"The alchemist" By Poehlo Coehlo. Every one, and his sister, list it as his favorite book. And it is not a bad book per se. But, in the 351 night of the Arabian Nights translated in 1700, there is this story of a man dreaming of a treasure in Cairo Then around 1940 J.L. Borges wrote about his love of the Arabian nights. And with a profusion of excuse about how inferior his version is, he present his short story "the Two dreamers". His retelling of the 351th night is way better than the original. It's exotic, fun in its twist, and any sense of spirituality is lighthearted. On the contrary the retelling of Coehlo is pretty much a power fantasy for spiritual person... this blogger seems as angry as me, and he make more sense on how bad the book is. And coehlo never acknowledged his stealing. Funny how writing about spirituality and wholeness, Coehlo stole the good idea from an old tall and made money out of it. He is a scam
I agree that it's fairly shallow, but that review seems doubly so: he's complaining that something written as a fable is writteen as a fable. He frankly seems to be going out of his way to find things to criticize; the allegations of sexism ring particularly contrived. I get that as a spiritual message it's pretty empty, but criticism shouldn't mirror that IMO.