Profound truths..... Review on Prophet, The - Kahlil Gibran

I recall reading an incident not long back. A man saw the headstone where it was written, Mr. John Doe 1920-82 and remarked that it was the ‘-‘ in between that mattered. This is not an extract from the book I am reviewing. You may ask, then where does it figure in. Well, “The Prophet” is all about the ‘-‘. (WiseCrack: Profound, eh ? – the whole book is a collection of such insightful truths – but “this (‘-‘) was my idea, wholly mine”). The book is about the philosophy of living between the period of life and death.

The Author

Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) was a Lebanese-American (WiseCrack: Not Al-Qaeda) essayist, philosopher, poet and painter. ‘The Prophet’ is his best know work.

The Book

The plot is set in the city of Orphalese. The prophecies are nothing new. As the Prophet says

“….of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls ?”.

The various aspects of life are covered under different chapter – Love, Marriage, Children (WiseCrack: he got the order right, eh ?), Giving, Eating & Drinking, Work, Joy & Sorrow, Friendship etc. There are some good analogies too. (WiseCrack: Not like the fake ones some of the me-toos mint out of thin air and which of course, stink from miles away). Try this one for size :-

“A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.

And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.”

Here’s another:-

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked

…….Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven (WiseCrack: I am using stainless steel)

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives ?”

Though the chapters were written like a sermon, they don’t aim to preach. It’s not like Ten Commandments without following which you will be committing a sin. These are crystallized pieces of wisdom, which the philosophically inclined lesser mortals may have noticed too at various stages of life.

Why read the book ?

Why should you read this book ? Well, I don’t know J Why did I ? – I was confused, utterly totally confused about certain priorities in my life. I wanted answers to certain mundane questions from a higher plane. I wanted to philosophise about various events in life. I believe that these philosophies form the larger framework to life like the steel framework to a building (WiseCrack: That was a good analogy – hehe hehe) without which the whole building won’t stand.

Have I found the answers ? Here again, the Prophet has an answer on Self Knowledge:-

‘Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth”’

Well, my library has many such guides – Gita, Bible, Quran, Thirukkural…. “The Prophet” is a good addition to this collection sans the religious element to it. I find many similarities between Thirukkural (It’s a tamil book of ‘wise-cracks’, u dummy – u can find Kamal Hassan quoting from it in many of his movies – Mahanadi, for one) and ‘The Prophet’; though I prefer the later due to its easy style of writing.

Statutory Warning : The opinions expressed in the review by Wisecrack are his alone andNathan, hereinafter referred to as the confused does not take responsibility for any consequences that may or may not arise from the abovereferred comments.