Og Mandino: the story of a book

My first contact with the book by Og Mandino, "The University of Success", occurred around October or November 1990, in the city of Guaratinguetá, State of São Paulo, Brazil, during my training course at the School of Experts Sergeant  in Air Force, the EEAR.

It must be clear that this was obviously not the first book I read in my life, nor the last. It was, however, the first book that really opened my mind to possibilities not previously thought. It was the first self-help book, so to speak, that I read in my life, and had a great impact on my thinking and living.

Actually, I did not give much attention to the book when I saw it in the first time. Simei, a classmate and one my friend, had a copy, with a beautiful and bright blue cover, along with their study material, and occasionally I saw the book very quickly. I had a great taste for books since 1982, when I read my first book, and from then on, always frequented libraries and always liked to read, so that the mere sight of any book ever called my attention as a promising source of pleasure. But all I had read so far was limited to novels and textbooks, technical books, never a self-help book. On the contrary, self-help books did not look great things at the time, as some titles were not strangers to me, nor I looked cute. Veja magazine had and still has a service of sales ranking of books on their pages, and reports weekly sales of books according to three categories: fiction, nonfiction and self help. Thus, as occasionally I read a magazine Veja in some place, and as I always interested in books, I always take a look at the sales rankings, and there were the self-help books.

Those are not books that attract my attention. There were books on witchcraft, Paulo Coelho's books, a writer who is known as a magus, as well as books about crystals, angels, kabbalah, numerology, astrology, reincarnation, spiritualism and other mystical and esoteric subjects, subjects who never received much attention by have spiritual connotations, religious. As someone brought up under the rules of Catholicism, and then, after having had some less superficial knowledge about religion, something in me was marked by the idea that mysticism, esotericism, New Age spiritualism, were subjects not very healthy over Christian viewpoint. Prejudice maybe, but that was my opinion at the time, so I saw the ranking of self-help as merely a listing of dangerous books to people who had suspects religious grounds, something like a sort of spiritualist books, voodooists, new hippies, people linked to drugs and who like a "head talk", sophisticated philosophical and mystical conversation, but at the same time little useful thing, full of fantasies and delirious travels. It was a biased view of a teenager, I admit, and today I forgive me for having this vision one day.

Anyway, I never heard about Og Mandino. Indeed, his book was originally published in 1982 and launched by Record Editor in Brazil in 1985. So at the time of its release, which probably would have some chance of appearing among the top sellers in the ranking of the Veja magazine, I certainly have not read his name, or if I read, I did not pay attention to the subject, so for me it was just a beautiful book with a inviting blue cover and nothing more.

We were at the time of graduation from EEAR. One or two months and we would be formed. We have not  took studies in such a breakneck pace and for two years I had not read anything interesting, no one book at all, I remember. So, that book seemed very timely.

I asked Simei that allowed me to skim through it.

It was a nice feeling. The volume of over five hundred pages seemed to invite me to read, with their leaves yellow and fluffy.

I read the cover and Simei, who was reading it, informed me of its contents, with some excitement. I read some more and I do not remember it at the same time or a few days later, I ended up taking the book borrowed from Simei, and read rapidly it.

It was like an electric shock!

I read it in one stream, and realized that would never be the same type of  reader like before. Few things in my life and experiences have had much impact in terms of changes in my way of thinking and of behaving as it.

I ended up recommending this book to Roni, my younger brother, and because he could not get the book in Conchal city, who had not, and I think still has, a bookstore, I bought a copy just for us. So, Roni could read it and ended up sharing the same enthusiasm with me, although I believe that this enthusiasm was not as intense as mine.

 

For some months, until April 1991, I believe, I was still under the effects of what he had read. Gradually, however, the impact of his reading was losing strength and two or three months later, had fallen almost into oblivion. Of course, I still had the book, looked at him with a mixture of joy, gratitude and pride, like a treasure chest of gold, but his teachings ultimately not solidify properly, and soon fell into oblivion, in the common grave of the great books read and soon forgotten. I think only two or three stories, as the text of "A letter to Garcia," the texts of Dale Carnegie and something about organization, planning, schedules and order remained in memory.

But my view about the self-help books has changed, and my relationship with them does not stop there, in Og Mandino only.

In 1994, Roni moved to Canada and took the copy of Mandino on luggage. It would be of some use in the uncertain future that he lay ahead, and it would be best used by him than by me.

Roni did not broke up the book and brought it back in 1998 when he returned from Canada. I do not know if it was helpful or not, if Roni came to reread it or not. Anyway, the book remained with him for some reason, and only a few years later, in 2000, on a visit I did to his home, was that I could make contact with Mandino again. When I looked at his small personal library, there was the book without cover, blue cover, older, more yellow, with lots of blotchs and  patches, inviting me to read it again.

 

I took it back and I still have it until today, as a dear and valuable object. Study it never ceased to give some good results. But it is a book that should be studied, then, as deeply as possible, not just read. While studying is always more tiring than just reading, it is always a more rewarding. I never tire of flipping through him and reread small portions, and to meditate on his words, phrases, themes and suggestions. A book that does not change, but it contributes to change myself, I believe, and therefore has a different flavor with each new reading. Incomplete, it is true, because finite, his words have served as seed for new reading on new books, in search to know deeply some theme, to clear better some reasoning. Anyway, he has been the a-b-c in the school of thought, the spelling book which I started reading new lessons, and although it sometimes may seem simple in its recommendations many times reread, he can also save valuable secrets, since we know to study it properly.

Document created: Feb 16, 2006

Document modified on Feb 1º, 2007