Review: The Alchemist

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Destiny.

Every living being has a destiny.

If you look at it this way, you’ll realize that, even something which is regarded as non-living, has a destiny. Too.

Isn’t a discarded plastic bottle too, merely a flunkey poodle moppeted by the wind and by the sun and the rain and all? Doesn’t it flips and flurries at the orders of life, too?

For the plastic bottle, it is the wind and the sun and the rain who governs and leads its destiny. Who governs the throne of the palace of choice in the kingdom of ‘your’ unique destiny?

What would you do if you were presented with an opportunity to venture on a journey of treasure discovery, provided that, on the way you’d require to give up everything that you might have accummulated ever since, and to lose all that, that you have?

Would you proceed and take a step further to dig through to discover the treasure, or would you back off, thinking of the dreadful consequence that you might lose everything you currently possess and not even discover the treasure in the end?

Well, if you are considerably sensible and sane, then you’d choose to back off, most probably.

However, if you are slightly insane, then you’d probably consider the possibility of having to give up in the end, and still choose to go for the treasure. Because, probably, you’re the kind of a creature who cares more about the things like whether your heart is pulsating in a blissful dance of heartbeats, or whether every pore of your body is swooshing, springing with utter playfulness, or whether your breath is hopping in a cosmic disco swing, or whether your belly roars with the firework of the sun, or whether your eyes are twinkling and sparkling like an ocean of stars in the dark dark sky. And all.

Things like that.

Or the thing could be, that, even if there is no such thing as sane or insane, then probably you are the kind of creature who feels repetitively pulled towards a destiny from which you see no escape.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who was one of this kind and who found himself amidst such a dreamlike scenario.

His name was Santiago.

‘The Alchemist’ is a fable chronichling a fragment of Santiago’s lifetime, whereupon, he navigates on an uncertain adventure of discovering a treasure, which, he is told, is his destiny.

If I was asked for one adjective to describe my review of this book, then the first word that will appear in my head, would be ‘heart’.

Well, syntactically, a heart is no clear adjective. It isn’t even an adjective in the first place. But if you’d ask me, then I’d still say that the first thing that I feel upon reading this book, is ‘heart’.

I have read this book multiple times in the past, but each time I’ve read it, none of these times have I felt even a bit distracted or fallen off from what’s going on inside the fable. Its too immersive, especially for someone who can feel or have ever felt, that there is something inside them as expansive as infinity, where everything is held together in connectedness. ‘The Soul of the World’, to speak in the language of the book.

Well.

Santiago, who is a shepherd, sells his most-prized flock of sheep in exchange of a pouch of gold coins, to go on in search of the treasure that he is to discover in the Pyramids of Egypt.

Through the span of his journey, he comes across a salmagundi of omens which guide him into a domino of galvanizing experiences.

While a palm-reading woman interprets his recurring dream and initates his discovery for the treasure, a king inspires and ignites his initiation with his wisdom.

Its no saying that the boy has to abandon his old shepherd life and all of his possessions in order to step forth on this journey – a journey which is plonked with bursts of shocks that, at times, cause him to want to pull back into the old as he finds himself getting reminded of his pleasant past life as a shepherd.

Especially in the fable, there is a moment when the boy finds himself discarded in the middle of a crowded Moroccan plaza in Tangier, robbed of all of his gold coins, by a man who had turned out to be a thief in disguise.

Nevertheless, ultimately, the force of destiny reveals itself to be of greater in magnitude than the pull of the past. Soon enough, he comes across a shop where crystals are sold.

The shop is located on a high hilltop.

The crystals are dusty and not many customers are in the view.

And so, the boy asks the shopkeeper to let him clean the dusty crystal pieces in exchange of some food and money.

In a matter of just a few months of his employment in the shop, he not only ends up earning a good sum of money but also positively impacting the shopkeeper’s crystal business too.

Led by the life’s language of omens, the boy finally joins a caravan which will take him to and through the desert, required to be crossed for reaching the Pyramids.

Riding on their respective camelbacks through the captivating desertscapes, they pass through a panoramic chasm of vast sun-baked plains, enveloping winds & engulfing silences. The two characters, that is, one of the Englishman and the other of the camel-driver, hold companions to the boy, throughout their journey in the first half of the desert.

Withal, my most favourite character from the book, personally, is and will always be of the charming dark man who is ‘the alchemist’ in the story. This particular character presented in the book represents to me the archetypal voice emanating from the darkest depths of our mind; a voice which is full of power, intuition, all-knowingness and possessing fundamental gold of wisdom.

In fact, I find myself attracted to the character of the alchemist even more than the character of the protagonist boy, to tell the truth.

The boy meets the alchemist in an unexpected scenario while he’s watching stars shimmering in the clear sky of the desert, and thinking about the woman he loves & intends to marry. Picking the boy’s throat at the tip of his sword, the alchemist at first tests the boy’s character and courage. Thereupon, invites him on a feast dinner of roasted hawks and red wine.

And then, there is no looking back for the boy.

The character of the alchemist also represents a metaphor of the quality of ruthless non-attachment. When the boy expresses his interest in learning how to transform lead into gold, the alchemist tells him that alchemy is his destiny and not the boy’s; and that, the boy must venture on his own unique path.

If you only understand what I’m trying to tell here, the alchemist sees the world from a point of view of clear reality.

Also, while initially, this alchemist leads the way for the shepherd boy in a desertland which is full of dangers at every gallop of their horse, in the end, he discards the boy in a valley where he must learn to fight for himself. Else, die.

The boy must turn himself into the wind or get slaughtered by the community of desertmen who have captured them.

But what boy can turn himself into wind?

That’s the thing about the book, I should say.

Your intellectual mind won’t be able to grasp it as much as your heart will be able to feel it.

The entire fable, all of its characters, as well as each moment presented in it, is a fabulous gem-dripping soul-thumping metaphor that you’d want to pack in your backpack and carry with you in the unforeseeable field of your next life moment.

Super-entertaining, awe-inspiring, dreamily fantasical yet deeply spiritual, philosophically introspective and beautifully emotional…

I’ve read several books by Paulo Coelho but by far, this fable is my favourite. The Alchemist isn’t only a rich chimera of emblematic gold nuggets of wisdom, but also a pirouette of several peregrinations through the tapestry of our very soul.

I am in tremendous love with this book!

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