Category Archives: Multiculturalism

Review: All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in African American, book reviews, Feminism, Genre, Multiculturalism, Non-fiction, Self-Help

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

All About Love: New Visions discusses the ways society traditionally views love and the roles it creates for love in our lives; but, the information is recycled and some of the perspectives are biased. The author , bell hooks, provides helpful information and personal stories, which describe how repeating incorrect patterns of behaviors lead to unhappiness. However, as opposed to other self-help books, many of her suggestions for living with more love, lack applicability. Perhaps most lingering, her feminist background gets in the way of her positive, loving message.

The author suggests definitions of love commonly held in society, which influence the ways we learn to love, are flawed. hooks points out that standard romantic or familial norms indicate that love is natural or a gift, when in reality giving and receiving love takes work. She uses M. Scott Peck’s definition as a guide, “Love is an act of will-namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice, We do not have to love. We choose to love.” (4-5) With this new description, the reader sees that love is about choices and effort. hooks asks the reader to consider how his or her life can be different by choosing instead of expecting love.

hooks wants people to individually and globally choose more love, which, despite several admirable suggestions, is difficult to implement in the real world. hooks uses her own past as an example of how she repeats incorrect behaviors she learned from her parents in her own life. She recommends recognizing old patterns, making the choice to change, and forgiving.  She more broadly, discusses the ways that individuals can change the world through love. She also recommends sacrificing money, job security and personal happiness for the betterment of others, society and world peace. But, none of this is practical. Most important, she fails to provide concrete information about how to achieve these goals. Finally, her message of love is clouded by her feminist views.

While most of the text asks the reader to love more, hooks gets carried away with insults and negativity in Chapter 3: Honesty: Be True to Love. hooks is famous for her feminist text, Feminism is for Everybody, in which she asserts just that-feminism is all inclusive and unbiased. But is it? Her chapter on honesty is a harsh rant about how men lie in relationships in order to keep power and maintain the patriarchy. Saying that “men” do this is as biased as saying all “women” think, do say, similar things, it’s incorrect, biased, judgmental. Accusing an entire group of people of dishonesty, especially for such a manipulative reason, certainly isn’t about seeing the best in people or choosing love.

hooks asks her reader to think about how his or her choices and actions related to love are influenced by the past and will make an impact in the present and future. She succeeds in making the reader think about love in his or her life. Actually making changes is always easier said than done. Nothing in this text is groundbreaking. In fact, any information that provides tangible examples to promote change and access is common sense or has already been covered in other texts. This is not bell hooks’s best work.

 

2.5 out of 5 stars

Advertisements

Review: “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

09 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by in Adult Contemporary, African American, book reviews, Feminism, Genre, Memoir, Multiculturalism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Reading Maya Angelou’s memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” is an enjoyable, rewarding, and inspiring experience, which draws me in as a reader, and leads me to consider the deeper meaning behind the resonating title. Angelou travels back in time, writing from the perspective of her own girlhood and adolescence, conveying her past experiences with the clarity, maturity, and wisdom of an adult. Not only is Angelou able to portray her own difficult circumstances, she also uses her unique point of view to acutely observe the oppression experienced by those around her.

Angelou tells her story as a young girl, through the lens of adult observations and reflections. The narration reminds readers how to think about people and life with the innocence and heart of a child and with the knowledge of an adult. Using these perspectives together, Angelou leads readers to think differently about biases and oppression.

Angelou doesn’t necessarily view her own suffering as unique, rather her discussion of her own issues is viewed as part of a larger picture of human suffering. The reader empathizes and relates to Angelou’s personal issues and the human plight at the same time. She discusses issues that closely impact her: rape and later teenage pregnancy and the struggles of her nuclear family with racism. These hardships don’t keep her from noticing difficulties in the lives of others: Japanese citizens forced into Internment Camps, negative views of lesbians in society, and the hard lives of people living in the local junkyard. This ability to dissect the concept of oppression, and determine that it is something all people experience in some way, gives the author and writing, a particular significance.

The theme of oppression among people is highlighted in the title. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” is always present, unfolding with the text, becoming increasingly recognizable and relatable. The idea of various forms of oppression, which are experienced by different people individually, but by all people in time, leads the reader back to the title. As readers we find, that we all struggle, but we can choose to keep singing. In the end, I felt that I too, knew why we all struggle and fight to “sing,” regardless of the obstacles in our paths.

Angelou finds ways to make any reader feel that he or she is included in this experience . We don’t need to belong to any demographic or have experienced the same trauma as someone else in order to know what it means to be human and to struggle. Rather than minimizing the pain or keeping it hidden, Angelou brings it out in the open. She communicates a positive message, and brings people together without diminishing the human plight. I believe people of all kinds owe it to themselves to share in the experience of reading this text.

Star Rating: 4.5 out of 5

There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz: The Third World in Your Backyard

17 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in book reviews, Genre, Multiculturalism, Non-fiction, Sociology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

image from goodreads.com

I have read this book two times.  The first time I only made it through the first thirty pages; because, I found myself so shocked and deeply saddened by Kotlowitz’s descriptions of the life experiences of two small boys, Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, growing up in the Henry Horner Homes projects in Chicago, that I could not or did not want to continue reading.  About a year later, the text was assigned in my Multicultural Education course, and I found myself reading it again and giving a presentation on its contents.  This time I found myself considering the author’s intentions, and regretting my previous decision to ‘close my heart and mind’ to the suffering and injustices in this country that too many Americans are willing to ignore.

The sad truth is that what most Americans know about life in the projects is very superficial.  Reflecting on what I knew before I read this book a few terms came to mind: segregated, poor, welfare.  In the preface to There Are No Children Here: the Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, Kotlowitz explains that the text began as a, “text for friend’s photo essay on children in poverty for Chicago Tribune” (ix).  It became a book changed my conceptions, along with those of millions of others, about life in America’s projects.

Kotlowitz, visits the Rivers family and documents their day-to-day activities over the course of a few years as they struggle through what the average American would find literally unimaginable.  The author uses events and people to show readers a range of social, political, emotional, and cultural issues.  Any single event that occurs daily in the lives of the people in the text from stabbings, shootings, muggings, prison sentences, drug addictions, etc., would be enough to traumatize any person for a life time; but, the people in the text are forced to attempt to survive every excruciating moment knowing something just as horrific will happen again the next day. The author uses his authority as an educated outsider who is able to provide an inside perspective to tell the stories of the silenced.

Since society has chosen to close its eyes to the problems of the people living in the projects, Kotlowitz  uses his white privilege to tell an untold story.  The New York Public Library named There Are No Children Here to its list of the 150 Most Important Books of the Century under the Protest and Progress category along with other monumental works such as, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois, and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.  All of these texts share a place on the list because of there importance in raising awareness about severe social injustices in this country.  However, Kotlowitz’s work is unique in because he broke the confines of class and race as an author to impose change.

While many might argue that little has been accomplished to change the overall expanse between minority and majority in America since Kotlowitz entered the projects, the first step to implementing change is awareness.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

Film (1993)

Kotlowitz’s other books:

The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, A Death, and America’s Dilemma

Films: Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters

Review: The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Adult Contemporary, book reviews, Genre, Multiculturalism, Women's Fiction

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

The Piano Teacher paints the picture of life for colonists and natives of Korea before, during, and after the Japanese invasion and occupation of World War II. The author, Janice Y.K. Lee, describes all aspects of life from the varying perspectives of British citizens to those of Korean natives. The text is uniquely tells the story of pre-war class and race struggles among people living in Hong Kong, and slowly becomes more about similar suffering after war changing everything. Using two stories, one before the war, and one after, the author eventually overlaps people, places, memories, and experiences, as past and present submerge.

Through depictions of Trudy, a wealthy Hong Kong woman, Will Truesdale, her lover and well-off British national, and Victor Chen, Trudy’s corrupt and influential relative, a magical and exotic world of privilege comes to life through partying, dancing, drinking, eating, and love. Although Lee presents the reader with images of life and relations among people in colonized Hong Kong, the focus of her scenes before the war is the dissection of the eccentric and passionate relationship between Will and Trudy.

