Bad, bad bad. The tale of it—the plot—wasn’t too offensive, but Coelho’s writing felt artificial, preachy, and pretentious.
Coelho’s elected himself a Writer/Teacher of humans. And he’s undertaken his mission to instruct and enlighten with a purposefulness that betrays his lack of sagacity. He’s more subtle than he is a deep and wise man. And he’s just not subtle at all.
If some authors with spiritual teaching to impart dance through your heart, scattering seeds of inspiration and wisdom, then Coelho comes along dragging a shovel and a wan little tree to gracelessly shove into the soil of your mind.
This book feels like a bunch of concepts and ideas from a wishy-washy, conventional, self-help spirituality that he’s tried to craft into an inspirational tale to illustrate his “Secrets of the Universe.” Gag.
Here’s a little nauseating excerpt to illustrate:
“I am following my Personal Legend. It’s not something you would understand.” The stranger placed his sword in its scabbard, and the boy relaxed. “I had to test your courage,” the stranger said. “Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.” The boy was surprised. The stranger was speaking of things that very few people knew about.
I read Veronica Decides to Die and felt similarly, but at the insistence of a friend that this was an excellent book, I gave it a go. I’m done with Coelho.