The Alchemist

Reviewer's Bookwatch, March, 2005 by Pogo

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

Thorsons

an imprnt of HarperCollins: London

0722532938 177 pp.

0060834838 $14.93 256 pp. large print edition

If dreams were candy, we would eat the sweet ones and hide the others where others could stumble over them, forgotten in an overgrown graveyard.

"The boy's name was Santiago. Dusk was falling as the boy arrived with his herd at an abandoned church. The roof had fallen in long ago, and an enormous sycamore had grown on the spot where the sacristy once stood." (p3)

The neutron bomb came from the invisible atom..The sanctimonious moralist goes about spouting aphorisms, "From the tiny acorn comes the mighty oak." Bookstore and grocery shelves alike hold inspirational literature that is meant to uplift you with the "aha" moment of sudden insight and spiritual revelation. Paul Coehlo belongs outside the clutter of oozing inspirational literature where the saint is found up to the elbows in the washtub, still scrubbing away with the corrugated scrub-board with Grandpa's red winter flannels. The Alchemist belongs with a small collection of literature that includes Tagore's Gitanjali and Gibran's Prophet. Ageless, it will withstand many years of reading and re-reading during the nights of anxiety and disillusion when the frozen pipes explode and the mortgage threatens to squash the house.

The story line is geometrically simple. So simple that I could get it right on a practice SAT exam and turn the page without a bead of sweat. Draw a line from A to B and then from B to C, and then from... What kind of book is that? Without subplots and the cast of thousands to be modified for a television series or at least one bad movie?

Why must all books be venues for bad movies or Hollywood extravaganzas with animation and actors so mixed that reality and illusion become impossible to differentiate? Consider it a jewel--an opal. Smooth, round, luminous, cool, yet whenever you turn it, appearances change as it breathes fire to incite life. Such is the Alchemist, a person who can change appearances more easily than the legendary Chameleon and genie of the desert.

Santiago explains simply if he were to write a book, he would introduce the characters one at a time so that the reader wouldn't get confused. Accordingly, new faces enter sequentially as Santiago leaves his beloved Andulasian homeland to travel across the strait to enter a different world. His first impression of the inhabitants of Tangiers smoking enormous pipes is a "practice of the infidels." Santiago sees the world in reflection of his own prejudices and preconceived stereotypes, but as he progresses on his path toward his destiny, he discovers that reality is different. Chagrinned with being scammed, he recognizes his willingness for self-deception, "I'm like everyone else--I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does." (p 42)

Through experience, with encountering his projected stereotypes Santiago learns to see through the superficiality of his environment and listen to the Soul of the World. In his encounter with Melchizedek, he learns that people ae aware early in their lives their reason for being, but it might also be the reason why they give up so easily. A dream without application is only a fantasy. People are afraid to dream as they are afraid to fulfil their destinies, inhibited by the anxiety of failure or that they are not worthy of their aspirations. Only through pursuit of a dream, can it be realized, but when a person refuses to acknowledge the dream it dies within him like a discarded flower.

Poetic, lyrical, Paulo Coehlo takes the reader on a journey of the soul, confronting the evil genies within. Filled with soft irony and dry humor that fizzes like champagne, tickling the heart, the reader becomes immersed with the struggles of Santiago to get from Andulasia to the Egyptian Pyramids. On his path, he meets the ubiquitous Englishman of the desert in search of the Alchemist. Being mildly practical, the Englishman packs around with him a library of ancient books to make the simple complicated and have encyclopedic knowledge of his subject. Being a seminarian turned shepherd, Santiago is only slightly interested, but far more aware of his environment, learning to listen in the language of the universe. Ironically, for a seminarian, Santiago has no recollection of an ancient named Melchizedek, revealing the immense gap between the Catholic and Jewish faiths, and exposes even greater ignorance when confronted with his Islamic brothers. However, he learns.

In a world troubled by national and religious bitterness, Paulo Coehlo's Alchemist is a refreshing study of faith and destiny. Through hardship, Santiago learns to discard the stereotypes of his childhood as well as his prejudices. He comes to recognize that courage is not only protecting the sheep from their predators, but confronting the unknown and allow it to wsh over him, trusting in the mysterious forces of the Soul of the Universe and the Principle of Favorability. The ubiquitous Englishman carries a gun because it helps him trust in men, and he seeks the mentorship of the alchemist to learn the secret of turning lead into gold. Unarmed, Santiago comes to understand that each thing has its own value and place in the universe and that each person is as important as the next one in shaping destiny. Definitely a parable of our time, the Alchemist considers the conflicts of human relations among the three great faiths within in the context of fantasy.