I tend to regard the motives of figures like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett as sinister. It’s not because I am overtly protective of religious institutions. In fact, this feeling extends itself to national television preachers who claim they have the right interpretation of the Bible. Religion, at the personal level, forms the basis of an entire world view and to convince someone they should give up their own is as ridiculous, and futile, as a Spartan appearing from the past and trying to convince a parent to leave their sickly child to die.
It is with some trepidation, then, that I approach this “take down” of Coelho. After all, millions of people have read his books. Many more find inspiration in his quotes. His six million twitter followers feel that he can dish out wisdom in under 140 characters. This then, is not an attack on his unimpressive literary output but in his message. This is because I’m convinced that types like Coelho are a malicious influence on the soul and overall personal development. They take many forms. Some of them write novels, other self-help books; a few host television shows and others are athletes or partake in some other form of entertainment, but they all say “Hey I achieved success by having faith in myself, and if you have faith in yourself, faith that you will possess from acquiring my product, you can achieve anything you want too!”
These people are quotable, and as someone who at one time relied on quotes to find solace or inspiration, I think I’m well-equipped to comment on their effect. To begin with they’re ephemeral. Moreover they’re untrue. It is a well-establish fact that every truism can be reversed (or negated) and still ring true. But worst of all they cater to the trappings of our own personal logic. This is problematic because in moments when life isn’t going out the way we planned it to, it’s necessary to view things in a different light. Quotes give you the impression that you’re doing this, while in fact they ‘re only reinforcing this mental state you’re in, which obviously hasn’t worked, if not you would be happy to begin with and would not need a quote.
If high literature forces you to reexamine your life, it does so not by showing you a linear narrative of how to live it. Instead, it specifically details just how difficult life can be to figure out, but in doing so it gives you a language with which to examine it. Finding out the right way to live is a hard task that requires asking the right questions. Great novels give you the words to ask the right question, but they do not try to answer it for you. The only thing Coelho tries to do is give you the answer to life in a string of borrowed phrases.
todefyaugury 