jethrien | 2015 Book Review #34: The Alchemist

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Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Genre: Self-help book disguised as a fable
Thingummies: 1

Synopsis: Shepherd takes a really stupid journey in pursuit of his Personal Legend.

Thoughts: This is what would happen if Tuesdays with Morrie and Who Moved My Cheese? had a love child. It tries to be The Little Prince. Instead, it hands us a bunch of mystical nonsense and tries to convince us that the universe will conspire to help us achieve our Personal Legend (seriously? it's capitalized, even in speech) and that if we fail to achieve our dreams, it's just because we didn't try hard enough. And that not pursuing unrealistic dreams will leave us bitter shells of ourselves, by the way.

It's pandering to the worst degree. If that's your thing, have fun. Me? I only finished it because I could hate-read it in two commutes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd like to register a dissenting opinion, in case I'm not the only person who uses your reviews as near-unimpeachable recommendations for my reading list... I found the book to be significantly better than you did -- certainly not 5 thingummies, but somewhere between 3 and 4. It can't be interpreted as being aimed at those of us in our 30s or 40s who are intelligent and introspective and have generally figured out what we're trying to do with ourselves and why or why not -- that would certainly be grounds for demoting the thingummy count to 1. But for a somewhat intimidated young person just finishing college, say, or someone who's done what their family expected of them their whole life, a fable like this can be a helpful kick in the pants: "What if you could assume that the Universe would start off actively trying to help you, modulo a few tests? What would that encourage you to do? What if you'd face huge challenges later on? How badly do you want it?" There is a time in one's life to be daring, to try things that might very well not work out, especially things that one has passion for. We (

jethrien and

dushai) are not at that point in our lives now, but many younger folks are, and some of those people need a little encouragement -- either encouragement to start thinking about what they would like their Personal Legend to be, or encouragement to keep going once they face setbacks. This book is for them.

Personally, I'd argue that the best way to read it is to allow yourself to get swept up in the unrealistic fable, then come down to earth and see to what extent you feel that your own story resonates with it. Maybe the answer is "Not much" -- fine, you've had a little fable to read, isn't that nice. But maybe you're feeling "Wow, what if it could play out like that with me and [insert your dream here]?" Then maybe you might want to start working on hard-headed realistic plans to try to make it happen. (The Alchemist is not a good guide to hard-headed realistic planning.) Maybe your planning will reveal that it's not practical: you don't want to invest the effort that would be required to make it happen, or it entails a greater degree of risk than you're personally comfortable with, or whatever. My personal advice would be to go with the hard-headed reasoning at that point. But that's a matter of personal taste.

I think a lot of it is that the tone really, really rubbed me the wrong way. It felt emotionally manipulative and pandering. I don't necessarily have a problem with a "follow your dreams and take risks" message, but this felt more like the prosperity Bible to me--the idea that the way to achieve your dreams is to follow omens and trust in God and just keep stupidly persevering is deeply problematic. It's not about hard work or practicing or treating people well so you'll have alliances in the future. It's mystical claptrap that promises that you'll somehow discern the right thing to do by the random events of the world. I had a friend once who was really into omens--every couple months, she had discovered her soulmate because she met a new guy who was wearing a shirt with her favorite band or whose favorite donut was the same as hers, and it was the universe giving her a sign.

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I don't think the universe particularly cares about us. I don't think that it's sending us messages or conspiring to help us. That doesn't mean I don't think people should try for their dreams--but they're achieved through hard work and other people.

I also kind of resented the idea that even inanimate objects have Personal Legends to strive for and transform themselves for, but the women in this story have no Personal Legends. All they're supposed to do is stay where they are and do all the boring work and wait longingly for their men.

Interestingly, I don't think I disagree with anything you just said. For whatever reason, I didn't take any of those messages from the book literally -- which obviously is an interpretation not supported by the text. I agree, the text gives messages like "Keep stupidly persevering no matter what" -- and my instinct was to reinterpret that as "Be prepared to work to overcome obstacles, and seriously consider persevering even in the face of significant setbacks, but of course you should be sensible about it". And I see exactly what you mean about the pandering tone, but I instinctively saw it as the standard heavy-handed moralizing of any fable. I also don't believe that the Universe is conspiring to help anyone, and (again, without thinking) I interpreted that message as "It might turn out that accomplishing your difficult dream may not be as difficult as you fear."

Dunno what it says about me that I didn't even bother to consider a straight reading -- maybe I subconsciously found it too outrageous like you did, and substituted an interpretation that I liked better.

I can't argue that a straight reading of the text supports your interpretation better than mine, and I agree with you that the text as interpreted literally has some bad messages. I suppose the only reasonable conclusion is that if a reader has the same instincts that I do for re-interpreting the text in a more favorable light, then the book gets a lot better.

I think I took a less generous approach because of how heavy-handed the writing was. The literal and extremely repetitive use of "Personal Legend" is...not exactly allegorical. I was probably also influenced by the fact that my copy had a forward written by the author--an extremely self-congratulatory forward that once again repeated how the universe would conspire to help us achieve our Personal Legend. (You can practically see the ghostly TM.)

I'm sorry--I feel like I'm ruining your enjoyment of something you liked. I'm afraid I kind of think the fact you liked it is more a testament to your own qualities of depth and enlightenment than to the book's. If nothing else, I feel like I learn far more about dream seeking and openness from talking to you than I ever could from this novel.

You're not ruining my enjoyment at all. Not that you need my permission, but I fully endorse your right to dislike a book that I enjoyed, especially in your own blog, doubly-especially when you do so as thoughtfully as you always do in your book reviews. (Triply-especially because it's quite likely that I enjoyed the book only because I willfully imposed my own interpretations on top of it.)

Thanks for an excellent discussion, and I look forward to more of your reviews!