Post-war, in the same country but another time and place, Claire, a beautiful and inexperienced blonde, recently married and arrived from Britain, is forced to take a job teaching piano to the daughter of the wealthiest man in Hong Kong, Victor Chen. Soon she meets Will and they begin an affair. When the reader realizes begins to decipher clues in Will’s personality and actions towards Claire, a need to know what happened to Trudy and Will causes intrigue.

As both stories are told separately, the reader pieces together clues and finds similar people in both time periods. The difference is the woman with whom Will spends his time.  There exists dramatic irony in the fact that the islanders and reader know many things Claire does not. As the story of the past progresses into the time of Japanese invasion and occupation, the results economically, physically, and emotionally are portrayed in grave detail.  People from all over the world, of different races and classes suffer together. Ten years later, those who experienced the trauma with Will, begin to provide Claire information about his secret anger and pain; he lost Trudy.

Lee provides a novel which not only supplies fascinating characters, she also provides insight for readers of the English language into the way South East Asian countries colonized by enemies of the Japanese lived, defended, and coped with attacks on their countries and people. This multi-faceted text will entertain and astonish a variety of readers.

 

Final Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Review: Love in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in book reviews, Honors and Acclaim, International Fiction, Magical Realism, Multiculturalism, Nobel Prize Winner

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

image from goodreads.com

30 Day Book Challenge: Book from My Favorite Author

 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez captures the beautiful, eccentric, and capricious nature of love in Memories of My Melancholy Whores.  By conveying the love story from the perspective of a strange and lonely old man who never truly feels love until the age of ninety, Marquez asks the reader to pose the age-old question: what exactly is love?

The narrator is a disturbing and incredibly sad figure.  In order to replace the loss of his parents, lack of friends, and most importantly, the absence of romance or love, he has spent his life paying for sex.  He refers to his need for touch versus companionship with Rosa Cabarcas’ whores as a substitution for what is missing in his life.  He says, “Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love (69).”  A writer and hermit, the man spends his days lying in a hammock in his mother’s old house and contributing articles to the paper he’s worked for his entire life.  Although his editor and readers take interest in the life of a man who has lived so long by requesting articles regarding his wisdom and experiences, he makes the reader wonder what exactly constitutes a full life.

At first, when the old man goes to Rosa Cabarcas after staying away for several years , and attempts to find comfort in the arms of young girl, a virgin, the reader views him as a sort of sexual predator. The man is thought to overstep his bounds in wanting to deflower, and, in the eyes of many, violate a child. After all, no girl could want to sleep with a wrinkly and eerie old creature.  But, when he spends his first night and many afterward with the 16-year-old Delagadina only to watch her sleep, find comfort in one-sided conversation, and bring her gifts of jewelry and paintings which once belonged to his mother, his intentions gain integrity.  Through his very real emotions, thoughts, and actions, an odd beauty and legitimacy develops in his declarations of love, which at first, seem more like lust or perversion.

In conveying the story from the first-person perspective, Marquez slowly unfolds for the reader, a man who is not merely using a young girl for pleasure, but a person who has lived his life in isolation and lacks human affection.  When the man finally finds a connection, a feeling of intimacy most people are lucky enough to experience in youth, as a nonagenarian, the reader must acknowledge the possibility of truth and beauty may be found in the strangest places and times.

The power of love is limitless and does not fit neatly into a box that most humans recognize.  Marquez takes a man in his final year of life, a female pimp, and a helpless virgin, to mold a familiar notion into something unique and refreshing.  The reader goes from harsh judgment to acceptance that love transforms people, regardless of the conditions under which it comes into existence. When the narrator expresses the revelation, “I became aware the invincible power that has moved the world is unrequited, not happy, love,“  there is no doubting his accuracy (65).  The concept and significance of emotion, reverence, and dedication being different for each individual is mind-opening and altering. We come to ask ourselves if tangibility makes for more validity than abstraction, and answer with certainty: no.  What may not be real to others could not be truer for the narrator, and this makes for a compelling first and final love in his life.

