Review: The Alchemist
Nov. 17th, 2015 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebA bunch of hooey.*
That's my review of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. But I really liked this paragraph:
"Tomorrow, sell your camel and buy a horse. Camels are traitorous: they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die. But horses tire bit by bit. You always know how much you can ask of them, an when it is that they are about to die."
Reminds me of Louis L'Amour books. Also, of house plants--the peace lily is like the horse and warns you before it's too late that it needs water.
*Many spiritual books don't speak to me. But if they speak to you, I'm happy for you to love it so much that you have your own personal copy with all the best parts highlighted plus extra notes in the margin.
And that's even though I think this book could be dangerous. First, it encourages you to go after your dream (aka "Personal Legend") no matter what--without even evaluating whether the dream is any good. The character wants to dig up a hidden treasure. Plenty of people want to be rich--I don't see how this helps the world. But you are supposed to give up everything else if you really want your dream.
Well, having only one goal does make your choices more clear. But I prefer having many goals even though it involves constant re-prioritizing. Also, I think that once you have more information and experience, it can be good to revise your dream.
Also, I don't think it's true that once you decide to pursue your dream, the universe will conspire to help you. I think you will start noticing things you didn't notice before. I think once you've committed, you become open to ideas that that you dismissed before. But I don't think there are any guarantees. (Sometimes your dream is to become an astronaut, even though you have coke-bottle glasses and crossed eyes and are an eight-year-old Argentinian.)
And if you think that anyone can achieve their dream if only they try hard enough, then you are in a position to blame the victim. If someone isn't happy, you might decide it must be their fault because they aren't trying hard enough. And I find that unconscionable.
Here's another quote to show you a specific example of something I interpret as nonsense:
The alchemist told the boy to place the shell over his ear. He had done that many times when he was a child, and had heard the sound of the sea.
"The sea has lived on in this shell, because that's its Personal legend. And it will never cease doing so until the desert is once again covered by water."
Uh, no. It sounds like the sea because of the way our ear is built and the way we are eager to interpret what we hear as the sea. This has nothing to do with whether the Sahara has yet sunk back into the ocean.
**
All that said, I did enjoy the story of a man who chooses sheep herding because he likes travel, and then crosses from Spain to Morocco and travels across the Saharan desert learning interesting things. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.
That's my review of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist. But I really liked this paragraph:
"Tomorrow, sell your camel and buy a horse. Camels are traitorous: they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die. But horses tire bit by bit. You always know how much you can ask of them, an when it is that they are about to die."
Reminds me of Louis L'Amour books. Also, of house plants--the peace lily is like the horse and warns you before it's too late that it needs water.
*Many spiritual books don't speak to me. But if they speak to you, I'm happy for you to love it so much that you have your own personal copy with all the best parts highlighted plus extra notes in the margin.
And that's even though I think this book could be dangerous. First, it encourages you to go after your dream (aka "Personal Legend") no matter what--without even evaluating whether the dream is any good. The character wants to dig up a hidden treasure. Plenty of people want to be rich--I don't see how this helps the world. But you are supposed to give up everything else if you really want your dream.
Well, having only one goal does make your choices more clear. But I prefer having many goals even though it involves constant re-prioritizing. Also, I think that once you have more information and experience, it can be good to revise your dream.
Also, I don't think it's true that once you decide to pursue your dream, the universe will conspire to help you. I think you will start noticing things you didn't notice before. I think once you've committed, you become open to ideas that that you dismissed before. But I don't think there are any guarantees. (Sometimes your dream is to become an astronaut, even though you have coke-bottle glasses and crossed eyes and are an eight-year-old Argentinian.)
And if you think that anyone can achieve their dream if only they try hard enough, then you are in a position to blame the victim. If someone isn't happy, you might decide it must be their fault because they aren't trying hard enough. And I find that unconscionable.
Here's another quote to show you a specific example of something I interpret as nonsense:
The alchemist told the boy to place the shell over his ear. He had done that many times when he was a child, and had heard the sound of the sea.
"The sea has lived on in this shell, because that's its Personal legend. And it will never cease doing so until the desert is once again covered by water."
Uh, no. It sounds like the sea because of the way our ear is built and the way we are eager to interpret what we hear as the sea. This has nothing to do with whether the Sahara has yet sunk back into the ocean.
**
All that said, I did enjoy the story of a man who chooses sheep herding because he likes travel, and then crosses from Spain to Morocco and travels across the Saharan desert learning interesting things. I give this book 2 stars out of 5.