Hippe by Paul Coelho

Synopsis:
Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, best-selling author Paulo Coelho takes us
back in time to relive the dreams of a generation that longed for peace and dared to challenge the
established social order. In Hippie, he tells a story of Paulo, a young, skinny, Brazilian man with
a goatee and long, flowing hair, who wants to become a writer and sets off on a journey in search
of a deeper meaning for his life: first on the famous “Death Train” to Bolivia, then on Peru, Chile,
and Argentina.
Paulo’s travels take him farther to the famous Dam Square in Amsterdam, filled with young
people wearing vibrant clothes, burning incense, and playing music. There he meets Karla, a Dutch
woman in her twenties who has been waiting to find the ideal companion to accompany her on the
fabled hippie trail to Nepal. She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip aboard the Magic Bus that
travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. As they travel together, Paulo and Karla
explore their relationship: a life-defining love story that awakens them on every level and leads to
choices and decisions that will set the course for their lives together.
Critique:
Sometimes, we like to live in the past from euphoric stage of Dial-up Internet, up to the
John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. Classical Era, Victorian Era, Jazz Era (20th-century era),
60’s/70’s/80’s/90s, 00s and Modern Era are the known eras in the Western History. We see how
Silent Generation mission: to colonize another planet – will witness by the Generation Alpha
(2011-2025). It will be an excellent victory – even I offend you because we age. I like to live in
the past because it’s “N O S T A L G I C.”
Today, almost millennials listen to lo-fi music – those vinyl cracklings, warping
frequencies, Vaporwave or Retro wave – micro genre where we listen to retro synths makes you
go back in time into 80’s (those neon’s colors) – as a way to (as a said a while ago) have nostalgia.
I went to well-modernized mall, where we encourage to think capitalism positively, and I
head to the National Book Store. Dying hard fan of Paulo Coelho, the author of “The Alchemist”,
one of his famous novel – I don’t want to expound more than that, was attracted again for his
another latest book, “Hippie”. I want to time travel to the past. Then, something popped out right
on my head, “What really happened in the ‘Hippie’ era?” and “Is it worse/ better than our era?”
I was impressed on what the synopsis told about the summary of the story. The cover looks
like big, retrograded font named “Hippie Paulo Coelho.” And, an advice: “If you want to learn
about yourself, start exploring the world around you.” It really challenges me at the first place. My
mother is so strict even long- road trips were refused. He gave a prayer, a bible verse – Luke 8:20-
21 – gives a symbol that what will happen about the book, a poem created by Tagore, one of his
friends, dedication to his friends that he encounter because this book was based from his young
adult life, and a page of Post Scriptum that he intentionally write it strictly in 3 rd POV, allowing
the other character “describe their lives.”
 Paulo introduced his book about what era where in. As other authors would say, it was
generic. Living in the 70’s, I think, was the ironic era of all time than today. Hipsters live in the
year of Marxism, socialism, and anarchy “and” the year of peace, freedom and passion. The time
where capitalism getting attention to the society, free going through borders in different countries
with a VISA: real or fake, they didn’t care. He described “Paulo: The Character” riding on a
famous “Death Train” with his other friends, including his girlfriend, and Karla sitting far beyond
them.
Even though the introduction was generic, it caught my eyes that it was 6 pages long – 2
pages is almost a chapter already. It is worth reading. I compare it to Anime genre called “Slice of
Life” which there’s no plot happening, you’re showing what really happened. Some differences
are there was unnoticeable plot created from small actions characters conveyed.
Which became a plot and reaching its conflict.
The first main story about the travels of the famous “Death Train” there’s a dystopian
feeling – aside from historical facts – hidden in the text. Novels has different conflicts.
Surprisingly, there were several conflicts. One of which, actually racist, was Hipsters VS Norms.
Hippies contradict what norms would look like – most of them are ambiguous, harder to tell (it
may be anti-hipster). It might there no evidences in the book, it was clearly based by real life.
Norms hates hippies so much like they didn’t care what hippies like and dislike.
In the middle of the story, He was used drugs as a tool to create imaginations but there’s
no escape in reality. Imaginations VS Reality is one of the conflicts on the book. People used drugs
(In some countries in Europe, drugs were illegal) as a relax tool. There is an instance in the book
where women used LSD and doing yoga naked in public. If a norm saw that, it will be criticize
already – which leads through the conflict “Hipsters VS Norms”, as I mentioned earlier.
