That strives Santiago to restart his journey, he joins a caravan which travels across the desert. But soon he learns all the tricks and makes the merchant’s business successful.ĭays run, at one-point Santiago realizes that he’s just getting comfortable with things as they are, instead of pursuing his personal legend. Broken Santiago finds a job with a crystal merchant – just to get some money to go back to his home. Santiago also sells his sheep and sets off journey towards the desert.īut unfortunately, on the very first day in the new country, a clever thief robs Santiago. One day, he meets Melchizedek – king of a distant land, who encourages Santiago to chase his dream and treasure. Soon things change… he gets a repeated dream of a great treasure, hidden under the Egyptian Pyramids. ![]() He has no big desires in life – all he wants is to be free to roam with his sheep, little wine and a book in his bag. The Alchemist Paulo Coelho SummaryĪt the onset of the Alchemist, we meet Santiago – a simple shepherd who lives in Andalusia, a small village in Spain. ![]() The novel skillfully combines words of wisdom, philosophy, and simplicity of meaning and language, which makes it particularly readable and accounts for its bestselling status.Įveryone who is such a seeker should read this optimistic book of one who seems to have succeeded in the process of turning a potentially base life into a golden achievement, a true alchemist’s conversion. “ The Alchemist” is a novel that may appeal to everybody, because we can all identify with Santiago: all of us have dreams, and are dying for somebody to tell us that they may come true. “ I love you because the whole universe conspired for me to come close to you.” The subject of love inspires a beautiful lyricism in Coelho’s writing: As Coelho explains, when we love, we always try to improve ourselves, and that’s when everything is possible. In the desert, Santiago meets his “twin-soul” and discovers that love is the core of existence and creation. Austen in “ Mansfield Park“, and Shakespeare in “ King Lear“. The “wilderness” is a symbol that has been used by many great writers e.g. It is also symbolic that Santiago finds his soul-mate, and the secrets of wisdom in the wilderness of the desert. This is where Coelho really captures the drama of man, who sacrifices fulfillment to conformity, who knows he can achieve greatness but denies to do so, and ends up living a life of void. As the old crystal-seller tragically confesses: “ I am afraid that great disappointment awaits me, and so I prefer to dream”. Fear of failure seems to be the greatest obstacle to happiness. Perhaps this is the secret of Coelho’s success: that he tells people what they want to hear, or rather that he tells them that what they wish for but never thought possible could even be probable.Ĭoelho also suggests that those who do not have the courage to follow their “Personal Myth”, are doomed to a life of emptiness, misery, and unfulfillment. And isn’t it true that the whole of humankind desperately wants to believe the old king when he says that the greatest lie in the world is that at some point we lose the ability to control our lives, and become the pawns of fate. This is the core of the novel’s philosophy and a motif that echoes behind Coelho’s writing all through “ The Alchemist“. That may sound like an oversimplified version of new-age philosophy and mysticism, but as Coelho states “simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them”.Īs the alchemist himself says, when he appears to Santiago in the form of an old king “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true”. ![]() “ The Alchemist“, is an exciting novel that bursts with optimism it is the kind of novel that tells you that everything is possible as long as you really want it to happen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |