A shepherd. A quest for treasure. And a wise, all-powerful alchemist, guiding him along the way.
“The Alchemist,” Brazilian author Paulo Coehlo’s magical allegorical tale, has enchanted readers since it was first published in 1988 – around the time many of us were born.
Somehow, Coehlo manages to tell a simple tale that taps into the core of many of life’s universal themes: daring to dream, choosing to follow that dream, and never giving up.
One quick read has the potential to serve as a loose roadmap for life, if the reader so chooses.
The story begins with Santiago, a boy who left his hometown to become a shepherd so he could travel the world. He has a recurring dream of finding treasure, and with the help of those he encounters in his travels, finds a way of making his dream a reality.
Coehlo writes in wonderfully elegant prose. Each word on the page is magical.
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it,” says a mysterious stranger to Santiago, spurring him on in the search for his treasure.
Inner strength and belief when faced with the fear of failure appear again and again in thenovel. It is better to take huge risks in hope of accomplishing something meaningful and failing miserably than trying to remain content with an unsatisfying life, Coehlo’s guides tell Santiago. To truly live, one must embrace the twists and turns of life with open arms, using the opportunities that materialize as a means of achieving one’s desires. And always, always be true to that desire.
Coehlo was inspired by his own experiences traveling the ancient road of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The road had long been used as a path for Crusade-era pilgrims, and Coehlo used his journey as a means of soul searching. It was there that he found the courage to live out his childhood dream and become a writer, as chronicled another book of his, “The Pilgrimage”. When read in conjunction with “The Alchemist”, Coehlo’s arguments seem all the more convincing.
“There is a language in the world that everyone understands,” says Coehlo’s alchemist to Santiago. “It is the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as a part of a search for something believed in and desired."
Although he’s written more than 22 pieces of work since, including New York Times Bestsellers “The Witch of Portobello", “The Devil and Miss Prym", and “By the River Piedra I sat Down and Wept”, he will always be best known for the power of his first novel.
The beauty “The Alchemist” is its ability to capture the magnificence of life within the shepherd boy and his simple quest. Because, after all, we’re all on the quest to find our own goal, something we can work for with our individual talents. In the end, nobody’s very different from Santiago. And if he can find treasure, so can we.
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