes how much difficulty and even fear they really had to experience. It was at this moment that Paulo remembered God and began to read prayers - asking him to return his faith. Gradually he realized that his path was correct and he should not turn away from it.

Chris realized earlier that she had met her guardian angel, probably because she never lost faith, unlike Paulo. She was always confident that she was doing the right thing.

Paulo and Chris are the main characters. The main plot takes place with their participation, showing internal tossing, doubts and, finally, purification of thoughts and internal growth.

Suddenly an Angel of the Lord appeared to them,

and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

Gospel of Luke 2:9

From the author

Two days later I took him to the airport. By that time he had read almost half of my book. His phrase stuck in my soul: “What happened once may never happen again. But what happened twice must certainly happen again.” I asked him what he meant by this. He replied that I had been given the chance to make my dream come true twice, but I never took advantage of it. And he quoted a poem by Oscar Wilde:

But everyone kills their loved ones, -
Let everyone know about it -
One will kill with a cruel look,
The other is a deceptive dream,
The coward - with a deceitful kiss,
And the one who dares - with a sword! 1
Per. K. Balmont.

I asked again what he meant. Instead of answering, J. advised me to perform spiritual exercises from the book of St. Ignatius of Loyola in solitude and not to forget that true success is always followed not only by joy, but also by a feeling of guilt, and I must be prepared for what awaits me. I admitted that I had long dreamed of spending forty days in the desert, and in response, J. offered me a wonderful idea that had come to his mind: to go to the United States of America, to the Mojave Desert, where an acquaintance of his lives, who would probably agree to help me in what matters most to me is in my work.

The result of that journey was the Valkyries. The events described in the novel took place from September 5 to October 17, one thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight. I have changed the chronology a little and in some cases risked resorting to fiction in order to reach the reader, but in essence my book is one hundred percent true. The letter quoted in the epilogue is registered in the Archive of Official Documents of Rio de Janeiro under number 478038.

* * *

They had been driving for almost six hours. Once again he asked the woman sitting next to him if they had gone astray.

Once again she looked at the map. Yes, they are moving in the right direction, although it’s hard to believe it, looking at the trees growing along the road and the river flowing nearby - and further, as far as the eye could see, the area was covered with greenery.

“Let’s stop at the nearest gas station and find out,” she suggested.

Then they drove in silence, listening to the radio station, which was broadcasting old songs.

Chris knew that there was no need to stop at a gas station, that they were going in the right direction - even though the surrounding landscape was not what they expected to see. But she knew her husband well. Paulo was very nervous, believing that she had misdirected herself on the map. She knew that if she stopped and asked for directions, he would calm down a little.

- Why are we going there?

- I have to complete the task.

“It’s a strange task,” she remarked.

Strange indeed, he thought. Isn't it strange to think that you can see firsthand from your guardian angel?

“Okay,” she said a little later. – I understand that you definitely need to talk to your guardian angel. But maybe you can talk to me first?

He didn’t answer: his attention was focused on the road. He was still afraid that his wife had taken a wrong turn. “There’s no point in insisting,” Chris decided to herself. She could only hope that a gas station would come along soon enough.

They drove this car from the Los Angeles airport itself. Chris took over from her husband at the wheel, fearing that he would fall asleep from fatigue.

It was completely unclear how much longer there was to go.

“I should have married an engineer,” she thought.

And then, before meeting J., he constantly abandoned everything without completing it.

But during the first year of marriage, the husband did not say a word about magic. He was then working at a recording studio and seemed to be thinking about nothing else.

And so the next year passed. Nothing has changed, only he moved to work at another recording studio.

In the third year, Paulo changed his job again (he’s always eager to get somewhere!): this time he took up writing scripts for television. This manner of changing jobs every year seemed strange to her - but he wrote his scripts, earned money, and they lived well.

Finally, after three years of marriage, he decided to change jobs again. This time without explanation; He only said that he was tired of the old one, and that he himself did not see the point in moving from one job to another. He needed to find himself. By that time, they had managed to save some money, and therefore decided to go on a trip.

“In a car,” Chris thought, “just like now.”

She first saw J. in Amsterdam. They then drank coffee, looking at the Singel Canal, in the cafe of the Brauer Hotel. At the sight of a tall, fair-haired man dressed in a business suit, Paulo suddenly turned pale. And then, gathering his courage and overcoming his excitement, he approached his table.

