The Englishman

Discuss the September 2014 book of the month, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
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Cee-Jay Aurinko
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The Englishman

Post by Cee-Jay Aurinko »

The Englishman travels many miles to find the alchemist, so that he may finally understand how to transform lead into gold, only to have the alchemist tell him: Go and try. In light of this, The Englishman reacts rather positively, by deciding to go and do it. If you were the Englishman, what would your reaction have been?
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Post by iekelek23 »

My first reaction would have been discouragement, followed by despair. After a period of sadness, I would have realized the alchemist was right. I am at a point in my life where I both really, really want to achieve my goals, and am afraid that I never will--or that it might be better to just leave them as dreams rather than try to make them real.
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Post by Cee-Jay Aurinko »

* iekelek23

Whatever you do, don't do that. I've been there a thousand times, and I'm still trying to become who I know I'm supposed to be. I have a lot of odds stacked up against me, but my dreams, I tell myself, are bigger than every one of them.
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Post by Insightsintobooks »

I think I would have asked further questions in order to find out how.
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Post by Naval Aulakh »

My first response would have been demoralization. But after sometime, I would have understood that the chemist was correct. It happens sometimes.
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Post by Insightsintobooks729 »

I would have pondered the alchemists words and questioned his meaning.
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Post by garima597 »

I have also reacted postively because it will be my step further towards my legend.Sometimes we have to go through specific events before which we can find our legend.
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Post by Rafaella Michailidou »

Maybe I would gain the confidence I needed to believe I can do anything. Sometimes you just need to hear you are capable and important and capable of anything by someone you admire and think he is wise. Maybe, in the end, that's all we need, someone to believe in us so we can believe in ourselves.
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Post by sush_destiny »

The alchemist was right. Coincidentally, I am at a point in my life where I want to achieve my goals, but am afraid that I never will or that it might be better to just leave them as dreams rather than try to make them real.
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Post by firstlook »

I'd have gone and tried as the alchemist has done. You don't know until you try. In hindsight, we all know it's impossible to turn lead into gold because nobody has been able to do so in history.
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Post by rumik »

I guess I'd have been pretty frustrated initially, maybe beat myself up a bit over how simple the solution is. But eventually I'd come round and try.
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Post by Kishor Rao »

It is only human to feel discouraged and detached when you put in so much efforts to achieve something and the result turns out to be much less than you ever expected. I think I would have flipped out if I was in the place of the Englishman.
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Post by Giga51087 »

The englishman was a parabole. An image of the eternal fear of the mankind for pasing from the theory to the practice. Beacuse in theory its all perfect but in practice we will come in from of our logic failures. We will noctice it or not. But until the tings in the end work or not it will be in the hands of the laws of the universe.
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Post by Leyla Ann »

It's a bummer that there weren't much scenes including the English man. I feel like he was disregarded a little too much.
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Post by Liz Alice »

I'd probably be disappointed at first for receiving such a vague answer when I had been expecting a definite answer. But eventually I'd think about its meaning and give it a try.
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