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By
Published: 2008
Category: Fiction [4]
Book sales can be as hard to verify as movie profits, but I have no trouble believing that “The Alchemist” has sold more than 30 million copies, been translated into more than 50 languages and published in more than 150 countries --- in short, I have no trouble believing that this is one of the world's most popular books.
What I do have trouble believing is that the American literary establishment, starting with The New York Times, has ignored Paulo Coelho's 165-page novel --- and every other book he's written. So unless you're a Coelho devotee or have had a Coelho fan press “The Alchemist” on you, you may never have heard of it or its author.
Once upon a time, I read The Celestine Prophecy [5], a New Age fable that delivered its “insights” in a preposterous story about a wisdom-driven trip to Peru. Later, I interviewed its author, a pleasant, well-meaning guy who, let us charitably say, had no future as a writer. So although I'd often seen people reading “The Alchemist”, I never thought to crack its pages --- I was sure it was another fable that a non-writer produced in order to “share” his hokey take on the New Age, or, worse, scatter pixie dust in the eyes of readers desperate for The Answer.
My bad.
Paulo Coelho can move a story. And instead of assaulting you with wisdom that never was and never will be, he delivers a message so close to your deepest hopes and dreams that even a snob would have trouble resisting it.
The story is simple. In an unnamed time, a Spanish shepherd named Santiago guides his sheep into an abandoned church for the night. There he has a puzzling dream: While he tends his sheep, a child appears and suddenly transports him to the pyramids of Egypt, where, he is told, he will find a hidden treasure --- but just before he finds it, he wakes up.
In an Andalusian town, a gypsy tells the young shepherd he's to travel to these pyramids, find the treasure and become a rich man. But Santiago is enthralled by the daughter of a local merchant; this isn't what he wants to hear. Then he meets a man who also seems to know about the hidden treasure. The man radiates light from his chest. And he leaves the boy puzzled about something he has called a “personal legend” --- and a “mysterious force” that conspires to keep people from realizing their own.
The boy is young, and his dreams are fresh --- he sells his sheep and sails for Africa. Is he naive? Does he make stupid mistakes? All of that, and more, for what is a destiny without a test?
All this is cloaked in a story that moves considerably faster than the camels that take the boy across the North African desert. Warriors appear, and a haunting young woman, and an alchemist, and there is blood and battle and a kind of magic. It's a hot, dusty, dangerous trip --- an Indiana Jones tale for the spiritual.
You already know some of the lessons. Dreams require courage. Love is the universal language. Live in the moment. What is less rarely said in a way that's not outright blither is that everyone has a treasure and a destiny --- and that it's worth any price:
“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.
"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams."
In a commercialized world, most messages tell us happiness is to be bought --- and bought again as soon as the new, improved model is available. “The Alchemist” tells us that getting and spending have nothing to do with our worth. Many self-books say this. Fiction is so much more potent.
Most of us go through life hoping that what we do has meaning; we'd be thrilled for someone who's not a charlatan or scammer to assure us that we have a purpose and our only real obligation in life is to realize our destiny. And we'd be on our knees if we really knew that there is a loving force working behind the scenes to support us in our personal quest.
Inspiration is a tricky commodity. Charlatans and scammers usually offer free samples, revealing the price when the suckers are hooked. Coelho is something else entirely: a Brazilian rebel whose parents put him in a mental hospital for having the wrong career dreams, a songwriter and activist, a pilgrim who has literally made pilgrimages. He thinks about a book for years, writes it in less than a month, then revises.
Coelho's checkered life path --- his hippie youth and esoteric reading, personal rebellion and a deep sense of mission --- give his writing the kind of power we don't often see in fiction. Troubled soul that I am, I fought “The Alchemist” on every page. But I couldn't put it down.
To buy the paperback edition of “The Alchemist” from Amazon.com, click here. [6]
To buy the Kindle edition, click here. [7]
To buy the audiobook of “The Alchemist” from Amazon.com, click here. [8]
To buy “Eleven Minutes” from Amazon.com, click here. [9]
To buy “Warrior of the Light: A Manual” from Amazon.com, click here. [10]
To buy “The Pilgrimage” from Amazon.com, click here. [11]
To buy “Life: Selected Quotations” from Amazon.com, click here. [12]
To visit Paulo Coelho's web site, click here. [13]