In the early April, Paulo's new book hit the bookstore, I brought it home right away. After finishing the longest journey with IQ84, I finally started reading it two days ago and continued finishing it yesterday. It merely took around 2 hours on my first read, maybe due to its big fonts. I'll churn it slowly again afterwards.
The book is set in Jerusalem on the eve of the Crusades, where there was a gathering between a wise man called the Copt and an audience from all religions : Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the midst of a war. In the gathering, the audience asked questions and they listened to the wise man's philosophical thoughts.
They asked about : the nature of love, elegance and beauty, work, sacrifices, difference between defeat and failure, anxiety, and death.
These are all values that needed to be known and shared, not based on religious system but as the same universal values. What Paulo is trying to say is the : "All religion is heading toward the same light and the light is God". This book is probably his opinions on how human should see this as a whole, he is trying to tell everyone about it, in his fiction. Good way of preaching about life.
It is like a book of wisdom, or positive values that people should be aware of. It is entirely liberated from any religion, so anyone who believe in God, can easily relate to it. If you don't believe in God, well, it's on moral values too - so you can still make use of it.
I am not sure why people want to bash him for writing book with positive values in it. I don't care if he made millions out of people for reading his book - if it's for a good cause, walaupun everything is obviously well-known. Lain lah if what he writes will turn his readers into orang2 tak berguna or something bad, kan.
Extra fun part,
I found John Crace's article on the review of the book from The Guardian, where he mocked Paulo's book all the way. So, I read other people's comment and I found this :
Great one, Paulo.
You are so cool in handling indirect attackers.
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