Book Review: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - Chai Biscuit

"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it"

About the writer (Paulo Coelho):

Paulo Coelho, best known for Alchemist, was born on August 24, 1947 in Rio, Brazil. His work for awakening Spain started when he was just 38 years old. He started writing with The Pilgrimage, which was his very first book, his second book “Alchemist” got much success, 35 million copies were sold and he is the only living author whose book is translated the most in the world.

Alchemist:

Alchemist is an adventurous and motivational novel, based on a shepherd named Santiago from Spain, in a journey along with his sheep for the search of a girl he saw in Tarifa.

On the way he found a church and beside the church a Sycamore tree, he kept his sheep in the church and slept under the tree, while sleeping, he saw a big treasure under the pyramids of Egypt in his dream, he astonishingly woke up for watching the same dream many times.

In the curiosity of such strange dream, he found the lady, who interprets dreams, she agreed to interpret the dream only if Santiago shares one-tenth of the treasure with her as he finds, Santiago agreed and lady told him that the dream he sees is not common enough to ignore he must go Egypt to find his treasure.

On his journey for the treasure Santiago met an old man who introduced himself as the king of Salem named Melchizedek and advised Santiago to follow his heart whatever it says, the old man motivated him to sell his sheep and start the journey towards Egypt. 

Santiago listened to the old man and sold out his sheep in return of enough money to travel, firstly he travelled Africa by ship. As he reached Tangier, a city of Morocco, he lost all the money he had to the thieves, despite empty pocket Santiago did not give up and continued his mission.

Santiago met a crystal merchant and asked him to give him some food to eat and in return he would clean the crystals, the merchant agreed and Santiago cleaned all the crystals. 

The merchant liked his work and offered him a job at his shop, Santiago started working at the merchant’s shop and also gave him lots of new business ideas which ran Merchant’s business very well and he gave handsome amount of money to Santiago. 

Even after getting a job and working for a long time Santiago did not forget his mission and when he got to know that a caravan is going towards Egypt through the deserts he quitted the job, took his money and joined the caravan to move towards Egypt.

In that caravan Santiago met with an English man and became his friend, the English man was seeking for Alchemist who can turn lead into gold. 

Throughout the journey a rumor spreads among the caravan that there is a war going to happen or happening in the desert, for being safe people decided to stop at the Oasis (Al Fayoum) where Santiago met a beautiful girl whose name was Fatima, the girl gave them (Santiago and English man) the address of Alchemist. 

Santiago fell in love with Fatima and vice versa, they both decided to marry each other whereas the English man finally met with the Alchemist, he had been seeking for.

One day while walking on the desert Santiago saw a vision that the oasis, Al Fayoum, is going to be attacked by some people and immediately he informed the leader of the oasis. 

The chief prepared his people for the attack and warned Santiago that if the attack does not happen they would hang Santiago.

Coincidentally the men attacked next day but the people of oasis fought very well and won because they had been prepared before, the chief of the oasis became very happy on Santiago’s prediction he praised him and gave big amount of gold to Santiago and made Santiago the counselor of the oasis, after getting job and finding Fatima, Santiago got much happy and decided to marry Fatima soon and get settled with her. 

But Fatima motivated him to complete his mission first and fulfill his dream, she believes that true love cannot make anyone sacrifice his / her dream; she decided to wait for Santiago till he fulfills the dream and comes back.

Eventually Santiago and Alchemist met with each other and Alchemist joins Santiago to go with him for Egypt pyramids. 

They started their journey and on the way some robbers tried to rob the money from Santiago but Alchemist stopped them and introduced Santiago as a powerful magician who could turn himself into wind. 

The robbers did not believe and gave them 3 days if Santiago does not prove himself as magician they would kill both of them, Santiago got nervous and scared Alchemist motivated him to listen the sound what he could hear from the desert. 

Finally with power of the thoughts Santiago successfully turned himself into the wind and shocked the robbers, they both continued their journey and at a place they stopped where Alchemist turned lead into gold and gave to Santiago and said that now Santiago had to go to the pyramids alone.

Santiago took the gold and reached at the pyramids of Egypt, he started digging to find the treasure and suddenly some robbers came to snatch Santiago’s money and warned to kill him. 

Santiago requested them to stop and told them the reason why he had gone there, the robbers started laughing at him and one of them said with humor that he also saw the dream about a treasure in Spain beside the church under a Sycamore tree so should he really go there?

 After listening this Santiago realized that treasure is under the tree where he saw the dreams.

 Santiago went back to Spain and found the treasure there, as his promise, he gave 1/10^th of the treasure to the lady and came back to Fatima after completing his dream and mission.

This story gives the lesson that one must go on with the mission no matter what difficulties he faces as Santiago faced many hurdles but he continued his journey even when he met Fatima he didn’t stop there and went back to her after fulfilling his dream.

This is a worth reading book, one must read and get motivated.