The Alchemist - Coelho

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho 

Santiago is a Sheperd, not by lack of luck but by choice. He's in it for the adventure, the knowledge and the people, oh and the sheep, he does like his sheep. After have a weird dream about the Pyramids and talking to a dream interpreter and someone who may be a real King he goes in search of his own Personal Legend. Along the way he meets a thief, a crystal artist, and an Alchemist.

I've been hearing about The Alchemist for a while. A kid in my Character Development class raved about it, a friend told me it was the best book she'd ever read. Regardless I was skeptical. A fable written in the 80's? A journey for a Personal Legend? I passed. Well, I passed until I was at Barnes & Noble with a gift card and a list of books that were all out of stock.

What I loved most about The Alchemist was how fast it read. At 167 pages it reminded me of a Disney movie; true to it's theme and straight to the point. Coelho wastes no time in telling his story and the sparse detail really works in this fable setting. I was also surprised by how moving the spiritual and personal messages were. Very rarely do I come across a book that inspires me to go for my dreams, but that's really what The Alchemist is about. At times the"personal legend business seems a bit heavy handed, but overall the it's a very evenly paced story.

I'm not big on recommending books to non readers, but I handed my copy of The Alchemist to my dad along with a copy of the new Decemberists CD and he actually read it. After he told me how much he had liked it and that it was the first book he'd read in decades. What I'm getting at is this - read this book. You might not like it. You might think the concept is a crock of horse dung or that it's just unrealistic but I'm willing to bet it will at least make you think, and after all, isn't that part of what reading's all about?

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo is a great man. Not that his father had anything to do with this. He is self made, a warrior and is set to one day be the most powerful man in the entire tribe. His biggest regret is his girly son Nwoye. Being so one minded can have it's disadvantages though. Okonkwo's constant effort to appear the  most manly and capable has him participating in the death of a young boy, and eventually setting banishing himself from the tribe. While more an insight look into the Ibo people and the effects that the British empire had on it, Things Fall Apart is still a tale of family, and what one does to keep their good name.

This is the last book we read for my Family in Literature class. I wasn't really excited to pick it up, but had heard mostly good things about. Overall I was surprised. I like Achebe's style. The entire book feels like a long folk tale, occasional dialogue punctuates a story that one could easily imagine being verbally passed around a campfire. It was a very quick read, and easy to follow, which I must admit was something I worried about in the beginning since I had never read any African literature before.

My only issue with Things Fall Apart is with Okonkwo himself. As a character he just rubbed me the wrong way. At first I thought it was a cultural difference, but the more families Achebe showed, the more I realized that Okonkwo was an extreme. No one else was as fanatic about planting yams, about wrestling, about raising his sons and being a tough guy. While it's easy to follow his logic after a few pages with him, that doesn't make his decisions any more reasonable. His second wife Ekwefi and his most beloved daughter Ezinma were far more interesting, to me, and I was always happy to see a sub plot featuring them.

I'm really glad a class finally required me to read Achebe. Things Fall Apart had been on my shelf for four years and I'd never thought once about reading it for pleasure. Silly me! I probably would have enjoyed the story even more without the confines of an incompetent professor to 'guild' my thinking!

One last thing, I've been really into covers lately, and while this isn't the edition I have (which also keeps setting off those detector things in stores) I really love the this cover.

Have you read Things Fall Apart, or anything similar? What did you think about the story? I'd love to hear your opinions!