These books are getting shorter and shorter, this one was about 100 pages long, excluding author notes and forwards and all that stuff that isn't actually part of the story.
The story itself was enjoyable, but the philosophy that made it up was a little hard to believe. The whole book was about a sheepherder boy who has a dream about a treasure in Egypt. A Gypsy tells him it is an omen and gets him to agree to pay her one tenth of the treasure if he finds it. He is then told by a mysterious man who calls himself a king about the spirit of the world and personal legends. The philosophy is that every person when they are young has a dream that is their "personal legend" and if they pursue it the universe will conspire to help them achieve it.
This view is strikingly similar to the view of optimism that was so thoroughly torn down in "Bright Sided." The view of optimism is that if you think positively the universe will send positive things your way. So if you were pursuing your personal legend the universe would send you what you needed so long as you were thinking about your goal.
That's what's said in the book anyway, after that the same concept repeats continuously until the boy finds his treasure, so there isn't much more to say about it. It'd be interesting if this whole philosophy were correct, because I remember my childhood fantasy was to be some sort of superhero who would fight evil in massive battles stretching across several dimensions (often including a dimension that was the home to one or more of the shows/movies I liked). Now that would be a tall order for the universe to fill, assuming the universe takes requests, which is doubtful, but hey if the universe wants to make me a god-like being I won't stop it.
Joking aside, there really isn't much more to say about this book, the story was good, the view interesting to a point, and that's about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment