For those unaware, such as myself until after reading it, the Alchemist is a book with a considerable amount of adoration and influence among its fans. Personally, I don’t understand why. Now, that’s not to say that I think it’s a bad story, I just don’t see it as anything more than a cute tale about a naive boy with a contrived amount of luck. It is not, and should not, ever be perceived as a source of advice on how to live your life.
The plot of the Alchemist, as I am led to believe, is about following one’s destiny, and in doing so, the universe will conspire to assist you. In manifest, this means making terrible decisions that lead to obvious consequences, and then pretending that that was clearly your destiny all along because luck happened to work in your favour. It’s the worst kind of survivor bias coupled with confirmation bias, and every other trite way of saying ‘everything happens for a reason’. To put it bluntly, this book is an allegory for how to delude yourself into learning nothing while merrily stumbling through one idiotic decision after another.
Spoiler alert, it ends with wizardry. That’s right, when all else fails, and your obviously bone-headed decisions have brought you to the brink of ruin, as any sane person could have predicted, just turn into a wizard and magic your way to success. Actually, my apologies. I’ve misled you. It was just luck. Again.
Ugh. No.
For the target audience, the Alchemist is ambrosia. I am clearly not the target audience.
