Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.

Paulo Coelho’s novel, The Alchemist is widely known to be an international bestseller. It tells the story of a young shepherd named Santiago traveling across northern Africa - from Southern Spain to the Pyramids in Egypt - in search of hidden treasure. This coming-of-age novel is built on the key theme of destiny which the book calls Personal Legends. While I found it to be a very inspiring and at times an empowering read, I do think it is overrated for being one of the top ten most sold books in the world.

Some parts read like a self-help book, at other times; a novel that couldn’t make up its mind about being a pure fantasy or spiritual sci-fi. Like it wanted to stay grounded to reality, as well as justify a character’s actions just because they saw an omen, had a vision, or understood “the soul of the world.”

But once you ignore their loose logical reasoning and just accept their actions, the novel can be inspiring. I often found myself drawing motivation from the novel to push myself through difficult decisions, whether it’s reading a difficult research paper or making an expensive purchase that I know is beneficial for my career.

“If I don’t find it, I can always go home. I finally have enough money, and all the time I need. Why not? He suddenly felt tremendously happy. He could always go back to being a shepherd. He could always become a crystal salesman again.” I doubt this paragraph is very popular, but to me, it’s my favorite. I’ve always struggled to take risk, mostly because I’m afraid of losing what I have. Early in the novel, Santiago gets robbed in Tangier and has to work at a crystal shop to make enough money to travel across Africa. At the start of his stint at the shop, he is set on making enough cash to find his treasure, but over the course of a year. He starts to lose sight of why he was working in the crystal merchant’s shop in the first place. He earns a lot of money and contemplates going back to Spain since he would be able to live very wealthily with the amount he’s earned. This paragraph is a turning point where he realizes he should continue his journey toward his treasure even if the road is uncertain. He realizes he can always go back to what he was doing before and that traveling forward does not mean you lose what’s behind. I love this gentle reminder and I’ve since then found myself thinking back to this paragraph when I need to do something I know is right, but is still really difficult.

If you ignore grounded logic and open your mind to being inspired, The Alchemist is a great one to pick up.

References

Coelho, P. (2015) The alchemist. London, England: Thorsons.

Marcus, A.M. (2015) Children’s book: The elephant and the rope: Children’s picture book on perseverance. North Charleston, SC: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.