The significance of two rides – simply the “Death Train” and the “Magic Bus” – was to
show differences of how people treat tourists in the 70’s. Showing contradictory beliefs, literally,
between different kinds of democracy and discrimination. Hence, the third conflict is “Democracy
VS Discrimination.” One of the examples is stereotyping different races when they went in other
country; specifically, when Paulo and his German girlfriend where evicted out of Chile because
she might spread Communism throughout the country, which makes no sense.
For me, I think this number of conflict is enough. The number of conflicts show different
connections between the reader and the author himself/herself. As Stephen King said in his helpful
creative writing book “On Writing: Memoir of the Craft” – many conflicts leads to reader’s
confusion, less conflicts leads to underwhelming story.
Novels must have the “character development” stage, which leads to many plots and
subplots. Short stories have, if depends, one main plot. In this book, I see how the author chose to
have a 2 main plots and a subplot. With the use of correct imagery, I see it eerie to my mind. Those
plots were supposed to be two valleys, leads it into one big, irregular, mountain. The style is so
straightforward, there are no backstories or even time skips. Death Train then Magic Bus and an
Epilogue and End, that’s all. Too much backstories and time skips leads to a stopped perception
of time (in the novel/short story), making it vague, and leads to mystery questions. As this
straightforward novel, I don’t really feel creating questions in my mind. But he makes a punch
back on the imagery itself.
Most people want to feel “nostalgia,” getting back in time and author really did it so
flawlessly. It was really close to reality, the description of the Magic Bus is like “The Magic Bus”
itself – but not focused on learning. I think he exaggerates what hippies look like. Showing how
the era began in the 70’s makes you travel back in time. Due to short chapters and a “slice of life”-
like genre in the introduction up to the middle of the story, making the pacing much faster. Most
stories I encounter with fast pacing makes me feel that the book want to drag race with me. But
here, this book lets you buckle up to his own car drag race with him.
Characterization is also one of the essentials of writing a novel. I saw the characters
dynamic on the 2 main characters, Paulo and Karla, emphasizing the character and reacting to its
static environment. I’d be happy if one of the supporting characters made a big change.
There will be no information given with the script – except if you’re an avant-garde author
– if there’s no dialogue. The novel “The man and the Sea” where Santiago speaks himself in the
middle of the sea uses direct speech yet no quotation marks but Hemingway is far way different
from Coelho. The use of One-Sided Quotation between the Paragraphs, Unexplained Interpretation
of each Dialogue – which makes we sense tangible, even it’s not.
Some movies uses overlaying someone’s dialogue to gain tension around the given piece.
One of the examples of lines in the book given is the page 51 on the book is the time Paulo was
been interrupted by a police officer. The epic uses of ellipses makes the interruption better on a
book – while overlaying dialogues in movies.
As far as I’m concerned on the book itself, I hope the author shifts itself from 3rd person
limited into 1st person point of view in main sequences. But there’s a “pre-scriptum – the main
information before you read the book” that he “strictly use 3rd person point of view.” (1)
He adapted the use of speaking conscience, the use of “he/she/I/you/ thought” phrase.
Here’s the excerpt of the book itself:
“At that time, I thought it was enough, safer and cheaper. To travel through books and films
– no one on the planet had laid eyes on fields as beautiful as those that surrounds me. Still, I
returned the next day to the pub, sat at the solitary man’s table, and even knowing it’s risky to ask
questions that have a high probability of getting an answer. I asked him what he’d meant. Where
was this country of his?”
Nepal.
…
This is the conversation between Rayan and an old man. My first impression on that
conversation is. What is happening? Why the narrator itself answer the old man’s question? Or is
it Rayan answering the question back on his head.
 “Avoid necessary adverbs as possible.” Stephen King said on his book and that is a fact.
Using too many adverbs is making the character show publicly his own feeling to the readers and
makes it boring. The author uses figurative language and figures of speech – limiting the use of
adverb as possible – makes the story appealing to the readers which I appreciate it.
It really captures what happened in the era – even though hippies were being described
exaggeratedly. Some writers use their pen and paper, or computer for millennials (I assumed.) that
they used different symbolisms if we are in fiction. But, in this context which related to his real
life (I want to call it as “Adapted-Fiction.”) is using historical events and backgrounds if necessary
which I love it.
As I said it a while ago, the format of his text shows simplicity and complexity. He puts
more emphasis about the protagonists which leads to long format of texts. As Man VS Fate style
of novel, I would really want to see protagonists resisting the pulse of their destinies, but it was
“Adapted Fiction”, I don’t wanna comment more of that.
His style was using simple words ironically to the scenery fancier. I don’t know how he
writes. It was a mixture of citing examples, exaplaining, creates what-if’s