The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
A hero’s journey for our time, this book resonates as the ultimate coming of age story. It held me spellbound and because I couldn’t put it down, I actually elected to read it while running on the treadmill instead of going with an easily digestible episode of Dr. Who or a Mexican soap opera.
That’s commitment for me. Treadmill reading isn’t easy.
Even the book’s publication story is compelling: In its first launch, it was not a commercial success. The author’s commitment to the book and his conviction that this is truly something that readers want and need was part of what attracted me to it; for this is the living spirit of the hero in his book.
The story is of Santiago, a sheepherder boy who notes the herd/follower mentality of his sheep; which is a worthwhile allegory for a human experience in its pre-awakened state. He realizes one day of his sheep, “They trust me, and they’ve forgotten how to rely on their own instincts….” This is Santiago’s burgeoning awareness that there’s something to which he’s instinctually being called to do.
Following a dream of buried treasure in Egypt, Santiago experiences a journey of transformation as he encounters people whose lives we see all around us: the sage Melchizedek whose message Santiago almost misses in becoming too irritated to listen, the shopkeeper who has a dream of going to Mecca that he’ll never fulfill (the person who doesn’t take risks to break free), the Englishman who’s become so invested in pursuing the intellectual qualities of spiritual alchemy that he misses the opportunity to truly transform (the academic who lacks real wisdom).
Santiago experiences plenty of hard knocks. Rather than turning around and going home, which many would do, or going down a road of self-pity and convincing himself that this is all there is for his story, Santiago chooses to learn from the experiences: “…he realized that he had to choose between thinking of himself as a the poor victim…and an adventurer.”
Santiago’s is the story for all of us in our choosing of perception, our commitment to a path that we know is right even if people around us don’t understand it or say it’s wrong.
The book’s theme: “…when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” becomes Santiago’s living experience as he undertakes the journey. He does so humbly, learning through the experiences and slowly undergoing an alchemy of the soul.
This book did it for me.
