Books like The Alchemist

Surprise! I didn't expect to be able to give The Alchemist a rating above one star, as I didn't know that there was an exquisite alternative version, a prequel so to say, written several centuries before the rubbish novel, in 1610, showing the reverse development of human intelligence and wit from then until the arrival of Coelho, when sheepish worship of empty words and stupid comparisons became popular. The omens however are provided (much to my disturbance) in the earlier text already, for in the initial dialogue of Benson's play I read:"Oh, let the wild sheep loose!"How did he know? He is a wise man, that Ben Jonson, and addresses his audience as follows:"Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hoursWe wish away, both for your sake and ours, Judging spectators; and desire in placeTo the author justice, to ourselves but grace.Our scene is London, 'cause we would make knownNo country's mirth is better than our own."Fortune that favours fools let the whole universe conspire to make this spectacularly funny play remain almost unread while one fool of our times wrote another Alchemist to let the wild sheep enthusiastically loose on it.Jonson also prematurely explains some rather bizarre developments in the world in the doomsday-like year of 2016 with this simple acknowledgement of human character:"I speak not this out of a hope to do good on any man against his will, for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages, because the most favour common errors!"If this is not enough to make you want to read the real Alchemist, let me tell you that it is full of old-fashioned English indecencies. It actually made me blush to look up some of them in the dictionary. And, as icing on the cake, it contains an introductory argument in the form of an acrostic poem.THEALCHEMISTill it, and they, and all in fume are gone.What happens before that, you will have to find out for yourselves, because I actually, unbelievably, truly, really, without sarcasm, sheepishly, somewhat surprisedly, recommend you to read : THE ALCHEMIST! It is a good medicine against the other one!