A lesson on plagiarism: My review of Manuscript found in Accra by Paulo Coelho
As a reviewer there are some reviews that are just incredibly difficult to write simply because you’re at a loss about what to say about the book that you’re reviewing. The best books can often pose a similar problem because you need to ensure that you don’t go overboard in your review. Books like the Manuscript however fall at the other end of that spectrum. World renowned author, Paulo Coelho’s Manuscript Found in Accra is set in the city of Accra which is on the eve of invasion. The citizens gather at the town square to hear a wise man speak on topics such as courage, solitude, defeat, beauty, sex, love etc.
One of the reasons that I didn’t find this book particularly exciting was because the narrative felt stale. For those of you who have read ‘The Prophet’ by Khalil Gibran will know exactly what I’m talking about. In the Prophet you have a similar structure where a wise man was leaving the city and one by one he talks about different topics a lot of which are very similar to the stuff that Paulo Coelho writes about. Now I’m not exactly sure if Paulo Coelho has read the Prophet or not but for a person who writes about the type of stuff that he does, I’m going to assume (I may be completely wrong) that he would have. Which then means that he has committed a grave sin according to me. He is neither original nor is he being honest to his work. Those of you who have read reviews of mine before would know how much I stress on being honest to the work that you are putting out. The incredible amount of similarity between the books causes me to believe that Coelho took a lot from the Prophet without giving it any credit anywhere.
That being said, I must mention that the content in the book wasn’t bad. The book does cover a lot of different topics and gives very sound advice regarding them. A couple of topics certainly did have me reflecting back and thinking about how I could do stuff differently in life. Another thing that put me off however was the use of “love” as a solution to every single problem. I don’t think the book manages to pass a single page without mentioning love at least once. I agree that love (of different forms) is the solution to most things but you need to provide your readers other material as well! Love is among the easiest things to pass off to readers because there’s no way anyone is going to argue against love.
Already I feel as if I’ve spent more time than I ought to have on this review. I rarely am as scathing in my reviews as I was for this one but I have to ensure that I am honest to my readers (wish Coelho had done that). For those of you who have a couple of hours to spare (it’s a pretty quick read) and for those of you haven’t read the Prophet, this book might just be of interest to you.
My Rating: 2/5