Dec 5, 2010

What The Alchemist and Paulo Coelho told you?

Everybody talk about 'The Alchemist' anytime the conversation comes to books. The Alchemist was not a motivating book nor a fascinating story, to me. More of a good time-pass read. Just another fictional work and there may be plenty of such. The author sometimes talks about inner calling and omens. I don't know what the author thinks about it, to follow or not, even after completing the book. The shepherd boy forgot Merchant's daughter when he is back. He may forget Fatima in the same way on his way back to her if the author didn't stop telling the story where he did. The shepherd boy is unable to make decisions. And he use external influences for that. I remembered Howard Roark's question - "If you can't decide for yourself, how can you trust someone else doing it for you?" Howard is a man with high self-interest, not selfishness (The fountainhead by Ayn Rand). Most of the people aren't too motivated or have a genuine interest in self. It's just another work of fiction, to me. Plus, Paulo Coelho's approach towards writing is a bit boring and obsolete? :P



On the other hand, the beautiful part was about omens, just not to follow them or not, but to read and understand them in a different sense. Everything has a cause, so anything can be predicted as the consequence of a cause if we can read the cause. In that sense, omens are everywhere. We have a peculiar ability to read them, as we belong to the universal pool of it, not sure of the way the shepherd boy did it. We heard of some tribes in South-East Asia pulled back from the coast before tsunami hit. There is no well-defined, empirical and tested science to defend them. I like the philosophy of your soul nurturing the happiness of the universe. I am not sure I got The Alchemist in the right sense.

I wonder how The Alchemist encouraged people for a quality life. However, it isn't a creative writing. Or is it just all about applying to one's reactive emotions, which is considered negative and energy-sucking, that bollywood sells all the way?

If you're a die hard fan of Paulo Coelho, excuse me... :-) No hard feelings.

2 comments:

GASP3R said...

an impeccable read. well, paulo.. i dint read his works not just as an inspiring works. The research he does is ineffable. love that! infact, i read this article a week ago and i m still wondering how The alchemist improved quality in life.. :D

pMan said...

People call this book motivational, inspirational, reveal the purpose of life, etc. A little philosophy make sense. I didn't like the fantasy part in it. There are people who like that, I respect their likes, as I do to myself.

But if it's about motivation, why cant we go for dedicated books for motivation/self-improvement?

Here is a very good review on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1FFHE354D563L/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

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