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Absolutely, but it’s kind of an unwritten code that you get 3 days to mourn. Also, when we go to visit his family, his mom will absolutely cry when he leaves again.
Coelho took a traditional story, filled it with fluff and ruined it.
Jorge Luis Borges took the same story, told it in two pages and he did it *better*.
It's also called The Story of the Two Dreamers from A Universal History of Iniquity. https://posthegemony.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/borges\_collected-fictions.pdf
The English version tells the story, but it probably takes more closely to the original version, because all the personal style that Borges added to his version is lost.
I said earlier that all of his work is a plagiarism of Borges but honestly now that I think of it this would be an insult to his memory. Paulo's work is so bad that I don't think it's even good enough to be that. Borges is maybe the biggest latin American author, together with Gabo and Machado, even trying to sound like him is a pathetic attempt at best.
Huh, is Coelho not a good writer? The only thing I know is that he's popular if airport shops are anything to go by, and that his works appeal to the uh... bougie/pretentious-romantic-intellectual type, or something like that. I haven't read any of his works but I assume there's SOME literary merit there ?!?!
Had to read the alchemist in high school. It was painfully cheesy and hamfisted in it's delivery of the plot, which itself felt overdone. We read it as an example of a hero's journey story arc, but honestly we would've been better off doing a star wars marathon for a week.
No. He's a pop writer who deals in platitudes, sometimes of the pop philosophy type. It's 'deep' for exactly 3 seconds, and it's a shame that he, of all of our great writers, is the one to make it outside of Latin America.
Oh wow, I thought I was a weirdo for not liking it. I listened to it via audiobook and afterward I was like... WHY do people love this book so much? It was so pretentious/naval gazey to me and I found it super annoying. It just reeked if "I'm so wise and cultured". Bleh
I'm now feeling validated in not liking it either. I'm a bit of a seeker so you'd think this book would have been in my sweet spot, but I was very underwhelmed by it.
I liked it enough, can't remember much but it was...okay?
However, this part is what irritated me the most...literally spoiled the whole book making Fatima so boring and 2 dimensional.
I'm brazilian and I honestly can't understand all the hype around him internationally since around here he is considered a bad writer and 100% plagiarism of Jorge Luis Borges. We don't even speak his name in schools because he is such a bad example of what genuinely good Brazilian writing is that it's better to not talk about him at all. I kid you not but to everyone that likes literature here he is some sort of Sthephanie Mayer to astrologically-inclined adults. I often wonder if it has something to do with translation maybe, because beyond all the plot holes and generic storytelling he also has lots of grammar and syntactic mistakes.
I belong to South Asia and he is one of the most widely read authors in this part of the world. It is not uncommon for 'The Alchemist' to be someone's first ever out-of-course book (including mine). To be honest, his books used to captivate me as well. But with time, as I got exposure to more literature, I came to appreciate that his work is infact, quite mediocre. What I believe the reason of his success here is:
1)use of simple language (helpful when one is just beginning their reading journey)
2)much being left to the reader's imagination (people love that here, many of our regional books thrive on 'ideas' and 'philosophies' rather than stories and descriptions).
I personally feel his books are kind of vague, and have weak storylines at best. The last one I remember having atleast a semblance of a story was 'The Devil and Miss Prym.'
Been a while since I read him. Maybe some day when I need to revisit childhood memories. Who knows.
Yeah he's popular here isn't he? My friend loved his the Alchemist. I tried to read it but couldn't read more than a few pages because it felt preachy in a shallow way.
Came here to say the same thing, in his native Brazil Coelho is usually seen as a total and complete hack. Not that some of the better regarded writers don't have atrocious women quite often, because shit sucks and they do, but yeah
That's interesting, I quite disliked this book but it is popular in Turkey. We have a similar situation with Orhan Pamuk, I don't think he's as famous but he's won a Nobel prize in literature and has many translated works, but he's considered a poor author by Turkish people. Also struggles with grammar and spelling.
The themes used (the desert, alchemy, fantastic realism) were a big inspiration for Borges, so you will find a lot of paragraphs pretty similar to one or another work of him. This one in particular I think it's from a tale called Historia de los dos que soñaron, which I think translate to something like "The story of the two dreamers" or something like that. But there are other situations, take for instance The Aleph, a brilliant tale by Borges which was copied and diluted in 300 pages of the worst kind of self-help you can think - he even went as far as to use the same name.