Final Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

An Attempt to Be Ironic? Review: A Different Kind of Christmas by Alex Haley

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in book reviews, Multiculturalism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

I have to admit that Alex Haley’s novella,  A Different Kind of Christmas, was not what I expected.  Around the holiday season, I like to immerse myself in novels, films, decorations, foods, and even clothes which help to create the atmosphere of one of my most cherished times of the year. Without having read Roots: The Saga of an American Family, I trusted Haley’s popularity, and picked up this book with the thought that it might be a quality piece of literature, which included a holiday theme.  As I read, I noticed some aspects of the text which I found perplexing.  First, the main focus of the tale is not Christmas; the author only mentions the holiday as a detail in the last few pages; the title is deceiving.  Next, the writing is simplistic and uneccessarily descriptive, leaving the reader wondering about the author’s intentions.

The story is about Randall Fletcher, a wealthy plantation owner’s son from North Carolina who is attending Princeton University, where he encounters a group of Quaker students who are opposed to slavery due to their religious beliefs.  Fletcher takes a trip to Pennsylvania with the three Quaker brothers where he learns about the Northern Area Underground Railroad and Vigilance Committee, which are located in Philadelphia.  He subsequently begins to think differently about slavery and the treatment of black people.  On the surface, the plot does not sound terrible and it isn’t.

The problems a reader encounters come from the execution of the piece.  While many writers are able to include historical information into prose in a competent fashion, when Haley includes history or facts, his writing reads more like a textbook.  Is his purpose to convey what occurred in the past or tell the story of Fletcher?  One assumes that the history and protagonist’s struggle to comprehend his place in it are intended to flow together, but there is a disturbing sense of discontinuity throughout.  I partially attribute this to the author’s constant inclusion of obvious statements and use of simple language.

If I had not known the name Alex Haley, I admit that I would have immediately dismissed this work.  In any case, I re-examined why the author was using effortless and undemanding modes of communication.  Haley appeared to purposefully remind his reader of all the history and politics from the Antebellum time period.  If it were deliberate, the portrayal of a rich white man as unintelligent is the perfect role reversal  for characterizations of black individuals in the slave narratives of Abolitionist and Sentimentalist writings.  In these depictions, black protagonists were less intelligent so that white readers would not feel threatened.  Still, if Haley is making a statement about slave narratives through this novella, the lack of intelligence of the main character is exaggerated, making the story difficult to read.

For those who enjoy African American literature or novels with historical subject matter, I would look elsewhere for reading material.  In fact, I cannot think of another book I have read in this genre with less literary merit.  I know it sounds harsh, but there are so many wonderful selections out there, this one is not worth the time it takes to read.

Final Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

Alex Haley Bio– Kunta Kite Foundation

Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by in book reviews, Genre, Honors and Acclaim, Multiculturalism, National Book Award Winner, Young Adult

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

From the title of Sherman Alexie’s novel,  one might assume the book would be as indicated, the true diary of a Native American.  Yet, the first few sentences set up the reader for the author’s tone and intentions  throughout the novel , and by the second sentence Alexie admits that what he said before was, “not exactly true (1).”  In admitting the falsity of his first statement, Alexie is also implying that the things he will say later may not be truthful; he prepares his reader to think about the reality of everything he says throughout the story. In this manner he addresses stereotypes, which he claims everyone knows are true, even though he has already admitted he lies as a narrator. Thus, a young reader begins to think about what Alexie is really communicating through his narrator, Arnold Spirit Jr.

The way Alexie chooses to use a title in which he includes the words absolutely, true, and diary only to fill the pages of the novel with a story of sarcasm and exaggeration in order to make a point about things people believe about others is brilliant. There are times in the text when notions about Native American culture which might have been brought up to make a point about ignorance are lost on readers, because they don’t know enough to realize they are being naïve. However, the hyperbolic repetition Alexie uses throughout the text when discussing the alcoholism of Junior’s family, friends, and community cannot be mistaken. After this “problem” is mentioned so many times, a reader must finally think that even on a reservation, it is not possible that every single person drinks. The same modes of thinking hold true for white people. Continue reading →

Review:The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

15 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by in Adult Contemporary, book reviews, Fantasy, International Fiction, Magical Realism, Multiculturalism, Roman a clef, Semi-autobiographical, Women's Fiction

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

“I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of the past and present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously-as the three Mora sisters said who could see the spirits of all eras mingled in space.” The House of the Spirits  page 432

Every family has a story to tell. The House of Spirits shares the epic tale of three generations of the Trueba- de Valle family told through the memories of the patriarch, Esteban Trueba and his granddaughter Alba.  As an old man, Esteban looks back on the events of his past, the family’s ancestry, the history of his country and his family with loneliness, remorse, and forgiveness. Reading through the notebooks his mystical wife, the love of his life Clara, has left him with her passing, Esteban is able to understand things about the decisions he made which altered the course of not only his fate, but many others as well. Isabel Allende’s novel creates a complicated fictional world in which the Trueba family lives in a constant state of conflict over the cultural, political, class, economic, and spiritual struggles existing in the time and place they find themselves. Both the characters and reader are thrown into the life-long tumultuous situation which is the country and living environment in the house on the corner- the house of spirits. Although it is fiction, and personalities and circumstances may be exaggerated-no moment feels far from truth.

One of the most powerful messages the author sends in the novel is the alienation a family is able to feel, even for someone they are meant to love. Esteban Trueba begins his life as a poor man with an invalid mother and only his sister Ferula to support him. Ferula wishes to leave her terrible life caring for her mother. She is resentful and jealous of her brother, but he will not sacrifice the way she has. In order to become the rich and powerful man he dreams of being, Esteban goes to the country and seizes control of Tres Marias, land with peasants that leads to his financial success. Although the peasants of Tres Marias wish to be given their personal freedom in the form of wages as payment instead of Esteban controlling their food rations, he wants to be patron. Despite his own poverty stricken past, his new wealth has turned him into a Conservative. He does not keep the people from being free due to intentional cruelty, but because he believes he knows better than they do what they need.  Around the same time Trueba’s power grows, he marries the young Clara de Valle, his deceased finance Rosa’s little sister. From the start, it is obvious that Clara is Esteban’s opposite.

Continue reading →

Review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

03 Wednesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Adult Contemporary, book reviews, International Fiction, Multiculturalism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 Everyday people make decisions which change the course of their lives. Amir, the narrator of The Kite Runner, is only a boy when he makes a decision out of confusion, jealousy,  and guilt that affects his life and those of the people around him forever. Khaled Hosseini  tells the story of Amir and Hassan, two boys growing up in Kabul, Afghanistan in the early 1970’s. Amir is the son of Baba, a rich businessman living in the luxury of what is said to be Kabul’s nicest home. Hassan is the son of Ali, Baba’s Hazara servant. As babies Amir and Hassan fed from the breast of the same nurse, but nothing can change the fact that Hassan is Shia and Amir Sunni.

Amir and Hassan are best friends. Yet, the societal and cultural barriers which separate them confuse Amir. According to Baba, Amir should not listen to everything he is taught at school. In fact, Baba does not follow all Islamic laws-he drinks alcohol. Even though Baba’s father, a judge, adopted Ali as a child and the two were raised as brothers, Ali and Hassan live outside Baba’s home in a small hut. Inside the home, Ali and Hassan serve Baba and Amir. When Amir states that nothing can alter the divide between he and Hassan, it may be because he experiences it from all aspects of his life.

Baba is a man people look up to. He is also someone who always seems to get the things he wants out of life. It is not until he has Amir that he is disappointed. ‘If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son.’ Along with the fact that Amir’s mother, Baba’s happiness, died in childbirth, their relationship has been strained by Baba’s inability to understand  what he deems as Amir’s ‘weakness.’ Due to this disconnect, Amir is always striving to impress his father. While Amir is a disappointment, Hassan is able to obtain Baba’s attention and affection without trying. If Amir wants to go to a movie or buy a kite, Hassan is always invited and receives equal treatment. Amir doesn’t understand. He wants to feel special.