When Chris was alone with her husband again that evening, he drank a whole bottle of wine and, out of habit, became drunk. Only then did Paulo decide to tell his wife what she already knew: that seven years ago he devoted himself to the study of magic. But then, for some reason - Paulo refused to name it, although Chris asked several times - he stopped his studies.

“I had a vision the day we visited Dachau,” he admitted. – I dreamed of J.

Chris remembered that day. Paulo then burst into tears. He said that he heard a certain call, but did not know how to answer it.

“Do you think I should go back to practicing magic?” – he asked her that night.

“Yes,” she answered, although she did not feel confident in her soul.

After the meeting in Amsterdam everything changed. Rituals, exercises, practices... Several times Paulo left for a long time somewhere with J., without telling him when he would return. He dated strange men and women who exuded an aura of sensuality. Test assignments followed one after another, long nights came when Paulo did not sleep a wink, and tedious weekends when he did not leave the house. But now Paulo was much happier and no longer thought about changing his activities. They founded a small publishing house, and he finally began to do what he had long dreamed of: writing books.

* * *

But here is the gas station. While a young local Indian employee was filling the tank, Paulo and Chris decided to take a walk.

Taking the map, Paulo once again checked the route. Yes, they are on the right track.

“Well, he’s calmed down a little,” Chris decided. “We can talk.”

– Did J. tell you that here you will meet your guardian angel? – she asked carefully.

“No,” answered Paulo.

“Wow, he’s finally talking to me,” Chris thought, enjoying the bright greenery illuminated by the setting sun. If Chris hadn't constantly checked the map, she, too, would probably have begun to doubt whether they were going there. After all, judging by the map, they had no more than six miles to their goal, and the surrounding landscape remained just as fresh and green.

“I didn’t have to come here,” Paulo continued. - The location doesn't matter. But the person I need lives here, you know?

Well, of course, she understood. Paulo has the right people everywhere. He called them the keepers of Tradition, and in her diary she called them nothing less than conspirators. Among them were sorcerers and healers, sometimes of the most terrifying appearance.

“Anyone who talks to angels?”

- Not sure. J. once casually mentioned a master of Tradition who lives here and knows how to make contact with angels. But this information may turn out to be false.

Paulo spoke quite seriously, and Chris realized that he really could have chosen this place by chance - as one of many places convenient for “contact”: here, away from everyday life, it is easier to concentrate on the supernatural.

– How are you going to communicate with your angel?

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“What a strange way of life we lead,” Chris thought when her husband left to pay for gasoline. Paulo had a vague feeling - or need - that's all she could find out. Only that! Drop everything, jump on a plane, fly twelve hours from Brazil to Los Angeles, then drive another six hours to this very place to spend here, if necessary, forty days - and all just to talk - or rather to attempt talk to your guardian angel!

As if he had heard her thoughts, Paulo returned and smiled at her, and she smiled back. It's not all bad after all. Ordinary life has not gone away - they still pay bills and cash checks, make phone calls to friends, and endure inconveniences on the road.

And at the same time they believe in angels.

“We can handle it,” she said cheerfully.

“Thank you for the ‘we,’” Paulo responded with a smile. “But I’m actually the magician here.”

The employee at the gas station confirmed that they had chosen the right route and would be there in about ten minutes. They drove on in silence, Paulo turning off the radio. Finally, the road went a little steeper up the mountain, and only when they reached the pass did they realize how high they had climbed. It turns out that all these six hours they slowly, unnoticed by themselves, rose upward.

And finally we were at the top.

Paulo stopped the car on the side of the road and turned off the engine. Chris looked back in the direction from which they had come: yes, the trees and grass were still brightly green there.

And ahead, to the very horizon, stretched the Mojave Desert - huge, stretching across several states all the way to Mexico, the same desert that little Chris had seen so many times in adventure films, an area with strange topography like the Rainbow Forest and Death Valley.

She's pink, Chris thought, but didn't say anything out loud. Paulo was also silent and only gazed into the distance, as if trying to find with his eyes the place where the angels lived.

* * *

If you stand in the middle of the central square of Borrego Springs, you can see where this town begins and ends. But there are as many as three hotels in it - for tourists who come to these sun-drenched places in winter.

