Read this one on a plane from Hobart to Canberra. It was simple and easy enough to get into, but it was basically one long sermon thinly disguised as an adventure undertaken by a young shepherd, Santiago, on a pilgrimage from Spain to Egypt to find his "Personal Legend" - the one thing each person wants to accomplish in life.
The prose itself is sparse, which meant it didn't get in the way of the central message of the book. By about halfway however, I was well sick of repetitive themes, and in particular the phrase Personal Legend. This may be an artifact of the translation process, as the book was originally written in Portuguese.
Character development wasn't a great part of the mechanics of this story either, and I did find the beginning and middle parts fairly hum ho. What saved this book from becoming a complete waste of time was the ending, specifically when Santiago speaks the Language of The World to the desert, the wind and the sun. This may have appealed to my fantasy-genre sensibilities but it did tie the allegory together quite nicely.
I'm still not entirely sure if I would give this book the thumbs up or down. I think it's major appeal so far has been its accessibility to people who don't normally read, as it's quite short and easy to read. I'll definitely be interested to watch the movie, with Lawrence Fishburne cast as the eponymous character. I wouldn't however, rave over this book like a lot of others have done.
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