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

[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!