The couple left their things in the room and went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The waiter lingered a little near their table, trying to understand what language they were speaking among themselves. And when he failed, he finally asked where they came from. They replied that they were from Brazil, and the waiter admitted that he had never seen a Brazilian before.

“Well, now we saw two at once,” Paulo smiled.

Tomorrow the whole town will know about us, he thought. In Borrego Springs, the smallest event is sure to become news immediately.

After dinner, holding hands, they walked out of town. Paulo wanted to wander around the Mojave, breathe its air, and really feel the desert. They walked like this for half an hour on the rocky ground and finally stopped to look at the lights of the town burning in the distance.

The desert sky turned out to be surprisingly transparent. They sat down on the ground and began to look at the falling stars, making wishes - each their own. The night was moonless, and the constellations shone brightly in the clear sky.

– Have you ever had the feeling that someone is watching your life from the outside? – Paulo asked his wife.

- Yes. How do you know?

– I know – that’s all. There are times when, without realizing it, we feel the presence of angels.

Chris remembered her teenage years: then this feeling was especially strong for her.

“At such moments,” he continued, “we are like heroes of some play, realizing that they are being watched.” Later, as we get older, we remember these feelings with a grin. We see this as childish fantasies and posturing. We don’t even remember that at such moments, as if performing in front of invisible spectators, we are almost sure that we are really being watched.

Paulo was silent for a moment.

– When I look at the night sky, this feeling usually arises again, and I ask myself the same question again and again: who is it looking at us?

- Angels. Messengers of God.

Chris looked intently at the sky, as if wanting to verify what her husband had said.

“All religions and everyone who has ever witnessed the Supernatural testify that angels exist,” continued Paulo. – The universe is inhabited by angels. They are the ones who inspire us with hope. Like the one who once brought the good news of the birth of the Messiah. They also bring other news, like that punishing angel who destroyed babies in Egypt where there was no sign on the door. Angels with a fiery sword can block our path to heaven. Or they may be called there, as was the case with the Virgin Mary. The angels will unseal the forbidden books and blow the trumpets of the Day of Judgment. They can bring light - like Michael or darkness - like Lucifer.

– Do they have wings? – Chris asked thoughtfully.

“Actually, I haven’t seen a single angel yet,” answered Paulo. – But I was also interested in this question. And I once asked J. about this.

“That’s good,” she thought. “It turns out I’m not the only one asking children’s questions about angels.”

– J. said that angels take the form that people give them according to their understanding. After all, they are the living thoughts of the Lord, and they have to adapt to our level of reason and understanding. They know that we won't be able to see them if they don't do this.

Paulo closed his eyes.

– Imagine your angel in your mind, and you will feel his presence right here and now.

They lay down on the parched ground and froze. There was absolute silence all around. Chris suddenly again experienced that childhood feeling of being on stage, with invisible spectators looking at her from everywhere. The more she concentrated, the brighter the feeling of the presence of someone friendly and kind nearby. Chris began to imagine her guardian angel: in a blue chiton, with golden curls and huge white wings - this is how she imagined him as a child.

Paulo also mentally painted the image of his angel. This was not his first experience: he had dived into the invisible world around him many times before. But now, having received a task from J., he felt the presence of his angel much more strongly - and it seemed to him that these entities are revealed only to those who firmly believe in them. But he knew that the existence of angels does not depend on human faith in them, for they are destined from above to be messengers of life and death, hell and heaven.

Paulo dressed his angel in a long robe with a gold border. And his angel was also winged.

* * *

When they returned to the hotel, the night watchman, who was having a snack at the combat post, looked up from his meal and turned to them.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t walk through the desert at night again,” he said.

“The town is really small,” Chris thought. “Everyone will know about your every step literally at that very minute.”

“It’s dangerous in the desert at night,” the watchman explained. “Coyotes come out hunting, snakes crawl out.” It’s too hot during the day, so they look for food after sunset.

“And we were looking for a meeting with angels,” Paulo suddenly said.

The watchman decided that the guest had problems with English. After all, his answer sounded like obvious nonsense. What other angels! Probably, the stranger had something completely different in mind.

The couple quickly drank coffee and went to their room. Early in the morning, Paulo had an appointment with the “right person”.

Chris was very surprised when she first saw Tuk: he was a very young man, no older than twenty. He lived in a trailer in the middle of the desert, a few miles from Borrego Springs.

