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Jahn Sood's Reviews > The Prophet
The Prophet (A Borzoi Book)
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I'm not sure that this book lived up to the thousands of recomendations that I got to read it. It is very beautiful, many of the lines are great, but as a whole, it seems like a sort of ode to indecision. Maybe I didn't take enough time with it, but seemed to me to be so heavily focussed on balance and contradictions that it didn't make any extreme proclamations. Maybe balance is more real than that which is self-glorifying, but I just wasn't as moved as I wanted to be. Maybe at a different time in my life I would have soaked this up. Then again, I read this book in a car with loud music playing after recovering only half way from the flu, so I might have been biased and unnecesarily bitter and disbelieving. My reaction might also be coming off Thoreau which is beautiful to read, but also has intense philosophy behind it. I think this book is more like looking at something beautiful but not particularly deep. Philosophical porn, if you will. I bet that will offend the people that really take it seriously. Shit, that isn't my intention. I think I will take the book back to maine and re-read it there on a mountain or on the beach and think about it in that context and then maybe it will have a deeper effect...if I ever make it back to maine. I hope so.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
July 1, 2007
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Finished Reading
July 26, 2007
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Baboosh
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Mar 25, 2012 05:24PM
"I think this book is more like looking at something beautiful but not particularly deep. Philosophical porn, if you will. I bet that will offend the people that really take it seriously" yeah it offended us and yeah we take it seriously , even though u knew that , u went ahead and post it ??i don't know what to say ,,it just irritating
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"seemed to me to be so heavily focussed on balance and contradictions"I agree that one of the main points of the book was balance. Gibran was trying to convey that there is no line - no division - between what appear to be opposites (for example, joy and sorrow). They are all interdependent and balance each other out, in essence two sides of the same coin. He is putting forth the idea of unity through balance.
Thus, I disagree that it contains contradictions. It contains paradoxes, which on the surface appear to be contrary, but are in fact truthful.
Also, you state, "I think this book is more like looking at something beautiful but not particularly deep"
I don't think it was his intention to write anything "deep". As he mentioned in the book, one cannot teach another person what that person doesn't already know (although maybe still undeveloped and dormant; not yet matured into conscious thought). And so, I don't believe he wrote the book with the intentions of "teach" the reader, but only to give the reader a different perspective with the hopes that the reader will begin to search for the truth on his own, within himself.
Anyway, I'm not trying to imply you're wrong or anything; this is just my opinion. I only wanted to give a different perspective :)
I'm still reading this so I have not come to a conclusion yet but I really enjoyed your review regardless of my stance. At the end of the day, your opinion of the book has no power to harm anyway so I don't see how you could offend anyone. It's called freedom of speech, people! Okay, back to reading.
Hope you got to Maine!
Baboosh wrote: ""I think this book is more like looking at something beautiful but not particularly deep. Philosophical porn, if you will. I bet that will offend the people that really take it seriously" yeah it o..."I agree.
I think Khalil wrote this book to get us to look at things from a different direction, many books like these are filled with thou shalls and thou shalt nots and really turn off people--It kind of reminds me of Thoreau's Walden---"Shams and delusions past for soundest truths, while reality is more fabulous, only one in a hundred million is awake to any poetic or divine life...to be awake is to be alive " Thoreau
