Just like “The Alchemist”, “By the river Piedra…” is a story about a journey symbolizing the route towards self-discovery. “By the river Piedra…”, however, could more easily be described as a story of love, as it strives to show that “true love is an act of total surrender”. At a deeper level, Coelho also gives the message that as there are no rules when it comes to love, there are no rules when it comes to worshiping God: “to love is to be in communion with the other, and to discover in that other the spark of God”.
In this best-selling novel Coelho talks about a long-forgotten aspect of God: His feminine side, the so-called “Goddess”. The feminine face of God has been, as Coelho explains, present in every religion on the face of the earth: paganism (Great Mother), the ancient fertility goddess, Isis, the Virgin Mary. This Goddess, presented as generator of all life, is present in the love the two main characters feel for each other. It is as if Her presence haunts their relationship. The monk turned Goddess-worshiper at first thinks he’s faced with the dilemma of staying with the woman he loves and abandoning the life that fulfils him, or venturing on his planned mission to change the world. In the end he discovers that a choice need not be made: to love a woman is to love life itself.
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