– Is this your master conspirator? – she asked her husband in a whisper when the young man went to get iced tea.

But before Paulo could answer, Tuk returned with the cups. They sat under the awning that ran along one side of the trailer.

They started talking about the rituals of the Templars, about reincarnation, about Sufis, about the Catholic Church in Latin America. The guy turned out to be erudite, and listening to his conversation with Paulo was a little funny - they resembled two fans of some popular sport, defending one tactic and condemning others.

And so they talked about everything - except the angels.

The heat was intensifying. They sipped iced tea, and Tuk, smiling pleasantly, began to tell them about the desert. Just like the hotel watchman, he warned them against walking at night, and in addition advised them to avoid the midday heat.

“The desert consists of morning and evening hours,” he said. “At other times of the day, it takes courage to be here.”

Chris listened to their conversation for a long time. But the sun was getting hotter and hotter, and she had to get up so early... Her eyes closed by themselves, and she decided that it wouldn’t be a sin to take a little nap.

- Why did you bring your wife with you? – Tuk asked in a muffled voice.

“Well, I was going to the desert,” Paulo answered in a whisper.

Tuk laughed.

“Now you will miss the main thing that the desert can give.” Loneliness.

“What a nasty boy,” Chris thought.

“Tell me what these Valkyries are that you mentioned,” Paulo asked.

“Other women. It’s always like this – other women!”

“They are able to help you find your angel,” answered Tuk. “They taught me too.” But Valkyries are jealous and unrestrained. They try to follow the same rules as the angels - you know, in the world of angels there is neither good nor evil.

“They are not there in our understanding,” Paulo corrected him.

Chris had no idea what they could call Valkyries. All she managed to remember was that it seemed to be the name of some opera.

– Tell me, was it difficult for you to see your angel?

– The word “painful” is more appropriate here. This happened unexpectedly, in those days when the path of the Valkyries ran through these places. I wanted to learn this just out of curiosity, because at that moment I did not yet understand the language of the desert, and the environment around me was terribly depressing. My angel appeared on the top of the mountain - that third one. I just wandered there, listening to music from the player. True, then I had already mastered my second consciousness. By the way, now I'm never bored anymore.

“What is this second consciousness?” – Chris was surprised.

– Did your father teach you this?

- No. When I asked him why he never told me about angels, my father replied that some things are so important to understand that you need to learn them yourself.

They were silent for some time.

“If you meet the Valkyries, one thing will help you establish contact with them,” Tuk finally said.

- Which one?

The guy laughed.

– You’ll find out later. But it would be much better if you came here without your wife.

– Did your angel have wings? – Paulo asked.

But before Tuk could answer, Chris rose from her folding chair, walked around the trailer and stood in front of her interlocutors.

- Why does he keep saying that you should have come alone? – she asked her husband in Portuguese. “What are you going to do, get rid of me?”

Tuk began to answer Paulo's question as if no one had interrupted him. Chris waited for Paulo to answer her, but he behaved the same way, he seemed not to notice her. Her patience has run out.

- Give me the car keys! – she demanded.

-What does your wife want? – Tuk finally asked.

“She wants to know what a “second consciousness” is.

"Damn it! This guy, whom I’m seeing for the first time, acts as if he knows everything about us!”

Tuk rose to his feet.

“Actually, my name is Tuk, not Gave,” he said, coming closer to her, “that is, “took”, not “gave”... And you are very beautiful.

His words immediately had an effect. Despite his youth, this boy knew how to talk to women.

– Sit down, close your eyes; “I’ll show you what the second consciousness is,” he offered.

“I didn’t come to this desert to learn witchcraft and communicate with angels,” said Chris. – I just came here with my husband.

“Sit down,” insisted Tuk, smiling.

Chris glanced at Paulo, but could not tell from his face what he thought about what was happening.

“I respect their world, but none of this concerns me,” she thought. Although everyone they knew believed that Chris was fully involved in her husband’s life, in fact, until now the couple had very rarely touched on the topic of magic in their conversations. Yes, she was used to traveling with him around the world, and once, in accordance with the ritual, she even wore his ritual sword. Yes, she knew about the Path of Santiago, and also - due to the relationship - she learned something about sex magic. But that's all. J. never suggested that Paulo teach his wife magic.

- What should I do? – Chris asked her husband.

“Whatever you want,” he replied.