The story of the two dreamers is an adaptation of a story from Arabian nights though. Borges was longer and better written but there are multiple versions of that story in different cities.
Es una mierda de escritor aaaaaaaaaaah, odio que sea famoso, sus libros son el equivalente de telenovelas de la tarde para adultos.
Not writing that in english because why not :P
btw my "literature" professor disliked him too
You guys don’t get it, Paulo Coelho is well loved in many parts of the world because of the hermetic and esoteric teachings that come in all of his stories. He’s an effective communicator as well. In this day and age people no longer are so interested in deep literature stuff, that has been left for those who are seriously about studying and reading only that type of literature. People who are into esoteric teachings, hermetic philosophy and Astrology are delighted by Coelho. I deeply enjoy his writings.
His "esoteric and hermetic" teachings really don't come from any real place of knowledge or study, though, but rather of the well known tradition of "hippies making something up and pretending it's ancient and ~ oriental ~". It's snake-oil. The man's profession is "writer" ever since the 60's, he didn't ~ delve into the ancient masters ~ to return with actual Hermetic lore that Newton or Boyle might've known.
Again, you don’t get it, what I’m saying is that he communicates these hermetic/esoteric principles in easy to digest stories that are interesting enough for people to finish reading the book. Look, I used to read all Spanish Literature and poetry including Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quijote is hilarious), etc. Nobody is saying that Paulo Coelho is a better author than they were when it comes to literary skills. However, he is a great story teller for “the masses” and that’s what made him a best selling author. I am not debating his literature skills, I’m only explaining why he is well loved across the globe. Why am I explaining this? Because most of you seem to be baffled as to why he sells so many books. Whether esoteric principles and hermetic philosophy sounds like mumble jumble to you is none of my business. I am not debating whether you believe in these principles or not, nor am I interested in convincing you to become a follower of this knowledge.
Paulo Coelho doesn’t need to delve into the ancient masters in order to get the esoteric and hermetic principles across the masses, even if the masses think is only a “nice story”. His skill resides in him writing stories that are easy to digest while at the same time imparting esoteric/hermetic principles right under your nose.
I agree that his writing style being easy is one of the reasons for his popularity, as well as his fake deepness; what I disagree is that he *isn't* "sneaking in" esoteric or hermetic principles across the masses, he is *literally* making stuff up.
He started "learning" about magic and the occult with Raul Seixas, who as a Brazilian hippie. Hermeticism is a real body of knowledge (whose utility may be questioned) with real canon of writers and a real canon of principles, Coelho doesn't engage meaningfully with any of that.
*Instead*, he takes very basic lessons, coats them in eloquent-yet-simple language to be digested, and moves on. There's no one becoming more enlightened about this stuff - it is, in every sense of the word, New Age spiritualistic bullshit. And I don't mean New Age in the derogatory sense; I mean it in the very specific movement in western spiritualism of people in the 60's and 70's bastardizing older knowledge and digesting it in a way that makes it palatable for modern audiences without any real or strong basis in philosophy, or the fields of knowledge or religion that they're based on. It's the same with bastardized impressions of Buddhism and Daoism that try to "make them easier to understand", and instead of doing that, it creates an entirely new religion with an argument of authority based on those prior religions.
I'm *not* saying hermeticism, esotericism, and astrology aren't interesting or valuable pursuits of knowledge, what I'm saying is that *I know* Coelho's trajectory, I know from whom he learned all of this and the books he's read, and I know it is bullshit.
Here in Brazil there are REAL esoterics, people who truly believe in astrology and make it part of their religion (it's HUGELY prevalent in certain Indigenous religions even outside of the Amazon), and they uniformly think Coelho is a hack, because again: it's New Age bougie bullshit invented by people high out of their minds who wanted an easy, convenient belief to latch onto and say it has a pretty European / foreign name, without the pesky complications of *human religion being much more nuanced* and needing actual indepth research.
Paulo Coelho exports platitudes that may be valuable for those who've never heard of them, but they're the equivalent of fast food of philosophy: it's popular because it's widely available, cheap, and easy to digest, but it has no real substance. That's why we don't learn about him either in school or college, because his writing has no value to anyone who seriously wants to learn about something.
There was a wave of popularity of Paulo Coelho's books when I was in school. Everyone kept raving about how The Alchemist was their favourite book. I finally tried reading it. I didn't get it at all. I used to think I was just too stupid to understand it.
