Book Review: Adultery

Author: Paulo Coelho (book link)

Language: English

Verdict: Average

Adultery, as the name suggests, I expected love, passion and a lot of lust in this book along with a lot of philosophy (as it is a Paulo Coelho after all), but to my disappointment there was only half backed philosophy to deal with.

We are living in an age now, where everybody is after happiness. The small joys of life don’t make us happy anymore. If you check social media, talks, (behavioral) psychology, philosophy, self help books, all are only searching the secret behind happiness. It used be a time when only the intellectuals had the luxury to be melancholy, since that was part of their job description. Nowadays we all are unhappy for some reason or the other. It has become a fashion!

This is my second Paulo Coelho book, the first being “The Alchemist”. I liked Alchemist because, it talked about finding happiness near you and talked about not losing hope and going after your passion with all your might. But Alas! the second one could not live up to the reputation.

This is a story of a woman who in spite of having a good job, two kids and a loving husband feels her life to be empty and depressing. She ventures out to find some meaning, some excitement and some peace in her life.

When I read the book, I felt that author was writing about something which he never felt himself. The heroine of the story was depressed in spite of a good life she led, but I was unable to find the pain of depression. She was preaching, and I felt it was only gibberish facts but not at all about the feelings. If one reads Dostoevsky or Atin Bandyopadhyay then you can feel the pain of the protagonists, you can feel the dark cloud inside their minds as all depression brings. That dark cloud was missing in this book.

Only good thing I can say that when I started the book I was somewhat depressed and reading this did not make it worse.

I expected a lot of passion since the title is Adultery, but to my surprise all the narrations of the love making was flat and boring and was totally unable to kindle even a little bit of fire inside me.

There were a lot of facts and philosophies, mentioning Frankenstein’s monster, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was all talk to bring out the feelings of bi-polar syndrome. To me it was all in vain.

What I felt that the lady was bored with her mundane life and needed some new project to work on. Even though we live a perfect life, it becomes boring after a while because of the predictive nature of doing same thing over and over again. To break the cycle everybody needs something new once in a while. The problem becomes more prominent when someone has more money and has already tried everything in the world.

As I fondly remember during college days, an expedition to anything new used to cost us a mere 100 rupees may be, now even spending 20 fold that amount does not give us even one hundredth of the satisfaction or pleasure. Why is that? I wondered a lot of time. And the answer is, we have been there, done that. This not something new we are discovering. A simple joy stays a joy if can’t afford it everyday. If we over use, it loses its charm.

If you really are interested to read a book on depression read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and if you want a book on passion go back to ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. They will give you much more satisfaction, than this one.

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