What's Veeky Forums opinion of The Alchemist and Paulo Coelho...

What's Veeky Forums opinion of The Alchemist and Paulo Coelho? I've always avoided him because his fans were teenage girls and such creaturas, but it's under 200 pages.
Is it going to be drivel?

By reputation, not from personal experience: yes, it's drivel.

It was a decent read for it's length. It successfully drew me in, and it left a spiritual residue in my mind (not to the same degree as, say, Crime and Punishment). People outside of this board give it too much weight though.

It's basically an adaptation of a story from 1001 nights. I think Borges also wrote a short story based on it. The spiritual stuff is very unremarkable. Go with the Little Prince, or, if you want the real deal, go read Andre Gide's Fruits of the Earth.

it read like a self-help book for ayn rand characters

I found it entertaining, but when I had read it I was 16 or something. I wonder how would I feel about it if I read it now. Idk OP, read it and find out.

I like it. Haven't read it for years. Both times I've read it, in my teens and early 20s, it gave me a short lived feeling of wanting to go on an adventure and follow signs that God or the universe would put before me.

Read it, its fun.

post tits

You're meant to read it as a young adult. I don't think it has much to offer anyone past his teens.

sorry m80, you really don't want to see my fat man chest

Try me, big boy.

I got the same experience out of it. I read it when I was in Varanasi and the mystical elements of it really synergized with My strange surroundings at the time. I guess it could be described as being very reddit, both in good ways and bad.

Read it if you're looking for that "I'm a young idealist and maybe my life actually has purpose"- feel. Avoid it if you're a STEMautist who scoffs at anything that isn't the classics.

Just read Siddhartha instead

Worst book I've ever read. You literally know how it will end ten pages in. I read it in one sitting on a day I was feeling pretty sick, so it didn't help. If someone finds enjoyement in this piece of trash, they're probably not versed in literature at all.

Its essential conform literature, legit wants me to live

It's new age drivel. Give it a hard pass, please. I'm Brazilian and he's practically a joke here.

Fuck this stupid asshole and his YA bullshit.

He's eternally on my shit-list for what he said about Joyce

Here's my experience with the book:

>hear that it's drivel
>anxious about reading it
>hear about an audiobook version read by Jeremy Irons
>listen to it while going on a field trip
>the ending is absolutely atrocious
>but Jeremy made it better and easier to endure

So I suggest doing that same thing if you're still interested.

Would you go so far as to say that that man, in your country he is nothing?

Yo wtf I never even knew about him shittalking Ulysses until now.

I read it in 9th grade I think. I remember not enjoying it. It was just some guys fantasy of going from poor to rich through a series of boring stories. All the while throwing in pagan religious nonsense.

There's three outcomes from reading this book.
1. You despise it and wish you hadn't wasted your time reading it.
2. It's okay, and while you don't necessarily love it, it wasn't the worst book in the world. (In other words most other canonical books would be a better gamble)
3. You love it, and you realize in an epiphany that you are in fact a pleb.

In short, don't read it.

one of the worst books ive ever read

There was a Brazil bro on here who used to post his hatred on here for Cohelo. He said that Cohelo told his girlfriend to commit suicide and somehow killed a kid in a hit and run and got away with it. Are any of these rumors true?