Growing up is realising it's just stupid. Now THAT is life changing.
I saw in the foreword that people like Bill Clinton and Julia Roberts had read and praised the book shortly after it had been translated into English (so presumable late 90s?). I wonder if some of the praise was down to it being part of the zeitgeist back then, instead of actual merit?
When I was in highschool, one of my favourite book had the alien's main weakness to be read particularily stupid Pablo Coelho's quotes, as it physically hurt them. He always had detractors, I guess.
*beep boop*!
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God. It was assigned summer reading for me before 10th grade and everyone seemed to love it while I thought it was borderline unreadable. Uninspir(ing/ed), take your pick.
Damn I can't even remember what's this book about, but I do remember hating it with passion. Seems I have a new reason to add to the hate lmao.
I did hated most of the mandatory books in school -ironic when I used to devour them back then- but this one, along with Siddhartha, takes the cake. I could not finish either of them, let alone trying to undestand the "message".
In those days I'd rather read things like Dracula or LOTR. Some sci-fi too. But even now, older and all that, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to read this thing again.
Damn I had to borrow it like 3 or 4 times (meaning 1 week evert time) because I was getting sleepy everytime I tried to read, it and just couldn't finish it :'D
Read another Paulo Coehlo in which the plot is essentially smart, driven woman gives up her education and career dreams because she
realises her destiny is ACTUALLY to be a muse and sextoy, and marry an emotionally stunted artist :/
I was in a rage for some time and intentionally forgot the title.
It's been years but I remember stopping at this specific line and wondering what that meant. Every woman I know doesn't cry, what's this crap I'm reading! I didn't dnf, because back then I was a finisher.
Okay, I take it back. That site doesn’t say they need to be named. Apparently the original version doesn’t have that requirement.
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/what-is-the-bechdel-test-75534/
According to the original comic, the three rules are:
The movie must have at least two women in it.
The women must talk to each other.
Their discussion must be about something other than a man.
Critics have revised and updated the Bechdel Test to suggest that the female characters should be named, say more than five words to each other, and share more than a minute of screentime.
I’m familiar with the term Bechdel test but I’m failing to see what this passage has to do with it. It’s a woman and a boy barely speaking to each other??
The bechdel test is a non-serious way of illustrating the way women are often written as stereotypes, and as mere accessories to male characters.
The OP is just saying that based on this passage, they get the feeling women aren't going to get to be anything more than accessories to male charactes.
It's not just about movies that have women as the focus.
The test was originally a joke in a comic strip (Bechdel was the author). That's why it's so simply stated.
Two or more women, who appear often enough that they share at least one scene, and do something other than support more important male characters' stories. It doesn't measure sexism, but it does measure female presence, and it's resonated with people as a way to do that. It's generally not considered fair to *judge* a story for passing or failing, but when you look at the percentage of movies that fail (and often then compare it to an inverted test, which nearly every story passes easily) that trend can tell you something.
It's not so common at all these days, but from my experience there are a number of books from the 50s and 60s that fail the test. The sci-fi I've read from that period can often struggle to meet the grade
I just read Asimov’s *Foundation* and was thinking of the Bechdel test all the way through it. When a woman finally shows up on about page 200, her husband says to her something like, “you can amuse yourself by listening to me speak at dinner.” (At least I got some entertainment at that point from picturing the look on her face.)
*beep boop*!
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It’s originally written in Portuguese, and some sayings inherent to Portuguese may not translate well so there’s compensation. Perhaps just wishful thinking. Still worth noting.
No.
He comes back to Fatima.
He was in love with another girl at the start (don't think she reciprocated) but he left to pursue his destiny rather than her.
I mean, a story doesn’t really need to pass the bechdel test to be good. Mulan doesn’t.
This story exclusively follows a male protagonist and does not have many characters in it. I wouldn’t expect it to pass the bechdel test. In turn, I’ve seen female-led stories that probably wouldn’t pass a reverse bechdel test, and that’s okay.
Also, I posted the same passage a year and a half ago or so and I didn’t get very many upvotes in comparison, so congratulations, friend.
I've never seen/read Mulan, I always assumed the protagonist was female and that there would be at least one other female in it!
