I HAVE to admit, that despite all the critics' ravings, I don't particularly like the work of Paulo Coelho.
I have previously found his text too dense and staccato, with a stilted turn of phrase and a tendency to, well, bore me.
Nevertheless, I picked up his latest novel, The Winner Stands Alone, with a modicum of interest. The subject matter was lighter than usual, set in the world of movies and fashion.
The Winner Stands Alone follows the disjointed story of a man whose wife has left him, an actress who is yet to have her 'big break' and sundry other characters twisted together at the Cannes film festival – rather appropriately as the real festival is currently running.
Blurbs on the back of books generally don't give the reader much in the way of plot lines, and the one on The Winner Stands Alone, isn't much different. Rather, this blurb describes the book as a 'profound meditation on personal power and innocent dreams undone by success'.
Hmmm, doth the blurb protest too much?
Unfortunately it's this sort of prose that puts off many readers. The Winner Stands Alone is actually a thriller and murder mystery wrapped up in a look at the over-importance of fame in modern society.
It's not a 'profound meditation', so much as yet another look at the modern malaise of celebrity and the 'five seconds of fame' syndrome.
Coelho's novel is not much different from other books that have looked at the danger of celebrity-dom. Books like Star: A novel, Pamela Anderson's thinly veiled autobiography or even Jake Halpern's Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction.
Even Coelho's central character is a cardboard cutout – a Russian business man with a shady past and an uncontrolled obsession with his former wife.
What is interesting is the way Coelho writes from the internal perspective of the character, looking at what he does from the point of view that 'everything I think is right; it's others that are wrong.'
Presumably this is the way that crazy people and serial killers think.
Other characters orbit our Russian gentleman as planets revolve around the sun – with little conscious thought as to why they do what they do.
Each character is supposedly a depiction of the various 'types' of Hollywood – the big director, the aging but still powerful star, the money man, the fledgling starlet, the peripheral worker.
One wonders if Coelho simply made a list of stereotypes and then ticked them off as they were added to the plot, as none of them are truly developed as characters.
There is a 'twist' with a film distributor being involved in something to do with organised crime, of course, which could be tied to the Russian gentleman, only it's not entirely clear.
At the end of the book I felt vaguely let down. I really wanted to enjoy The Winner Stands Alone.
There were some great sections of prose that ran tight with ideas and a sparse kind of poetry, but in the end I was left wanting more.
More what? More action, perhaps. More depth to the characters, or perhaps simply more interesting characters.
There really didn't seem to be any new tropes in The Winner Stands Alone – the investigation of fame, power and celebrity was not new. The central character was an obvious archetype, even the peripheral characters were pedestrian choices.
Still, it wasn't a terrible read. If you have enjoyed his previous work, no doubt you'll enjoy this one.
If you don't go looking for new ideas and stories, if you're looking for another version of the fame debate, then The Winner Stands Alone could be right up your alley.
The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho is published by Harper Collins and is available at good bookstores and online.