Adultery

ADULTERY

by Paulo Coelho

 

Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2016

 

Date Read: July 20, 2022

 

Linda, a well-respected journalist living with her family in Geneva, experiences a rather sudden and intense mid-life crisis. She looks at her husband and children and sees monotony, endless obligation and very little joy. After some self-reflection, she realizes that the source of her unhappiness is that she is profoundly lonely.

 

At about this time, an old lover, Jacob, who she hasn’t seen since they were teenagers. Jacob has become a rising political star and Linda interviews him as a journalist, ever the professional right up until the end when she gives him a farewell blow-job. And so begins an affair, albeit reluctantly on the part of Jacob.

 

Linda finds Jacob’s desire alluring, even if the sex isn’t exactly what she was hoping for. Rather than focusing on her pleasure, he fucks her in the ass, much to her disbelief, agony and intense nastiness of it, which surprisingly turns her on. When she fears Jacob is going to put an end to their relationship, Linda devises a plan to frame his wife as a drug dealer, which was a bizarre plot twist.

 

I understand that all of Coelho’s plot devices are a springboard for him to play with broader truths but this one was hard for me to swallow. I found Linda’s middle-class, first world, woe is me crisis too shallow to offer sympathy. Find a hobby. Join a women’s group and find more real connection. Actually communicate with your husband beyond the mundane, everyday business that often consumes marriages. I had no sympathy for her throughout and found her ultimately whiney and her extreme privilege nauseating.

 

Linda finally finding the release she was looking for and an understanding of the more profound truth of her place in the universe through hang-gliding was kind of the last straw for me. I found the breakthrough beautifully written but, again, so difficult to believe. I know that revelations can be uncovered through similar experiences but for selfish, whiney Linda, I just didn’t buy it. Sorry, Coelho!

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