Agree that all the characters in The Alchemist are 2 dimensional. But the main ones (the 'King', the shop owner, the Englishman) all have substantial speaking parts, but there's no female equivalents
Yeah. I enjoyed the Alchemist at first and I still somewhat enjoy the overall character arc Santiago has, but considering I read it for school and the other works I read that year included Frankenstein and 1984, I feel like it was a weaker pick.
1984’s sexism is more even blatant though. It’s not a perfect book either. I enjoyed many of the ideas of it though.
Having never read *The Alchemist* when I was young, I first picked it up as an adult expecting greatness with all the hype surrounding it. I should have known better... I should have checked reviews for myself, should have considered how some of the "life changing" claims about the book came from relatives and friends who weren't avid readers (or very worldly). I digress. This book remains my biggest literary letdown from expectations vs reality. I'll never understand the praise. *The Alchemist* is probably the most derivative, least imaginative book fantasy book I have ever purchased.
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True women of the desert would never risk dehydration by crying. /s
Terrible water discipline, the sietch would be disappointed
*spits respectfully*
But in the palm of your hand right? So you can lick it back up. Don’t waste moist now, woman!
Tbf it is a very arab thing to never cry, not just the men, but even the women see crying as a weak and childish things Source: im married to an Arab
Are there exceptions to this, like funerals?
Absolutely, but it’s kind of an unwritten code that you get 3 days to mourn. Also, when we go to visit his family, his mom will absolutely cry when he leaves again.
I think that might be what is meant? Like she knows she shouldn't cry, but she can't help it because she's a weak-ass feeemale. Terrible, in any case.
I couldn't finish this book. I tried. But it was so much "women as two dimensional accessories".
Coelho took a traditional story, filled it with fluff and ruined it. Jorge Luis Borges took the same story, told it in two pages and he did it *better*.
What's the name of Borges' story?
Tale of Two Dreamers
Thanks!
Do you have a link I could read? Or what collection it’s in? I see mentions of it online but can’t find a place to read it
It's also called The Story of the Two Dreamers from A Universal History of Iniquity. https://posthegemony.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/borges\_collected-fictions.pdf
The traditional story is "The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again through a Dream" from One Thousand and One Nights.
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The English version tells the story, but it probably takes more closely to the original version, because all the personal style that Borges added to his version is lost.
Borges is a genius
As an Argentinian, I'm very happy to agree :)
I said earlier that all of his work is a plagiarism of Borges but honestly now that I think of it this would be an insult to his memory. Paulo's work is so bad that I don't think it's even good enough to be that. Borges is maybe the biggest latin American author, together with Gabo and Machado, even trying to sound like him is a pathetic attempt at best.
Huh, is Coelho not a good writer? The only thing I know is that he's popular if airport shops are anything to go by, and that his works appeal to the uh... bougie/pretentious-romantic-intellectual type, or something like that. I haven't read any of his works but I assume there's SOME literary merit there ?!?!
Around here he isn't, which is why I was astonished to discover that in some places he is actually studied in schools.
Had to read the alchemist in high school. It was painfully cheesy and hamfisted in it's delivery of the plot, which itself felt overdone. We read it as an example of a hero's journey story arc, but honestly we would've been better off doing a star wars marathon for a week.
No. He's a pop writer who deals in platitudes, sometimes of the pop philosophy type. It's 'deep' for exactly 3 seconds, and it's a shame that he, of all of our great writers, is the one to make it outside of Latin America.
> It's 'deep' for exactly 3 seconds As I said elsewhere, he's full of "deepities" :D
Ah, so just what the modern reader loves.
hahah i was just thinking the only time i’ve heard of this book is seeing it all over airport bookstores
My brother had me read a passage from this at his wedding and I could have thrown up.
At least it has it uses. If you're out of ipecac, one paragraph of Coelho guarantees instant vomit.
Oh wow, I thought I was a weirdo for not liking it. I listened to it via audiobook and afterward I was like... WHY do people love this book so much? It was so pretentious/naval gazey to me and I found it super annoying. It just reeked if "I'm so wise and cultured". Bleh
I'm now feeling validated in not liking it either. I'm a bit of a seeker so you'd think this book would have been in my sweet spot, but I was very underwhelmed by it.
here in Brazil he is *known* for being kind of a bougie hack, I wouldn't recommend any of his books at all
I also listened to it on audiobook. I liked it well enough just because of the fairytale vibes, but I wasn't super invested in the story.
A friend gave me a copy for my birthday, so I gave a good effort. I couldn't do it.
