Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I feel like I am pushing against the tide, but perhaps I can warn others, like me, who agreed to read this book because of comparisons to St. Exupery's classic, The Little Prince. It is too late to warn off my book club. Others expecting anything remotely as charming, disarming, witty, and downright delightful as Le Petit Prince should look elsewhere. I have read St. Exupery, Mr. Coelho, and you are no St. Exupery. Perhaps it is the translator who lets us down, but the underlying text lays it on so thick that I doubt it. Where the Little Prince is light on its feet, The Alchemist is sluggish and burdened to groaning with its own ethical importance. Where the Little Prince repeatedly pierces and nudges us with the persistent and indefatigable wisdom of children, The Alchemist slogs on through its mythic mish-mash of hazy, tired images. Where the Little Prince constantly surprises us, The Alchemist surprised me mainly by its insistence on piling the cliches on. When I got to the "darkest moment comes just before the dawn," I thought Coelho might be pulling my leg, trying to see how much foolishness he could wrap together before I caught on. And when, on the very next page, he spoke of how God protects children and drunks, I could hear him screaming with laughter--when will they all catch on?! On and on. But the ladling is SO thick that Coelho hasn't made much of a game of it. There is nothing playful in sight. I can only assume that Coelho is sincere and actually believes that the frailest cliches bear repeating. Over and over and over. I do have one good thing to say about the book. It convinced me to return to the Little Prince to see if my memory had failed me. Mais non! After far too many years, I rediscovered the dashing companion of my youth, as fresh now as he was then, but full of new meanings I could not have guessed at then. If you seek a spiritual journey that might refresh you in the most unpredictable ways, try The Little Prince instead. It's short. It's delightfully illustrated. It's cheap. And it's actually worth your time.