TATE - The Alchemist
The inaugural reading for TATE will be The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. I'm going to start it on my way to Philadelphia on Sunday, so feel free to begin posting comments and posing questions about the book. I don't know when I'll be able to write about the book but I am very excited to read this one.
posted by Brock Blackburn at 6:31 PM
3 Comments:
YES!!!!!!!!
This has taken awhile but I actually read the entire book on the way to Philly. I need to read it again to catch more nuance but I started Til We Have Faces which is going slowly b/c our schedule is so hectic.
My big questions relate to how Santiago dealt with the shopkeepers in Andalusia and in Tangier. The first he didn't talk to because he didn't want to upset the 'nice' life the shopkeeper was leading. Then he stirred the pot with the glassware guy and made him start thinking about going to Mecca again.
So did the glassware guy ever realize his dream to go to Mecca or was his life more miserable thinking about it or make life more manageable b/c he had his dream back?
Having that dream unrealized is a torture, but some people never take the risks necessary to realize that dream.
I'll try to post more thoughts that are more coherent sometime soon but web access is still pretty limited.
So I think you'll get this by email, and I can be freed of the apprenhension of responding to a recent message that everyone else will read... because who else is going to be checking responses to postings from months ago? if they do then they're cool enough for me to not be worried about, right? ;) anyways so here's my thoughts... So i think Cohelo is saying that even the torture of unrealized dream is more fufilling and more real then supression of that dream and desire. Feel free to agree or disagree. So I guess my response then is that while yes it does have the potential to make him more miserable, to the author, that misery is more desirable then what preceeded. So no it doesn't make his life more manageable, it infact is probably painful but it is passionate and alive. Well that discussion could go about a billion different ways. I just wanted to throw something out there because i just saw this. Let me know what you think. Also, I'll have to locate the Til WE Have Faces book and get going.. i'm slacking already!
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