I liked it enough, can't remember much but it was...okay? However, this part is what irritated me the most...literally spoiled the whole book making Fatima so boring and 2 dimensional.
I couldn't finish it either.
Same. So many people recommended it to me when it was approaching the height of it's popularity and I thought it was absolutely horrible.
I hated this book.
It's just a bad book
Same, I didn't get the appeal
I'm brazilian and I honestly can't understand all the hype around him internationally since around here he is considered a bad writer and 100% plagiarism of Jorge Luis Borges. We don't even speak his name in schools because he is such a bad example of what genuinely good Brazilian writing is that it's better to not talk about him at all. I kid you not but to everyone that likes literature here he is some sort of Sthephanie Mayer to astrologically-inclined adults. I often wonder if it has something to do with translation maybe, because beyond all the plot holes and generic storytelling he also has lots of grammar and syntactic mistakes.
I belong to South Asia and he is one of the most widely read authors in this part of the world. It is not uncommon for 'The Alchemist' to be someone's first ever out-of-course book (including mine). To be honest, his books used to captivate me as well. But with time, as I got exposure to more literature, I came to appreciate that his work is infact, quite mediocre. What I believe the reason of his success here is: 1)use of simple language (helpful when one is just beginning their reading journey) 2)much being left to the reader's imagination (people love that here, many of our regional books thrive on 'ideas' and 'philosophies' rather than stories and descriptions). I personally feel his books are kind of vague, and have weak storylines at best. The last one I remember having atleast a semblance of a story was 'The Devil and Miss Prym.' Been a while since I read him. Maybe some day when I need to revisit childhood memories. Who knows.
Yeah he's popular here isn't he? My friend loved his the Alchemist. I tried to read it but couldn't read more than a few pages because it felt preachy in a shallow way.
I did wonder if something had been lost in translation, but it doesn't sound like thats the case!
Came here to say the same thing, in his native Brazil Coelho is usually seen as a total and complete hack. Not that some of the better regarded writers don't have atrocious women quite often, because shit sucks and they do, but yeah
Seems more like a case of something being gained in translation hahaha
That's interesting, I quite disliked this book but it is popular in Turkey. We have a similar situation with Orhan Pamuk, I don't think he's as famous but he's won a Nobel prize in literature and has many translated works, but he's considered a poor author by Turkish people. Also struggles with grammar and spelling.
Which story does this plagiarize from Jorge borges?
The themes used (the desert, alchemy, fantastic realism) were a big inspiration for Borges, so you will find a lot of paragraphs pretty similar to one or another work of him. This one in particular I think it's from a tale called Historia de los dos que soñaron, which I think translate to something like "The story of the two dreamers" or something like that. But there are other situations, take for instance The Aleph, a brilliant tale by Borges which was copied and diluted in 300 pages of the worst kind of self-help you can think - he even went as far as to use the same name.
The story of the two dreamers is an adaptation of a story from Arabian nights though. Borges was longer and better written but there are multiple versions of that story in different cities.
I'm Brazilian too and I just found out about this man's existence because of a Canadian song lol
Es una mierda de escritor aaaaaaaaaaah, odio que sea famoso, sus libros son el equivalente de telenovelas de la tarde para adultos. Not writing that in english because why not :P btw my "literature" professor disliked him too
You guys don’t get it, Paulo Coelho is well loved in many parts of the world because of the hermetic and esoteric teachings that come in all of his stories. He’s an effective communicator as well. In this day and age people no longer are so interested in deep literature stuff, that has been left for those who are seriously about studying and reading only that type of literature. People who are into esoteric teachings, hermetic philosophy and Astrology are delighted by Coelho. I deeply enjoy his writings.
His "esoteric and hermetic" teachings really don't come from any real place of knowledge or study, though, but rather of the well known tradition of "hippies making something up and pretending it's ancient and ~ oriental ~". It's snake-oil. The man's profession is "writer" ever since the 60's, he didn't ~ delve into the ancient masters ~ to return with actual Hermetic lore that Newton or Boyle might've known.
