False Azure

I recently faced a flight out of a small airport while ill and with no unread book to make the minutes speed up. The airport bookshop was disappointingly stocked, and I struggled to find anything that wouldn't instill in me such an urgent desire to throw it through a window as to make me constitute a security hazard. In the end, I picked up The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho, despite the clear warnings from celebrities on the cover and introduction, claiming the book had changed their lives.

I should have heeded the warnings.

The book seemed to me to be childish rather than direct, irritatingly shallow in its message and based on a deeply unpleasant view of the way the universe works. Only someone who believes human beings are the most important creatures in existence could possibly find this book attractive.

At least it was short. And made the free newspaper given out by the air hostess seem a more engaging proposition.

I'm now in the middle of reading Gormenghast for the first time and, unsually for me, I'm taking it very slowly so that I don't miss a thing. It's the perfect antidote to The Alchemist. Thank goodness for books with murky underbellies and disturbing half-glimpsed undercurrents and great blinding flashes of glory.