The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

[B-Mental]

Here I go against the grain. I enjoyed the book immensely. It was simple, but unfortunately there are themes which are left untouched in many pieces of literature. Spirituality and its strong link to nature, the interpretation of the world around you, and intuition. I think that I would put this book on a level with On The Road by Kerouac. I furthermore anticipate more comments that disagree.

PS I read this book out of curiousity, if you aren't curious then don't read it.

[Scheherazade]

I think that I would put this book on a level with On The Road by Kerouac.

Oh, that explains so much!

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=27563

(Nice to see you back, BM! )

[Nossa]

I've been meaning to read The Road for sometime now...is it the same as The Alchemist?!

[Mark F.]

Not at all.

[JCamilo]

Here I go against the grain. I enjoyed the book immensely. It was simple, but unfortunately there are themes which are left untouched in many pieces of literature. Spirituality and its strong link to nature, the interpretation of the world around you, and intuition. I think that I would put this book on a level with On The Road by Kerouac. I furthermore anticipate more comments that disagree.

Never Read On the Road, but spirituality, link to nature, interpretation of the world around you, intuition ? I guess those are some of the most usual themes treated by literature. In excess. In fact, one of the bad things about Paulo Coelho is how he is near plagiarism copy/pasting entire parts of other books like 1001 nights.
In fact, when he started his blog in a famous server here, all the antecipation was so dull, because he just copy/pasted without credit a story there...

[Ana Lovejoy]

And I have the theory that the translators have improved his work also...

I have this theory also. I always think about buying one translation just to check it, but hell, to check it includes read this book again, argh.

Well, Scheherazade sent me to this thread so I'll make the question to packersfan here (I hope he reads this thread). He said here:

i first thought it was awful because i was forced to read it in school (any book i'm forced to read is a terrible book for me at the time)-but then i read it again and saw the beauty of a book like that )

And then I've asked:

Now I'm really curious. Could you please say where are you from? I'm really surprised, especially because here in Brazil the only time I 'had to' read Coelho was when my Literary Theory teacher asked us to read "in order to understand why people love so much Coelho's works".

I'm quite curious, really. In fact, I could never understand how Paulo Coelho could be so famous outside his own country (well, at least comparing to other Brazilian writers).

[packersfan]

7/10

I was first forced to read it in school and hated it. But then when I had nothing to read one day, I picked it up again and really enjoyed it. It's a great story about a journey of a boy, which is exactly what life is, a journey, and it has universal lessons as well.

[Etienne]

Ok my opinion, it's just some kid new-age self-help book with absolutely no depth, also the whole thing just seem like a pile of deus ex machinas forming a very bad story. It's a kid's book, and a bad one too as good kid books will be good reads to adult readers as well, this one is not. It seems that everyone around me who read it "liked it so much" and think it is very deep... but STOP IT'S NOT DEEP AT ALL! In fact it's the most superficial books I've read! It just has the pretension of saying it's deep...

[packersfan]

To me, its the kind of book which you have to read more than once to get the full depth out of it. It's truly a beautiful book if you try to analyze it. It's that kind of book that if you don't want to read it, you won't enjoy it and you won't get the meaning of it.

[JCamilo]

I have this theory also. I always think about buying one translation just to check it, but hell, to check it includes read this book again, argh.

Fact is, among my friends I often joke about a project that is translating The Alchemist to Portuguese.
That sounds so much like Pierre Menard but since it is almost impossible to do anything worst than that book, I have no fear of producing a better product.
Trully, it would just sound like the originals he copied , destroyed of depth and all else...

I'm quite curious, really. In fact, I could never understand how Paulo Coelho could be so famous outside his own country (well, at least comparing to other Brazilian writers).

My other question to him would be what he really means. In one post he tell us:

"It's a great story about a journey of a boy, which is exactly what life is, a journey, and it has universal lessons as well."

Then he claims that it is a book that needs various readings to get in his deepth... but well, That is, even in the words of Paulo Coelho, that exactly meaning of the book. It is plain and dully obvious, everyone get it (in fact, the easy way to read this book and understanding it explains a little his popular appeal)... How come???
If people knew that Paulo Coelho have origem in exoteric magazines such as Planeta here in Brazil and his popularity is only due the "mystic appeal" , some short of now forgotten Losang Rampa or the not so international Chico Xavier...

