I’ll go with the low-hanging fruit: Mein Kampf. I’ve read it, cover to cover. As a piece of propaganda, it’s good. As an example of good writing? Absolutely not (though I will admit I have only read it in translation). Oh, and the whole fascist, racist, and generally shitty worldview of the author that he infuses into the text. And the fact that the author is literally Hitler. You 5-star that book? You’re a Nazi. Period. And as a Jewish person, I don’t look too kindly on them.
The Alchemist for me is the book I recommend to people who don’t read much, it’s a great “introduction” novel to philosophical fiction as it’s easy to read and the message is nice, although glaringly obvious.
It’s good, but favorite book is a character tell
Intro to philosophical fiction is a good way to put it. Like, yes, it’s nice, and the message is pretty obvious. But it’s not necessarily supposed to be anything else but itself.
I hated it when I first read it (8th grade, Catholic school haha, so it fits), I found it probably one of the most healing things I’d ever read, but I read it a few years later after I’d experienced some shit, and I appreciated it more.
You kind of have to want a slower, more philosophical book, because otherwise it IS really boring. Most philosophy would be boring to someone looking for an action adventure or a passionate romance.
Is it my favorite novel? No. But I don’t hate it anymore. Someone’s favorite novel might give me pause, as I’d think they were too enlightened for me haha, whether in truth or just in their head!
I first read it in highschool and even then I could already register how thin it was, but at that point I was already reading writers like Terry Patchett, Neil Gaiman, and Ursula K. Le Guin so I guess I had been introduced to more clever writing. That semester we also read ‘The Solitaire Mystery’ by Jostein Gaarder and IMO that was a much stronger introduction to some of the same philosophical themes as The Alchemist.
I’d recommend it to a teenager absolutely, the comments seem a bit harsh. It’s not a bad book, just doesn’t really have much depth
The people who recommended this to me (I’m a teenager) are now the people whose book recommendations I ignore
Eh, I read it as a teenager (as a required for text for my 10th or 11th grade English class), and genuinely hated it. The philosophy is so demonstrably bullshit that it pissed me off. The idea that you can get literally anything you want just by working hard enough and wanting it bad enough is absolutely absurd.
The easiest counterexample of this is conflicting goals in equally working people, and that’s a frankly trivial counterexample that shouldn’t take anyone much time to come up with it. The much more relevant counterexample is that sometimes life isn’t fair and people get fucked over all the time by dumb luck. That was the extent of my thoughts then, and while I was an avid reader, I wasn’t exactly a savant or anything. That message getting spread to a bunch of rich white kids in a private school (myself included) didn’t do much to help my reception of it.
I’m a huge fan of philosophical fiction but have struggles finding actual quality novels in the category. Any recommendations? I’ve read The Alchemist (thought it was fine. Nothing groundbreaking but I found it pleasant), Shantaram (best book I’ve ever read), and Exhalation. (The stories were hit or miss for me)
I love the novels that work your brain just a little bit more than generic plots but I’m unsure how to actually find them.
My favorite is Zorba the Greek by Kazantzakis, you can also never go wrong with classics like East of Eden, Siddartha, anything by Dostoevsky