2015 Book Review #34: The Alchemist

[jethrien]

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.

Comments

[dushai.livejournal.com]

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.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

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.

[dushai.livejournal.com]

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!