There is some fun here, and I like the way Coelho peppers the work with so many admiring references to Islam and the wisdom of other cultures. Like the notorious Marie Antoinette, it invites everyone without sufficient bread simply to eat cake instead. Most people fail to live their dreams because they are born into a poverty or connectedness that prevents them from self-indulgence. This may not be about a seagull who see the world differently from his peers, but it’s the same entitled escapism. Santiago may begin as a poor shepherd, but he’s always rich – literally so – in his capacity to choose the way in which he lives his life. As a result, this is pernicious in the way it gives us a fantasy for the privileged. It suggests that, if we aren’t fulfilled, we need to see how we passed up on the opportunities and “omens” that would have made us so. Perhaps worse, this sort of “prosperity gospel for the irreligious” seems to imply that failure is simply a lack of true faith in one’s destiny. Instead, we are invited to stay within the confines of this comfortable, imagined strategy for confronting our individual destinies. This is every bit as much a fantasy as Harry Potter, but, unlike there, we’re never invited to weight the real burdens of growing up. I can’t see, though, how they can take it at all seriously. I can see how some people might be inspired to hear such a message at certain low points in their lives. We’re assured that certain true believers – loosely defined so as to include those who fall truly in love – have a kind of secret path laid out for them they just have to be earnest enough in its pursuit. We are told repeatedly that the universe is built to make true the dreams of those who believe most firmly. Still, there is something unquestionably adolescent about the whole business. Santiago sets off on a quest, and everything lines up to make that quest possible.
This is a fable, so you have to accept a certain amount of easy narrative and simplified conflict. It seemed to have acquired a reputation as contemporary ‘wisdom literature,’ something someone would encourage you to read if you were feeling down or uninspired. I didn’t know that much about the book except for the fact that a lot of people seem to have enjoyed it.
Then she took it a step further, reminding me that she enjoyed Jonathan Livingston Seagull when she was 13. My wife beat me to the punch with the line I’d intended to start my reflections on this: The Alchemist is this generation’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
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