Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Alchemist

So, much like Sam, I couldn't stop reading The Alchemist and ended up reading it in a couple hours. I too gave away my version of the book, wanting to share this book's message with others. When I first started the book I had my doubts about it, but those doubts soon were whisked away and were replaced by complete enjoyment.
The book is obviously about Dolce Domum and it fits into this theme in that the boy returns to where he began in order to find what he was looking for. I also noticed that this book linked in with other ideas that we have discussed in class. It makes a reference to our life stories and the history of the world being written by the same hand, which made me think back to Beckett and how he believed everything was already written for us and this ultimately relates to the them Life as Fiction. The book also made a reference to "a thousand and one nights" on page 88, which made me think back to Haroun and the Sea of Stories and the first theme of the Myth of the Eternal Return.
I really enjoyed this book and all the life quotes it had to offer. I would definitely recommend this book to just about anyone, and I have actually recommended it to several people already.