“I love you,” Chris thought. If she could learn more about his world, then they would undoubtedly become closer to each other than they were now. Chris returned to her chair, sat down and closed her eyes.

The hero of "Valkyries" follows his dream, hoping to change his life. He travels to the Mojave Desert to meet his guardian angel and gain true knowledge about himself and the world. Paulo knows that the desert is not as lifeless and uninhabited as it might seem: according to his mentor J., it is fraught with new encounters and opportunities. Far from the chaos of worldly life, a young magician and a group of female warriors, the Valkyries, help Paulo achieve his goal.

Together with Paulo and his wife Chris, they embark on a journey - metaphysical and real, challenging their feelings and faith, but ultimately leading to True Love and True Knowledge.

Paulo Coelho

Valkyries

From the Author

But everyone kills their loved ones, -

Let everyone know about it -

One will kill with a cruel look.

The other is a deceptive dream,

Cowardly - with a deceitful kiss,

And the one who dares - with a sword!

(translated by K. Balmont)

Let’s stop at the nearest gas station and find out,” she suggested.

Why are we going there?

I have a task to complete.

“It’s a strange task,” she remarked.

Strange indeed, he thought. Isn't it strange to think that you can see your guardian angel with your own eyes?

Okay,” she said a little later. - I understand that you definitely need to talk to your guardian angel. But maybe you can talk to me first?

“I should have married an engineer,” she thought.

And then, before meeting J., he constantly abandoned everything without completing it.

This was my first book by Paulo Coelho. I can’t say that I was delighted with the book I read... In the same way, I can’t say that I didn’t like anything here at all. Another "average" one for me.
Without reading any reviews, I walked among the library shelves, saw a beautiful cover, the font also matched, the description intrigued me... I started reading.
I read mainly in transport, but this was not at all a hindrance. Either it was the high-quality paper and a good font for reading (which I like), or, in fact, the book is not as terrible as many people criticize it...
Personally, I was not bored while reading, and sometimes I even saw some interesting ideas similar to my own observations. Unless it was all somehow vaguely presented and... I didn’t really like the repeated references to the Bible, to religion in general. It was also accompanied by some other ceremonies and rituals, some kind of “sermons” that the girl-riders conducted among the townspeople of that area, no matter what area they visited...
I liked to learn together with the characters (or rather, with Paulo’s wife, Chris) the very first basics of “relaxation”, “second consciousness”, “seeing the horizon” and many other things... But when the topic began, directly with the Valkyries and angels ... I kept expecting something extraordinarily special from the ending... As if some Truth would be revealed, after which everyone who reads this book, if not immediately, but if they try hard, will probably learn to “communicate with angels,” but that’s all it turned out to be. .. Very predictable, for me personally this ending was very obvious...
Actually, yes, this is what the author boiled down to in the end - we don’t notice the angels around us, they are always with us... You just need to be able to love and you will be loved and angels will appear to you, etc. etc. Well, somehow I was expecting something else, or something...
In principle, I found it pleasant and entertaining to read this almost autobiographical work, and sometimes interesting thoughts “about non-existent worlds” slipped through... After which it began to seem, maybe this “world” does exist after all? We just don’t see it... Sometimes I myself have the same glitches, things start to seem different or my feelings become more intense that I start predicting the future (and not my own). Who knows what is hovering there in the matters of the Cosmos...
But if you evaluate today’s book, then you get the same rating that I gave... Almost half of the book was written either with incomprehensible dialogues-conversations about some kind of magical things, religion and everything like that... Or there were empty dialogues, in principle . Everything was easy to read, I liked the moments in the desert, especially with the description of dehydration in the first person... Oh yes, that was probably the coolest thing in the whole book =)) When you almost fall into euphoria, complete relaxation throughout your whole body and you feel incredibly good... But in fact, you are dying... Everyone would like such a death =) Oh, and I also liked the description of “opening a dark portal in the middle of the room”, but here real mysticism was already described, almost like narcotic delirium , black magic sessions... But I remember it =)
Total - 6 out of 10 - a specific experience, in fact. If there was an “art house” genre for books, then this would probably fit very well here. They say Coelho has much better creations. I liked here the calm and, in general, clear, logical description of everything and everyone, going somewhere to the Universe or the spiritual world... It seems to me that similar things will be encountered more than once in his other books... Yes, Most likely, I will try to read something else from him.