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A review by dyno8426
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
3.0
I feel conflicted due to my mixed reactions after reading this book. The bittersweet aftertaste feels more bitter now due to its incomplete undertaking - something that even begins to feel like betrayal. First to the wonderful part - its poetic delivery of the prose. It elevates its prophetic content to scripture like holiness. Analogies and metaphors interspersed within the prose are impressive with their beauty and uplifting sentiments. At places, I literally exclaimed with appreciation and felt the same exhilaration that any beautiful imagery or idea evokes. The symbols also convey a feeling of harmony - pleasant and stabilising like a musical symphony. Although the ideological freedom that provides this unity also see-sawed its favour in my opinion and left me intellectually unfulfilled.
The underlying philosophical fibre seems to be spiritualism - the idea of human's spiritual reality as paramount than any material aspect. A grander design and its intellectual access through spiritual realisation comes out to be the purpose of living. Everything is developed relative to it and uses the same existential harmony to fit in the groove that completes the bigger picture. Complex topics like suffering and evil are explained as a vacuum of this spiritual awareness. This somewhat neutralises the comforting interludes of beautiful symbols by offering trite words - to the extent of contradictory seeming statements that irked me to the point of "What?!". As pointed in someone else's criticism as well (not quoting verbatim) - in its entirety, it comes out as a sugar-coated blend of theology, spiritualism and morality which makes it easier to swallow. Its embalming effect makes it agreeable. It seems to be constructed from the good parts of various ideologies you might have heard of which makes it acceptable. Its optimism feels artificial which seeds doubt and leaving an impression of "more saccharine with less substance". I believe I am not biased towards pessimism to feel this way. This is what divides my appreciation and second-guess the worthiness of this work. As a moral guide, its simplicity and clarity is agreeable and identifiably in the right of mind and heart. Like spiritualism, its positivity just feels overused in order to make it widely acceptable. Appearance of depth sometimes also comes from an inadequacy of light. It does not carry the intellectual burden or inspires anyone to share it with the author. It closes in on itself as soon as it started while heading into waters which always left many wondering. Maybe it was never meant to do so. I can understand and accept that. I am glad it exists to provide enough beauty for some emotional respite and enough light to clear the complexity of some human experiences.
The underlying philosophical fibre seems to be spiritualism - the idea of human's spiritual reality as paramount than any material aspect. A grander design and its intellectual access through spiritual realisation comes out to be the purpose of living. Everything is developed relative to it and uses the same existential harmony to fit in the groove that completes the bigger picture. Complex topics like suffering and evil are explained as a vacuum of this spiritual awareness. This somewhat neutralises the comforting interludes of beautiful symbols by offering trite words - to the extent of contradictory seeming statements that irked me to the point of "What?!". As pointed in someone else's criticism as well (not quoting verbatim) - in its entirety, it comes out as a sugar-coated blend of theology, spiritualism and morality which makes it easier to swallow. Its embalming effect makes it agreeable. It seems to be constructed from the good parts of various ideologies you might have heard of which makes it acceptable. Its optimism feels artificial which seeds doubt and leaving an impression of "more saccharine with less substance". I believe I am not biased towards pessimism to feel this way. This is what divides my appreciation and second-guess the worthiness of this work. As a moral guide, its simplicity and clarity is agreeable and identifiably in the right of mind and heart. Like spiritualism, its positivity just feels overused in order to make it widely acceptable. Appearance of depth sometimes also comes from an inadequacy of light. It does not carry the intellectual burden or inspires anyone to share it with the author. It closes in on itself as soon as it started while heading into waters which always left many wondering. Maybe it was never meant to do so. I can understand and accept that. I am glad it exists to provide enough beauty for some emotional respite and enough light to clear the complexity of some human experiences.