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tmadryga 's review for:
The Celestine Prophecy
by James Redfield
I know this is fiction, but even fiction needs to have elements of reality in order to make the story believable. This author clearly did very minimal research about Peru when choosing this country as the setting for his story. It was obvious he wanted to pick a country with a mystical quality to it, but didn’t really care about being accurate when describing the setting. While I realize the prophecy and the corresponding insights are the main focus of this book, there were several inaccuracies about the setting that constantly pulled me out of the book. I’m not an expert on Peru, but I’ve been there, and when a detail didn’t sound quite right with the setting, I did a quick Google search to see if perhaps I was wrong. Everything I’ve found confirms my thinking.
1. The author describes a setting with a grove of oak trees. Peru has a large variety of trees, but in real life, oak trees do not seem to be one of them.
2. The characters visit a Victorian-style home. While I suppose some ex-pat might choose to build a Victorian-style home in Peru, this style of architecture is not usually found in South America.
3. This is the big one—the Maya never lived in South America.
Besides these inaccuracies, the author was also very vague in describing the setting. He often did not describe the plants the character saw, instead just calling them “tropical plants.” While it makes sense the character wouldn’t know what the plants were called, not being from Peru, surely the author could have done more research so the character could describe specific plants using the five sense.
It also bothered me that certain side characters were referred to as “Indians” when they could have been referred to as Quechua or one of the other cultures. And then to describe the Maya (who did not live in Peru) and the Inca as primitive people also misses the mark. It’s pretty clear these were pretty advanced and civilized societies in real life. I get that this was written in the 90s, but the terminology was still annoying. There’s definitely a bit of a white superiority feeling in the book.
The story itself is just boring, and I don’t feel like the insights are really that insightful. I didn’t even bother to read the afterward about “How to Create your Own Celestine Experience.”
Oh, and it was never really clear why the manuscript was written in Aramaic. I guess that was just way for the author to say “Hey, you don’t have to lose your religion to follow my spiritual paths.” Although it seems he’s really just trying to appeal to Christians rather than all religions.
Changing this to one star. This is the worst book I’ve ever read. Seriously, he did no research.
1. The author describes a setting with a grove of oak trees. Peru has a large variety of trees, but in real life, oak trees do not seem to be one of them.
2. The characters visit a Victorian-style home. While I suppose some ex-pat might choose to build a Victorian-style home in Peru, this style of architecture is not usually found in South America.
3. This is the big one—the Maya never lived in South America.
Besides these inaccuracies, the author was also very vague in describing the setting. He often did not describe the plants the character saw, instead just calling them “tropical plants.” While it makes sense the character wouldn’t know what the plants were called, not being from Peru, surely the author could have done more research so the character could describe specific plants using the five sense.
It also bothered me that certain side characters were referred to as “Indians” when they could have been referred to as Quechua or one of the other cultures. And then to describe the Maya (who did not live in Peru) and the Inca as primitive people also misses the mark. It’s pretty clear these were pretty advanced and civilized societies in real life. I get that this was written in the 90s, but the terminology was still annoying. There’s definitely a bit of a white superiority feeling in the book.
The story itself is just boring, and I don’t feel like the insights are really that insightful. I didn’t even bother to read the afterward about “How to Create your Own Celestine Experience.”
Oh, and it was never really clear why the manuscript was written in Aramaic. I guess that was just way for the author to say “Hey, you don’t have to lose your religion to follow my spiritual paths.” Although it seems he’s really just trying to appeal to Christians rather than all religions.
Changing this to one star. This is the worst book I’ve ever read. Seriously, he did no research.