Continue reading →

Review: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

29 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by in Adult Contemporary, book reviews, Brazillian Lit, International Fiction, Multiculturalism

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

A shepherd boy in Andalusia has a special connection with his sheep. As he reads to the sheep, something he learned in seminary school, he thinks about the world, the places and things he has always wanted to see. He senses it is all connected. When he begins dreaming of finding a treasure at the Great Pyramids in Egypt, he seeks the help of a dream interpreter. This Gypsy woman, along a mysterious man who calls himself the King of Salem encourage the boy to sell his sheep and discover his Personal Legend. ‘ It is the possibility of having dreams come true that makes life interesting.’ But what will the treasure be? How will a poor boy ever find it? The struggle is what following a dream to the end is all about.

After the boy has exchanged his sheep for money and arrived in Africa, he soon finds out there are many things he doesn’t understand about the world.  In fact, the lessons he learns on his journey to locate the treasure and his Personal Legend become part of the treasure themselves. Obtaining money for the first time, the boy believes he can never be lonely so long as he has it. Any rich lonely man, would argue the point- but the boy is naïve. Almost immediately he befriends a stranger who agrees to help him travel across the desert. He hands over the money, and it is stolen. Now, he is both poor and lonely.

Soon he meets a merchant who employs him at his crystal shop where the boy prospers  helping the merchant sell his wares and improve business. Both of them consider this a good omen, something the old King of Salem had told the boy to watch for. In order to buy his sheep back, the boy needed to work at the shop for nine months, where he was able to learn new languages and skills. One day the old man he worked for asks, ‘What is it you are looking for?’ It seems as though the open-ended instructions given to the boy are now being questioned by others to challenge the boy into asking himself: Is his life’s purpose to find what he seeks along the way? Is the treasure an entity or is it the journey?

There is never a moment in the novel that the reader stops asking the questions being posed to the shepherd boy. The reader very much takes on the role of the protagonist, attempting to solve the riddle with him. In the beginning, I believe the reader, and boy are tricked by the word usage of the author and the old king: ‘treasure.’ As the novel progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that treasure has nothing to do with monetary gain, or gold which people often times associate with the word. For example, the English alchemist who spends his time reading about the Philosopher’s Stone and Master Work in order to create the ‘Soul of the World’ is doing it for the wrong reasons-greed. Perhaps this is why, despite the fact that he thinks it is his calling, the Englishman has never been summoned or guided by the great Alchemist.

By following his dreams and listening to the omens, the shepherd arrives in the oasis where he finds another source of happiness-his true love. This time he feels he has found his treasure and needs to look no further.  But there is a reason he has been given the ability to see the Pyramids. The Alchemist whom the Englishman has searched for comes to the boy. If he stops his journey now, he will miss his true calling. Too often in life people give up after they have worked so hard. Fear makes it easy to give up, even when the end is near because the end is the test of everything you’ve learned along the way.

The Alchemist and the boy reach the Pyramids together only to be arrested. The Alchemist assures the guards the boy will prove they are harmless by transforming himself into the wind. The boy is stunned and thinks the man is no true alchemist after all. But the truth is that those practicing alchemy to produce gold only created conflict. Real alchemy is not about metal, but a connection, spirituality with nature-The Soul of the World. The boy has always had a special connection with his sheep and the desert. The Alchemist only has to show him this connection is inside of him- in his heart.

Had the boy stopped his journey after learning a few things, he would have lost out on his special gift. His Personal Legend. This makes a person think about the lessons they learn and the dreams they have now versus the ones they given up on much to frivolously. We all hear never give up, yet few of us follow through in striving for our dreams. Life gets in the way, and much like the boy we settle for the smaller things that arrive while we’re working for what we really wanted. The truth is the really successful people in life don’t ever stop working for what they want.

Final Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

For more information:

 

Paulo Coelho