[aabbcc]

From my - limited to a few works only - experiences with Coelho, I cannot say much positive about his opus. In fact, even to use a rather 'serious' word such as opus in context of such a... literary wannabe? ... seems rather laughable to me.
A 'wannabe' - perfect words to describe things usually come to you when you least expect them - is precisely what Coelho is. Quite a pretentious one, if I may add.

The Alchemist seemed to me as one of those books which are result of somebody wanting to write a book whose contents and themes do not fully come from the author's innermost but, rather, are more or less skillfully 'adapted' from other sources, mixed and combined, to produce a rather legible, rather average work, one of the kind late preteens and early teens would stumble upon in libraries and find to be 'cool' whilst in age of searching for that 'something', for some 'sense' of life or whatnot when hit by puberty (though even to those I would give authors like Hesse, or philosophy chrestomathiae () way before I'd even think of offering Coelho somebody), but still too young and in lack of education that would open some other gates to them, of some other literature, which deals with similar and the same problematics in much more serious and skillfull way (and, in the end, of greater artistic value). And as such, it certainly has its place in the huge cauldron of pretty much everything which is printed today. Such books also must exist, like it or not. In the same way those silly and low quality children's crime series, read by kids in early years of elementary schools must exist.

However, I view it to be the way that those books are simply a stage to be overcome in one's literary development - and, to be honest, one of the earlier stages. I do not find it strange when kids hit by puberty think Coelho is literary incarnation of God (despite, in literary sense, his utterly simplistic style), nor do I find it particularly worrying (it is stage most go through and, hopefully, leave few years later), but when his books become bestsellers loved by huge masses of generally older audience, which should by some logic have overcome that phase, then... is the world going crazy? Or are we in such a terrible lack of sense in our age that we seek for it in the 'cheap' books such as this one, which present the sort of quick-self-fix of your emotional problems, whose vague would-be 'spiritual' topics, wrapped in rather 'standable' and distictly interesting theme (which is still in its essence predictable and clich&#233? What else would explain this work to be an international bestseller?
I truly think his works are mediocre trash. At best.

I also do not think the book would become any better if I 'analysed' it (or attempted to - what is there to analyse?! Nothing I have not seen or read before, in much better versions though.), it is one of those books for which from the first second I knew were not really my thing, and after only little experience figured they were not at all.

No offense to any of Coelho's fans. I realise that one can get emotionally attached to pretty much everything, for a plethora of reasons, so I also - at least theoretically - get that Coelho's works, even though pointless trash to me, might actually mean something to somebody else, and it is not my intention to insult those people. Just presenting my opinion, from the 'rational' me, since the book failed to interact in any way with the 'emotional' me.
Best wishes to all.

[Etienne]

To me, its the kind of book which you have to read more than once to get the full depth out of it. It's truly a beautiful book if you try to analyze it. It's that kind of book that if you don't want to read it, you won't enjoy it and you won't get the meaning of it.

What? But he just gives you everything away in the book, don't start telling me I have not understood the book, come on. What hidden meaning is there to understand in that book, exactly?

Anastasija, you wrote exactly what I had in mind about that book.

"However, I view it to be the way that those books are simply a stage to be overcome in one's literary development - and, to be honest, one of the earlier stages."

Yes, the problem is that at the time I read this book I was right in my russian literature phase and I had just read a couple of Dostoevsky's, War and peace, Resurrection and Anna Karenina by Tolstoy... so you can understand my disappointment?

[Taliesin]

We are now curious.
We haven't read this one. People say that it is probably a waste of time. Haven't read Coelho ourselves so we can't really tell, but we tend to believe that this is probably true. But you see, there is a certain appeal in very bad movies or very bad books - they are sometimes quite good to watch on Sunday mornings feeling dizzy and perhaps having a headache (we don't usually drink much and don't therefore have hangovers but one can still be dizzy from lack of sleep) - so there is a sort of lure in it.
Same thing with Eragon. Everyone We know who have read it say that it is rubbish - which makes us curious - and we actually make a mental note to read it in some time when we have more free time and have no important books on the schedule, although this time tends to go into some mystical faraway future, being alike to the note on our wall: "I'll start studying tomorrow".

So, is this a really bad book or merely a mediocre one?


Because you have to admit that really bad books are somewhat appealing.

[Etienne]

Bah... just read it yourself, it's not very long, but you will be warned. I personally would call it mediocre when aimed at a certain type of audience, but very bad when read by educated people.

[manolia]

If by "bad movies" you mean...let's say Ed Wood movies and you are looking for an analogy in that book..then no. It is mediocre