So I wanted to say some things about The Alchemist, which is the book which some of the tenth graders are reading in my school, and which was a book, originally in Spanish, recommended to me some 5 years ago, back when I was in high school myself. And suddenly 5 years seems like no time at all.

The book, a self-described fable of finding your life's purpose, is dangerous in many ways. Well, it is amazing how little physical suffering--thirst and hunger, etc--there actually is in the book, and the whole thing smacks of some sort of generalized, externalized everyman deal. But it's a veyr man-centered book: women have their place, and men seek their destinies, which is very strange, and of course there's this monism thing, which is dangerous and teleological: that we each have a "Personal Legend" to fulfill and we mustn't get sidetracked by materialist lures along the way. Of course, I am wary of this as it is religious in tone, and whiel I see the motivation in teaching this to students, it's a dangerous text in some ways, as this notion of coherence and synchronicity and fate and all that is tough to explain: as if will were all that is necessary, as if the only mission is self-fulfillment: I dont' know how to articulate my unease at the message, or perhaps just at the fact that there is a message. The book is also segmented and is inconsistent in terms of point of view, which I find effective. But there are also bits about the Arabs which are very European-stemming, and I am troubled by the difficulties of teaching this text--I don't know... it might seem a bit unreal, a bit cheesy, and a bit too wilfull. And the troubling thing is to imagine how I might have felt about this before my current tack, say, 5 years ago. But yeah.. those damn desert-dwelling Arabs... Sigh... Are we just going in circles now? Hrmph... I wish I could enjoy books more innocently.