Apr-21-2011, 07:46 AM (UTC)
That is actually not an easy question to answer. I am currently more than halfway through. It's an easy read, I'll say that.
Honestly, with books that have a strong religious or spiritual bent, a lot of one's enjoyment depends on if one agrees with the author. And not all of the messages are to my liking. It starts off with stuff about following your own dreams, or "living your own legend" as it's called here. It is stated that many people know what their goal in life is, but never get around to actually making sure they get there. It takes effort to do that, and that's a message that is very true.
However.... then we get stuff like "when someone wants something, the whole universe will conspire to make it happen" and that signs are everywhere, if you the eyes to look. To be sure, Coelho explicitly states that The Alchemist is a symbolical tale, so I don't know if he actually believes that. I don't want to start a religious flame war here, but that's the kind of attitude that I really don't like.
Honestly, with books that have a strong religious or spiritual bent, a lot of one's enjoyment depends on if one agrees with the author. And not all of the messages are to my liking. It starts off with stuff about following your own dreams, or "living your own legend" as it's called here. It is stated that many people know what their goal in life is, but never get around to actually making sure they get there. It takes effort to do that, and that's a message that is very true.
However.... then we get stuff like "when someone wants something, the whole universe will conspire to make it happen" and that signs are everywhere, if you the eyes to look. To be sure, Coelho explicitly states that The Alchemist is a symbolical tale, so I don't know if he actually believes that. I don't want to start a religious flame war here, but that's the kind of attitude that I really don't like.
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