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Amazon.com Review: In a distant, timeless place, a mysterious prophet walks the sands. At the moment of his departure, he wishes to offer the people gifts but possesses nothing. The people gather round, each asks a question of the heart, and the man's wisdom is his gift. It is Gibran's gift to us, as well, for Gibran's prophet is rivaled in his wisdom only by the founders of the world's great religions. On the most basic topics--marriage, children, friendship, work, pleasure--his words have a power and lucidity that in another era would surely have provoked the description "divinely inspired." Free of dogma, free of power structures and metaphysics, consider these poetic, moving aphorisms a 20th-century supplement to all sacred traditions--as millions of other readers already have. --Brian Bruya
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Great Gift Book
I usually don't like getting books that I did not ask for. When someone buys a book for me, there is a certain obligation to actually read it, but doing so takes away time from the books I really want to read. There are so many books on my reading list and so little time to read them all that getting an unasked-for book feels like someone actually stealing from me: stealing valuable reading time.
In the case of *The Prophet,* however, I did not resent the choice of my benefactor, even though I had not asked for it.
First of all, it was a very quick read, consisting of twenty-nine poetic speeches by the fictional "prophet." He delivers them as his last word on various topics, since he is about to head back home after having lived in a foreign city for twelve years, and the people ask him to speak on all the important issues that touch on human life: family, food, work, emotions, economics, social problems, art, morality, spirituality, death, etc.
On most of these issues, the prophet takes what might be called an Eastern stance. He stresses the importance of "letting go" rather than "taking charge," whether it's in relationship to your children, conflict situations, or the end of your life.
I did not find it necessary, however, to fully agree with this Eastern outlook to appreciate the book, both for its poetic beauty and for inspiring thoughts. For whatever your own worldview, a degree of "letting go" is an art we can all learn.
- Jacob Schriftman, Author of Job's Wager: An Alternative to Pascal's Wager and the Atheist's Wager (With Color Illustrations)
Rating: - Nice, but not original
Gibran was a great author and in this book he truly shines. I recommend this book to anyone, even if he/she is not into reading. The book is short but full of wisdom. I only gave it 4 stars because the idea of the book (and even the title) are taken from "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" which I gave 5 stars. So I didnt think it would be fair to give this one an equal grading. I actually recommend both books, but The Prophet is much easier to read, while Thus Spoke Zarathustra is deeper and more intelligent.
Rating: - The Best Book Ever Written?
I keep a copy of this book nearby at all times for quick reference, my personal copy home to numerous marks and marginal notes. Every line reads as the most delicate of poetry, honed and refined to the purest and most undeniable words of truth and wisdom.
This may be the height of human understanding, bringing a peace and solidarity which encompasses the many to make us all one.
Rating: - hideous piffle for dimwits
This book is a sort of Hallmark Greeting card compilation of the type of vacuous garbage-thought that made the 1970s a cultural disaster. Are you a sentimental pacifist who thinks Gandhi was swell, but never heard of the Moriori? Do you think of love as some sort of emotional flatulence that comes and goes the way weather does? Do you think evil is only a result of people being insufficiently nice to one another? Are your views on child rearing that you should let the kids do what they want because they're individuals? Do you think business is evil and soul destroying, and hurts the world more than it helps? Do you think religion is bad, but spiiiiirituality is good? Do you think criminals shouldn't be punished, because it's not really their fault? Do you think a mindless pursuit of pleasure is necessary for a healthy life? Well, if you believe any of these things, and enjoy saccharine sweet sing-songey prose, this book is for you. It comes in an attractive hard cover, making it appear to be a very serious book, on the same level as Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but with more naked lady pictures inside. It will provide you with many prim moments of doltish piety in your cloud cuckoo land. You may even be able to use this tome to pick up on people who are as morally defective as you are.
Personally, I prefer my wisdom to be, you know, at least vaguely wise. If I want florid saccharine language, I'll go read some Browning or other Victorian poetry. You can pick up antique volumes of such stuff for cheap, since books which required effort to write or read are unfashionable these days. They also look nicer on your bookshelf. As a bonus, it might actually be good for you to read Browning, whereas reading Gibran is sort of like giving yourself a mental venereal disease.
Please, humanity, restore my faith in basic human decency: stop reading this book. This book destroys souls and stunts aesthetics. If you must give copies of the book to people, give it to people you don't like. Give this book in the same spirit the British sold Opium to the Chinese. The end result will be much the same if they take the precepts of this silly book seriously.
Rating: - Eight Decades Later: Still Relevant, Insightful and Eloquent
These days, Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" often gets dismissed as "hippie" literature. Yet, this book had been a bestseller LONG before the 1960s. Originally published in 1923, it almost instantly became a hit and even did well through the Great Depression. Today, Gibran's claim to fame is being the third best-selling poet of our time, behind Shakespeare and Lao Tzu... and pretty much entirely based on sales of this book. When his publisher, Alfred Knopf was asked who the audience for the book was, he flippantly dismissed the question. "It Must be a cult," he retorted.
Yet there is no such cult. What's incredible is that there's absolutely no marketing hype behind the success of this book. Gibran himself is long gone. There is no political, religious, or commercial enterprise attached to his name bent on winning souls and/or profits. The Gibran estate has merely been licensing copies year after year in response to the demand - a demand fueled pretty much entirely by word-of-mouth and chance discovery. The fact is, the twenty-six poems in this book have a surprising and suprassing relevance, insight and compassion. Broken down into several topics ("On Love", "On Work", "On Joy and Sorrow", etc.) the book itself recounts the sermons of a fictional poet leaving behind the gift of knowledge before he leaves his homeland.
I first found Gibran through a setting of his poem "On Children" by local Washington, D.C. singers Sweet Honey in the Rock on their album, "Breaths."
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."
At the time I was about to leave for college and eighteen years of living under my parent's roof had made me restless for autonomy. That poem eloquently expressed everything I was yearning to say to them in my hours of frustration and adolescent angst. It later proved to be a reference to turn to in times where I needed confidence to live an independent and fulfilling life, while still maintaining respect and compassion towards the parents who had raised me.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the poems in this book have kept me grounded and sane throughout some of the most troubling times in my life. Our modern lives are ever hectic, stressful and busy - wrought with drama, frustration, depression, etc. The knowledge in these poems brings me back to a "middle ground" - there is a sage wisdom and clarity in the poems ... Read More
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