Categories: book-review
Tags: book review
Date: 18 February 2006 10:00:30
"The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho. Regular readers will remember that I read "The Pilgrimage" by the same author last year, and I have to say the more I read it the more annoyed I got with it - pretentious, up-itself, pseudo-mystical New Age claptrap (to be perfectly frank). This meant that I was quite reluctant to even start "The Alchemist" (which I'd bought at the same time), compounded by the fact that a guy I briefly dated three or four years ago (who turned out to be a bit of a ****) raved about Coelho, meaning that I don't have the best associations with him. Anyway, I've just joined a book group here, and "The Alchemist" is the current book, so I bit the bullet and started it last night. I think the fact that it's a fable (rather than allegedly true-life like "The Pilgrimage" was) is to its advantage - it can get away a bit more with being wistful and simplistic - so I already like it more (not that that's difficult). I still can't get over the fact that I think Coelho is an utter ponce though, so I don't think I'll be buying any more of his books.