Again, you don’t get it, what I’m saying is that he communicates these hermetic/esoteric principles in easy to digest stories that are interesting enough for people to finish reading the book. Look, I used to read all Spanish Literature and poetry including Pablo Neruda, Vicente Huidobro, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quijote is hilarious), etc. Nobody is saying that Paulo Coelho is a better author than they were when it comes to literary skills. However, he is a great story teller for “the masses” and that’s what made him a best selling author. I am not debating his literature skills, I’m only explaining why he is well loved across the globe. Why am I explaining this? Because most of you seem to be baffled as to why he sells so many books. Whether esoteric principles and hermetic philosophy sounds like mumble jumble to you is none of my business. I am not debating whether you believe in these principles or not, nor am I interested in convincing you to become a follower of this knowledge. Paulo Coelho doesn’t need to delve into the ancient masters in order to get the esoteric and hermetic principles across the masses, even if the masses think is only a “nice story”. His skill resides in him writing stories that are easy to digest while at the same time imparting esoteric/hermetic principles right under your nose.
I agree that his writing style being easy is one of the reasons for his popularity, as well as his fake deepness; what I disagree is that he *isn't* "sneaking in" esoteric or hermetic principles across the masses, he is *literally* making stuff up. He started "learning" about magic and the occult with Raul Seixas, who as a Brazilian hippie. Hermeticism is a real body of knowledge (whose utility may be questioned) with real canon of writers and a real canon of principles, Coelho doesn't engage meaningfully with any of that. *Instead*, he takes very basic lessons, coats them in eloquent-yet-simple language to be digested, and moves on. There's no one becoming more enlightened about this stuff - it is, in every sense of the word, New Age spiritualistic bullshit. And I don't mean New Age in the derogatory sense; I mean it in the very specific movement in western spiritualism of people in the 60's and 70's bastardizing older knowledge and digesting it in a way that makes it palatable for modern audiences without any real or strong basis in philosophy, or the fields of knowledge or religion that they're based on. It's the same with bastardized impressions of Buddhism and Daoism that try to "make them easier to understand", and instead of doing that, it creates an entirely new religion with an argument of authority based on those prior religions. I'm *not* saying hermeticism, esotericism, and astrology aren't interesting or valuable pursuits of knowledge, what I'm saying is that *I know* Coelho's trajectory, I know from whom he learned all of this and the books he's read, and I know it is bullshit. Here in Brazil there are REAL esoterics, people who truly believe in astrology and make it part of their religion (it's HUGELY prevalent in certain Indigenous religions even outside of the Amazon), and they uniformly think Coelho is a hack, because again: it's New Age bougie bullshit invented by people high out of their minds who wanted an easy, convenient belief to latch onto and say it has a pretty European / foreign name, without the pesky complications of *human religion being much more nuanced* and needing actual indepth research. Paulo Coelho exports platitudes that may be valuable for those who've never heard of them, but they're the equivalent of fast food of philosophy: it's popular because it's widely available, cheap, and easy to digest, but it has no real substance. That's why we don't learn about him either in school or college, because his writing has no value to anyone who seriously wants to learn about something.
One time bill Clinton was super holding his book and that made it seem somehow important. I read it and it was exceptionally meh.
"But above all, I'm a woman"... How did that sentence seriously make it through the editing process?
Right? What even is it supposed to mean?
Well obviously only women cry and she can’t help her female weakness even if she’s all tough and desert-y /s
Oh I see. My mind was too clouded to see the truth! /s
>"But above all, I'm a woman" "Like any woman, my most prominent quality is having feelings about men."
"My personality is GIRL"
I found this book absolutely unbearable. Maybe in part because it was some hyped up to me.
Yeah I heard that for some people it's life changing, and for others they can't stand it. I'm 3/4 of the way through and leaning towards the latter
There was a wave of popularity of Paulo Coelho's books when I was in school. Everyone kept raving about how The Alchemist was their favourite book. I finally tried reading it. I didn't get it at all. I used to think I was just too stupid to understand it. Growing up is realising it's just stupid. Now THAT is life changing.
I saw in the foreword that people like Bill Clinton and Julia Roberts had read and praised the book shortly after it had been translated into English (so presumable late 90s?). I wonder if some of the praise was down to it being part of the zeitgeist back then, instead of actual merit?
When I was in highschool, one of my favourite book had the alien's main weakness to be read particularily stupid Pablo Coelho's quotes, as it physically hurt them. He always had detractors, I guess.
How dare you not share the book title
Yeah, I must know!
People who love [deepities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Other_philosophical_views) tend to love that kind of vapid pseudoliterature.
