It is a rather difficult feat to be a complete disgrace to the paper on which a book is printed. “The Alchemist” achieves this goal with such relative ease that you stand convinced its author has skills -- albeit the wrong kind. This mindless drivel reads like “Simple English Wikipedia” less the information. Its philosophies have the depth of a rainwater puddle and as one reviewer aptly noted “there is more literary richness on the instructions card of a microwave that this entire book”.
It is rather unbecoming of a man to shower this amount of hatred. But as I shall show you below, my judgement is well founded and perhaps compounded by the fact that this sorry excuse of a book is a bestseller.
It's not that I despise popular books. As a child I was inspired by “The Little Prince.” As a teenager mystified by the “Lord of the Rings,” and enticed by “The Prophet.” As an adult I was awestruck by “The Emigrants” and entertained by the stories of Saki -- all popular literature.
In contrast, this book is about the banal life of a simpleton who contrives a deep meaning in everything he sees. But sadly the book doesn't stop there. Rather, it engages in a pseudo-intellectual didactic session where it validates every neo-age feel-good woo that happens to exist. This is what makes the book cancerous.
This book is classified by many libraries as children’s literature which it is absolutely not. It would be a sad world where children grow up reading books endorsing the concept of fate, destiny, and soul; or the belief in alchemy, omens, and premonitions.
The recurring inconsistencies in the book make it a hard read. For example, a major theme in the book is ‘heart’, but in some paragraphs ‘heart’ is a metaphorical organ that has feelings and direction and in others it is an organ that pumps blood. So when the protagonist wishes for his heart to stand still, we are left wondering whether he longs for calm or for death.
Character development is nearly non-existent and lines of thought rarely extend beyond a few paragraphs. Characters and plot-lines go in-and-out of existence at the mercy of the author. For example, the protagonist conveniently finds a “friend” when he wants to sell his sheep in an otherwise unknown land! This one-shot-friend is never mentioned again.
Character development is nearly non-existent and lines of thought rarely extend beyond a few paragraphs. Characters and plot-lines go in-and-out of existence at the mercy of the author. For example, the protagonist conveniently finds a “friend” when he wants to sell his sheep in an otherwise unknown land! This one-shot-friend is never mentioned again.
As though this is not enough, the book is riddled with profound-sounding nonsense. The protagonist could “feel the vibrations of peace” or is given wisdom that “the darkest hour of night is just before dawn” (coldest maybe, but darkest?!) or the famous “when you want something the universe conspires in helping you achieve it” all of which are gibberish and carry no meaning.
When the content fails to deliver, one would expect the style to make up. But the book is prosaic even when describing the romantic plots that run rife through the story. A first love, who is reminisced in every other page in the first part of the book, is instantly forgotten when the protagonist meets the one ‘the Universe conspired him to fall in love with.’
The author's description of romance typically runs as “the boy wanted to take her hand. But Fatima's hands held to the handles of her jug.” Love appears lifeless. Also, for the not-so-spiritual amongst us, proposing marriage before time is rife is a polite way of asking the other person to leave one alone. But for the ‘spiritual’ it seems to be an instant recognition of a connexion!
The book goes out of the way to misinform its readers. A character claims “I know the science of the twigs” now what is the “science” of twigs if not pseudoscience? And yet another says “I learned the science from my grandfather” while referring to alchemy!
The book throws in a few sentences here and there with the sole intention of making the reader feel good. For example, “when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed” reassuring them when others disagree, they’re not the ones usually at fault.
It turns so bad that the author gives up even basics of writing. An oasis “looks like thousand and one nights.” An oasis cannot look like thousand and one nights because “Thousand and One Nights” is a novel not an oasis. Of course, it can look like an oasis that’s described in that novel.
In all, this book is not even worthy of being thrown into a trash can. If you own a copy of this book, do the “Universe” a favour and burn the copy right away lest, god forbid, you be bidden by the devil to lend it to another soul.
Make friends not enemies. Peace.
ARK