BOOK 227: THE ALCHEMIST: PAULO COELHO
BOOK 227: THE ALCHEMIST: PAULO COELHO
Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom, and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.
Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, following our dreams.
(From Goodreads)
TRIVIA: Coelho wrote The Alchemist in only two weeks in 1987. He explained that he was able to write at this pace because the story was "already written in [his] soul."
The plot of the novel builds on the international folktale type classified as no. 1645 ("The Treasure at Home") in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of folktales: "A man dreams that if he goes to a distant city he will find treasure on a certain bridge. Finding no treasure, he tells his dream to a man who says that he too has dreamed of treasure at certain place. He describes the place, which is the first man's home. When the latter returns home he finds the treasure." The earliest known version of this tale type is a poem by the 13th century Persian poet Rumi and a variant of the tale appears in the One Thousand and One Nights collection of Arabic folktales.
Coelho writes that eight months after the rerelease of The Alchemist, an American tourist found the book and wanted to help him find an American publisher for an English translation. HarperCollins took on the project, and Coelho would later credit the 1993 release of the English version with catapulting the novel to new heights. As he told The New York Times in 1999, “To have a book published in more than 119 countries, you need to have a language that can be read in Thailand or Lithuania. Translation into English made it possible for other editors to read me.”
MY VERDICT: I enjoyed this book, it was very quick and easy to read. It felt very old fashioned in it’s style, like the kind of story that would be told through tradition rather than read in a book. I didn’t find it life changing, as some people have claimed, but I did feel like I gained something from reading it.
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