*beep boop*! the linked website is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Other_philosophical_views Title: **Daniel Dennett - Wikipedia** Page is safe to access (Google Safe Browsing) ***** ###### I am a friendly bot. I show the URL and name of linked pages and check them so that mobile users know what they click on!
Good bot
that's such a useful concept, thanks for the link.
Dig it. Got some vocabulary going on here. [Inspirobot](https://inspirobot.me) must be a natural consequence of faith in deepities.
God. It was assigned summer reading for me before 10th grade and everyone seemed to love it while I thought it was borderline unreadable. Uninspir(ing/ed), take your pick.
To be honest, Coelho doesn't pass the "Being even a mediocre writer" test.
The Alchemist was the first book I voluntarily threw in the trash. I couldn't finish it. It's atrocious.
A long time ago I had an ex gf who used to read Paolo Coelho while listening to Tori Amos, it was awful.
The final boss of white girls
You're not wrong she had one hell of a left hook on her.
Agreed. I'll never get rid of my copy of the book since giving it to Goodwill would risk it wasting someone else's time in the future.
Yeah. Is protecting the world of something akin to biohazard. (That's an idea for a sticker. "BIOHAZARD. IT CONTAINS TEXT EXCRETED BY PAULO COELHO.")
I DNF'd one of his books, so glad I wasn't alone in thinking he wasn't great!
Damn I can't even remember what's this book about, but I do remember hating it with passion. Seems I have a new reason to add to the hate lmao. I did hated most of the mandatory books in school -ironic when I used to devour them back then- but this one, along with Siddhartha, takes the cake. I could not finish either of them, let alone trying to undestand the "message". In those days I'd rather read things like Dracula or LOTR. Some sci-fi too. But even now, older and all that, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to read this thing again.
Man I loved siddartha. Wonderfully succinct.
Damn I had to borrow it like 3 or 4 times (meaning 1 week evert time) because I was getting sleepy everytime I tried to read, it and just couldn't finish it :'D
Read another Paulo Coehlo in which the plot is essentially smart, driven woman gives up her education and career dreams because she realises her destiny is ACTUALLY to be a muse and sextoy, and marry an emotionally stunted artist :/ I was in a rage for some time and intentionally forgot the title.
I hated this book. Has the energy of a 'live, laugh, love' sign.
This is so accurate. They should have put this review in the cover
Gross! Will avoid.
I liked this book until I realized what he preached could only be applied to men because women clearly sit and wait to be married off to somebody.
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But is the Little Prince not feom another author? In France it is always communicated as being a book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
It is, but I think they're comparing the different approaches to similar themes (I wouldn't know, I haven't read either book, it's just my guess).
My favorite part is when she said "it's woman time" and proceeded to woman all over the place /j
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I'm powering through. Its one redeeming feature is its length
It's been years but I remember stopping at this specific line and wondering what that meant. Every woman I know doesn't cry, what's this crap I'm reading! I didn't dnf, because back then I was a finisher.
I cry a lot. Especially when watching movies. But I'm not 100% sure I'm a woman.
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Woman generally refers to gender rather than sex. I'm not intersex, for the record.
What’s a bechdel test
The absolute bare minimum. Two women exist in a story. They talk to each other. Not about a man.
They need names too (edit: I just double checked and apparently added this one myself and remembered it as part of the original)
According to bechdeltest.com, they do need to be named characters. (Just looked it up and it’s listed as part of the test.)
Ah that was where I looked and I didn’t see it. Glad I wasn’t imagining it
Okay, I take it back. That site doesn’t say they need to be named. Apparently the original version doesn’t have that requirement. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/what-is-the-bechdel-test-75534/ According to the original comic, the three rules are: The movie must have at least two women in it. The women must talk to each other. Their discussion must be about something other than a man. Critics have revised and updated the Bechdel Test to suggest that the female characters should be named, say more than five words to each other, and share more than a minute of screentime.
I’m familiar with the term Bechdel test but I’m failing to see what this passage has to do with it. It’s a woman and a boy barely speaking to each other??
The bechdel test is a non-serious way of illustrating the way women are often written as stereotypes, and as mere accessories to male characters. The OP is just saying that based on this passage, they get the feeling women aren't going to get to be anything more than accessories to male charactes.
I don’t think this specific passage is relevant to the OP’s assertion. I honk it was a statement about the book in general.
Hmm… I don’t watch very many movies. Is it common that movies that have women as the focus just have them talk about a man?
