The Alchemist

Some people live for their lives in relative comfort and conformity. They soon forget that they too had dreams, and their lives become controlled by fate. But there are a few who follow their dreams to the bitter ends with courage and conviction. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a modern fable about realizing your dreams. It tells the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy who ventures out across unforgiving sands of the Sahara in search of the treasure that appears to him in his dreams. The boy is adventurous by nature and has opted to be a shepherd to see the world. In a recurring dream, he sees a treasure somewhere near a pyramid. He meets a gypsie woman, an interpreter of dreams, and she confirms that there indeed is a treasure near the pyramid. An old king speaks to him about the soul of the world and that “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”.

The book can be read at multiple levels. Each reader would extract his or her own meanings from the story. At one end of the spectrum, it can be an adventure story peppered with some nice-looking philosophy. Or, at the other end, it can be a self-help book in the disguise of a novel. But to me, it was neither. It tells the reader some simple things that make you look at life in a new manner.  

Paulo Coelho

I am not superstitious, and the book is full of superstition, if you take the events literally. But if you can go beyond the obvious, and look for inner meanings of the events and more than that, the dialogues, the book can be a revelation. The adventures the boy encounters on his way to the treasure can be read as an allegory. An allegory of how one can take on life in a creative manner.

I must make one confession. I had tried to read this book once and abandoned it after a few pages. I think I acted naively. But what brought me back to the book was an overheard conversation. A visually challenged girl in her twenties was speaking with her boy friend in a restaurant. I was seated nearby. Being a writer, l compulsively and unashamedly listen in on other people’s conversations. This one was about how she overcame some very difficult situations in her life, as a visually challenged person. And she said, “My life was littered with obstacles, just like The Alchemist”. That actually aroused my curiosity and I began reading the book that day itself. And I was rewarded well for “following the omens”, I would say.