The Choice
by Og Mandino
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Book Summary Information
Author: Og MandinoEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1986-05-01
ISBN: 0553245767
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Bantam
Book Reviews of The Choice
Book Review: better than Jesus
Summary: 1 Stars
The one star is not only to reflect that I am angry, I think it's really that bad. And I am an Og Mandino Fan. I have read and enjoyed a lot The greatest salesman in the world and The greatest miracle. Without the greatest salesman in the world I would not be in sales anymore and my life would be entirely different.
This one made me sick. On 16o pages he develops his plot....which becomes ever the thinner the more it thickens. Just one big infommercial about "A better way to live". Because it is about the character who wrote that book (in reality Og Mandino himself, of course - so the story isn't even real!!!) and about how that went. And...really...nothing much else. So what???? Thats's stupid already. Writing a book that is 90% about another book you have written. I am wondering if possibly "A better way to live" is about "The choice". And if Mandino was under pressure to fullfil whatever quota.
Before I kind of thought that this book would metaphorically emphasize how we have choices, should make more choices, especially be less afraid of life choices, and so on. And it really starts off like that because he quits a great job as an insurance-broker to become a writer, to write "A better way to live". But now we are stuck in an endless-loop of how he becomes a superstar in the process! That is what this book is essentially about. (Funny enough because in his real life "A better way to live" wasn't such a success but the greatest salesman in the world was. Oh well, just because he is promoting the other one, I guess).
Also I find it annoying that all these mystical, metaphysical things happen to his characters all the time. In the greatest salesman it was Jesus (THE Jesus), in the greatest miracle he also had some sort of messenger appear to him....and in this one he meets, in lack of a better word, an angel who communicates directly with God.
(In the meantime I have also stared reading The greatest salesman in the world - part II - plot takes place 50 years after part I....in which he also meets Marry (THE Marry), and treats her so well that he stirrs her to tears (in turn she stirrs him to tears, too). After he had already given his last coat (literally and figuratively) to Jesus in part I, causing Marry to cry back then already (partly because he secretely rode off on his donkey so she didn't get the opportunity to thank him), and also causing "an incredibly bright star" (of bethlehem) to follow him (Hafid, the camel boy that is, who is the main character of the greatest saleman, great book, but not the religous part)....
I mean Og and his characters really set things in motion we always thought were caused by somebody else....I hope Jesus didn't feel abandoned then with that ole star following Hafid or anything....
OG really wants to convey that his messages are divine, it seems. That's ok once, but now he is starting to trouble me. It's almost like he thinks maybe it's gonna rub off on him. I know this is scary, but come to think of it, it's almost a little like his main character Hafid rubbed off on Jesus an not the other way around...these implications only become clear to me as I write this.
The choice - at some point in this story he has to make up his mind (because that angels says so), whether he shall die within the next 90 days or his son. He decides quite nobly that he himself shall die, the question remaining WHY that choice has to be made to begin with. There is no real explanation. (Of course he is ready to give his life for his son because he is good ole, bible-loving Og, or what's he trying to say here???). Yes, I admit it, all these bible references annoyed me as well, but not as much as all the plot twists that get to show Og in the best light possible (in the form of his main characters, you can tell he identifies strongly with them).
I am getting the feeling he became egotistic, maybe even megalomanic in the end ....or always has been or whatever - and that "the choice" only served as a vehicle to show himself off as "divine", perfect husband, perfect father etc. The story with the baseball that his son had written LOVE on was also...very construed, to say the least. And corny, but in a real bad sense. The plot and the dialogues between and him and wife/son are all so.... preachy, unctious, dripping with OG's holiness and goodness, YUK, I mean, I really don't mind it a bit emotional, but this tear-jerker of a novel is pretty much trash.
Useless to say he holds a passionate speech at the end in front of everybody and because of that receives another postcard by the angel saying that now it has been decided he doesn't have to die any more. Which is great, I think, another bummer to pull our shoes off, another plot-twist by Og, who, IMHO, just maybe has gone down the deep end. More than a little.
Summary of The Choice
Choice! The key is Choice. You have options. You need not spend your life wallowing in failure, ignorance, grief, poverty, shame, and self-pity. But, hold on! If this is true then why have so many among us apparently elected to live in that manner? The answer is obvious. Those who live in unhappy failure have never exercised their options for a better way of life because they have never been aware that they had any Choices !Inspirational Books
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