The Light Warrior’s Papers

Description

The woman said, “There is an island located directly west of the village, and on its summit sits a huge temple containing many bells.” The boy noticed the strangeness of the woman’s clothes and the scarf she wore on her head, and he was certain that he had never seen her before. She asked him, “Have you ever visited that temple? Go there and tell me what you think of it.” The boy was stunned by the woman’s words, then he went to the place she indicated. The boy sat on the beach; He gazed at the horizon, but saw only what he was accustomed to seeing: the blue sky…

The boy was deeply disappointed and soon made his way to a nearby fishing village. He asked the people he met if they knew anything about the island that housed the temple. An elderly fisherman told him, “Ah, that was many years ago, when my ancestors were still alive. An earthquake struck, and the sea swallowed the island. Although we can no longer see it, we can still hear the temple bells when the ocean begins to ring them in the depths.” The boy returned to the shore and tried to hear the bells.

He spent the entire evening there, but he could hear nothing except the sound of the waves and the cries of the seagulls… Although the boy could not hear the bells of that ancient temple, he learned other things. He realized that he was beginning to get used to the sounds of the waves, which were no longer mysterious to him. Before long, he was also becoming accustomed to the cries of the seagulls, the buzzing of the bees, and the wind rustling through the palm trees…

Years passed Many times, the boy grew up and became a man, then returned to the village and to the beach where he had spent the most beautiful days of his childhood. He no longer dreamed of finding the extraordinary treasure in the depths of the sea, for that treasure might only exist in his imagination, and perhaps he hadn’t truly heard the sounds of the sinking bells…

On that mysterious evening of his childhood, he decided nonetheless to walk along the shore, adding to the noise of the wind and the cries of the seagulls. Can you imagine the astonishment the young man felt when he saw, on that very beach, the woman who had first spoken to him about the island and its temple? He asked her, “What are you doing here?” She replied, “I was waiting for you…”

The boy noticed that the woman’s features had remained unchanged despite the passing years, and that the veil covering her hair hadn’t faded with time. She handed him a blue notebook with blank pages; “Write: The Warrior of Light appreciates the eyes of children, for they are capable of looking towards a world free from bitterness. And when he wants to know if the person standing beside him deserves his trust, he will try “To see him as children do,” and who is this Warrior of Light? “She smiled and replied, ‘You know him well. He is the one who can understand the miracle of life, who understands how to fight for something he believes in until the end, and who can hear the bells that the waves toll beneath the seabed.'”

This is how Paulo Coelho attempts to imbue his style with an endearing symbolism, enabling him to delve deeply into his inspirations and philosophies, even touching upon Greek philosophy through his portrayal of this Warrior of Light’s behavior and ethics. However, Islamic mysticism is not absent from Paulo’s thoughts, to the point that it seems the character of this Warrior of Light was inspired by a story from one of the great Sufi mystics of Islam, which he presents in the introduction to this novel. The novel compels the reader to pause and reflect repeatedly on its insights, symbolism, and philosophy, exploring them to their fullest extent and beyond the surface.