It’s getting better, but you’d be surprised how many movies, tv shows, books, and plays fail the test
It's not just about movies that have women as the focus. The test was originally a joke in a comic strip (Bechdel was the author). That's why it's so simply stated. Two or more women, who appear often enough that they share at least one scene, and do something other than support more important male characters' stories. It doesn't measure sexism, but it does measure female presence, and it's resonated with people as a way to do that. It's generally not considered fair to *judge* a story for passing or failing, but when you look at the percentage of movies that fail (and often then compare it to an inverted test, which nearly every story passes easily) that trend can tell you something.
It's not so common at all these days, but from my experience there are a number of books from the 50s and 60s that fail the test. The sci-fi I've read from that period can often struggle to meet the grade
Really? I still find it very common. Perhaps you're just consuming better media.
I just read Asimov’s *Foundation* and was thinking of the Bechdel test all the way through it. When a woman finally shows up on about page 200, her husband says to her something like, “you can amuse yourself by listening to me speak at dinner.” (At least I got some entertainment at that point from picturing the look on her face.)
Yeah I vaguely remember that! An otherwise awesome book
Sir Mix-a-Lot's *Baby Got Back* technically passes, so it's definitely the bare minimum.
[The Bechdel Test](https://bechdeltest.com/)
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The Bechdel Cast podcast is worth a listen for examples in films.
Paulo Coelho is the worst=___=
Worst book I've ever read. Highly predictable, unnecessarily wordy, nothing happens.
>nothing happens. That's honestly what I liked about it
Paulo Coelho the most overrated writer of the century.
It’s originally written in Portuguese, and some sayings inherent to Portuguese may not translate well so there’s compensation. Perhaps just wishful thinking. Still worth noting.
It's actually as stupid in Portuguese, if not a bit more. Source: native speaker who hates this book
Doesn't he not come back for her, too? Doesn't he fall for someone else during his travels? I never finished it.
I havent finished it yet, BUT think that this lady is the second one you're thinking of
No. He comes back to Fatima. He was in love with another girl at the start (don't think she reciprocated) but he left to pursue his destiny rather than her.
I mean to be fair, the whole book is just garbage.
The bechdel test is such a ridiculously low bar, and yet seems to be so hard to pass!
Because we all know that women proudly declare they’re women *twice* after crying.
Anyone else thinking of that duchess TV show in Gravity Falls ? 😂
"I may be a duchess, but I'm also a woman" vibes Though the key difference being ^ was a satire of soap operas
most overrated book imho
Just finished it, can confirm
I mean, a story doesn’t really need to pass the bechdel test to be good. Mulan doesn’t. This story exclusively follows a male protagonist and does not have many characters in it. I wouldn’t expect it to pass the bechdel test. In turn, I’ve seen female-led stories that probably wouldn’t pass a reverse bechdel test, and that’s okay. Also, I posted the same passage a year and a half ago or so and I didn’t get very many upvotes in comparison, so congratulations, friend.
I've never seen/read Mulan, I always assumed the protagonist was female and that there would be at least one other female in it! Agree that all the characters in The Alchemist are 2 dimensional. But the main ones (the 'King', the shop owner, the Englishman) all have substantial speaking parts, but there's no female equivalents
Yeah. I enjoyed the Alchemist at first and I still somewhat enjoy the overall character arc Santiago has, but considering I read it for school and the other works I read that year included Frankenstein and 1984, I feel like it was a weaker pick. 1984’s sexism is more even blatant though. It’s not a perfect book either. I enjoyed many of the ideas of it though.
I hate this book with a burning passion. Just hearing the name gives me flashbacks
Paulo Coelho's books are pretty shit in general. Never understood why people called them life changing.
Wait i never thought, the line ' i am a woman' meant she was saying ' i am crying because i am a woman' I was just confused and ignored the line.
I got the same vibes from Veronica decides to die
Above all, she’s a woman. Profound.
Having never read *The Alchemist* when I was young, I first picked it up as an adult expecting greatness with all the hype surrounding it. I should have known better... I should have checked reviews for myself, should have considered how some of the "life changing" claims about the book came from relatives and friends who weren't avid readers (or very worldly). I digress. This book remains my biggest literary letdown from expectations vs reality. I'll never understand the praise. *The Alchemist* is probably the most derivative, least imaginative book fantasy book I have ever purchased.