The Guide: A Review

The Guide

Author: R.K Narayan

Publisher:Viking Press

Pages: 220



The guide is the magnificent tale of how, a life of profuse romance ended up in tragedy, despair and detention, furnishes a wise human being – a real guide who compassionately advice and nullify the endless charades of the common man’s life. The great words of wisdom from Swami Vivekanantha fits well here;

“if you win you can lead”

“If you lose, you can guide”

Story

Raju a successful tourist guide of Malgudi falls in love with the alluringly beautiful dancer Rosie. He channels all his energy to fulfill Rosie’s dream-to become a famed dance- by relentlessly working for the cause almost forgetting his old talents and occupation as a tourist guide. His life slowly turns to turmoil of forgetfulness, a languorous whirl around the magnetic dancing beauty. Around the stages, in the role of a manager, he dispatches his conversational ‘guidely’ skills. But suddenly a grave mistake ends him behind bars owning to a complaint filed by Rosie’s former husband (whom Raju sarcastically calls ‘Marco polo’, referring to his attire). While Rosie continues in her dancing career to fulfill the financial needs to run Raju’s case in court. Raju , after his term in detention , takes refuge in an old riverside temple in the rural village of Mangal. The villagers take him for a saint and start consulting him for solutions for their daily life problems. With his ‘problem-solver-instincts’ which helped him to build his guide’s career, Raju helps them. He recounts his whole story to his followers on the eve of his fasting in order to appease the rain Gods when a drought hits the village. The structure of the novel is as per Raju’s description of his life to his followers. The simple, yet stylish writing style of RKN works magic.  The same reason-the widely accepted format-had made it the most widely read and popular books in Indian English Literature awarding the author the highest honor in India- The Sahitya Academy  Award (1961).

Poulo Colelho: The Pilgrimage and The Alchemist

A Review of two Poulo Coelho masterpieces

It would be relevant to state that Poulo Coelho glamorously concluded in The Alchemist what he began in The Pilgrimage- that is a journey to conceive the enlightment that is to quench all mental thrusts, smother off all questions that the mind-like a mad horse- so viciously and relentlessly ask the soul. that the journey, the pilgrimage was the soul's answer, the inner self’s thundering answer. While the omens were its mighty language through which the seeker-the lost sheep- was 'shepherded' to the one mighty answer; that which was always within him- that which he ceased to notice all his life. That blissful, blessed moment HE GETS ANSWERED, enlightened.

The Pilgrimage


Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher; Harper Collins publishers
Pages: 224

the story begins from  Italiana, on the peaks of  the Siera Domar when the author's pride and aggravated avidity persuade his master to decline him the new sword which was the secret symbol of the order of RAM , after his old sword was disposed/buried. He is then forced to set out on a journey to seek his sword, to struggle to acquire what was about to be offered to him so generously. it puts him in course through the legendary road to Santiago - the blessed path trodden by pilgrims of several generations before him. En route, led by his experienced, wise guide Petrus, he is initiated to several spiritual exercises of the order and is put to test in extremely confusing and hazardous junctures through which his inner self is purified enough to deserve the 'RAM' order's sword again. 'The Pilgrimage' ends where the author regains his sword from his master. Here the reader can see the master almost magically reappear in front of his victorious disciple to gift him his hard gained sword.

The Alchemist

Author; Poulo Coelho
Publisher: Harper Collins publishers
Pages: 161

The Alchemist is a shepherd's meander to reckoning. Where he is led by dreams and omens, by magic, by Godly messengers and divine souls who pop up in the story all out of nowhere and fade out in the same page, after having performed their karma in leading the shepherd boy en route to the truth he seeks.

The shepherd crosses the blue waters and sets his foot in the Arabian sands seeking his fortune in the Pyramids. His venturous journey through the treacherous desert completely shifts the story to an entirely different platform with the advent of more poignant characters such as the mysterious Alchemist, the English man who is in a relentless search for the wisdom to turn metals in to gold-alchemy, and the beautiful desert woman Fathima with whom the boy falls in love with. The Alchemist ends in a thundering reckoning when the boy finds his real treasure; this is where Poulo Coelho's stupendous message shines -" wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure"

Poulo Coelho’s masterpiece swells with omens, magic and  the triumph of ‘makthub’-which the common man cam conceive simply as ‘fate’. In The Alchemist Poulo Coelho blends his magnetic content with an entirely new feature which has inanimate objects as live and significant characters in the book which communicates with the protagonist and helps him at different junctures. This could be attributed as an entirely new experiment in novel writing. A pure product of an exploded imagination. Poulo Coelho is the best.