The Alchemist

I really like this book! It was like a breath of fresh air for me after reading all those business books. The story was pretty good and it was so inspiring. I will recommend it to everyone!

Thanks to little bro Adam for the copy, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I think maybe I have a small hang up with a book being so overtly religious while also simultaneously being aimed at children, but in this case I think I can overlook it since the ultimate message of the book is some good old agnostic wisdom (at least by my reckoning).

We follow Santiago, a young and educated Shepard boy who tends his flock all over Andalusia in the south of Spain. After successive dreams that hint at treasure in far off Egypt, Santiago is whisked along by the machinations of fate on a journey to fulfill his personal legend. I think some people may have read this book in class, so I can understand if there's a small cloud of scholastic taint around this book. Likewise, I would encourage people to look past that and revisit the title if it's been awhile because Santiago's journey is fantastic.

I think that Paulo Coelho himself is an interesting guy, I would suggest looking him up because the story of his life is one of overcoming adversity and some serious spiritual awakening. I was wondering why this book was so religious, and let me save you the time and tell you that this was among a spate of books Coelho published after making his own pilgrimage. Like I said before, I'm going to give the religion in this book a general pass, you don't need to be religious to get what this book is trying to say about the nature of life and the metaphysics of pursuing your goals. It's easy enough to ignore or to treat the religious allusions and tropes as fantasy elements. The brand of religion in this book is also fairly innocuous and seems to encompass the entire Abrahamic tradition without any zealotry shown towards any particular faith, so points for inclusivity as well.

I won't say much else, this is basically a classic hero's journey with some generally palatable philosophy and modern religious themes (Say goodbye Zeus, say hello Melchizedek). Honestly, I'm surprised it took me this long to read it; I really liked what the book has to say, and I think that this would be a perfect book for a younger reader.

Underwhelming. Or, I entirely missed the point? It certainly has a reputation for being a life-changer, and maybe it is, in its simplicity. Maybe it reflects my own worldview so neatly the message is lost on me, and I can only see the over-simplified story rather than having a revelatory experience about journeys versus destinations?

Maybe this is a good one for an early secondary school English class on fables or parables, in an easily-consumed package.

Meh.

What a strange, contentious little book! I must own up to the baggage I brought to it. On one hand was contemptuous dismissal by some highly intelligent, educated people in my life (perhaps coincidentally, they were also dull and without poetry). On the other hand were some of my heroes of radical individuality, Brene Brown, Krista Tippett, Elizabeth Gilbert, that seemed to revere Cohelo and this book. What was I going to think?

I think that a half allegory is a difficult thing to love. Why bring in religious language when Cohelo seems to believe that the forces of destiny he writes about are beyond religion? Why engage with Orientalist fantasies of warring tribes, bandits at the pyramids, fertile oases, if they ultimately do not carry meaning? With this eye, The Alchemist is too long, and not a short book after all.

Maybe I can be this jaded because the message of fearless self-actualization that Cohelo preaches has permeated into the culture. I'm just not sure that this is going to melt the heart of a cynic any longer, if it ever did.

One small minded quibble: for a book that paints its story with such a broad brush, has there ever been such a tin-eared phrase as “personal legend”? I can't decide if Cohelo was deliberately writing around the word destiny, or whether it's just a clumsy translation from the Portuguese.

I have no real problem with this book and the lessons contained, however, it was nothing new and nothing profoundly deep. It's a fictional tale to teach life lessons, like working hard for your dream. It was fine, but didn't find it life changing. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. I don't believe that a person has one destiny or obligation.

Quotes I enjoyed:
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“Because I don't live in either my past or my future.I'm interested only in the present”.”

A very short read which I enjoyed, but I think I expected more magical realism from this story. The story did not go where I expected it to go which is why I'm giving it 3 stars. It did start off with a bang but the plot could've been better. Good lessons throughout the book though.

Starting with the good: Jeremy Irons narrates the audiobook.

Now that that's out of the way, The Alchemist seems like just a toxic quasi-parable turned novel. Boy has dream, follows his heart to find his Personal Legend (I got really sick of that phrase); meets a bunch of new age motivational speeches in the desert between being tricked, robbed, and guided through a warzone; and finds the treasure was in the journey itself all along. The universe conspires to help the people who really look for it, you see, and if you die unfulfilled, welp, sounds like a you problem.

I would wonder why there aren't more satires of this book, but I suppose the simple reason is that Voltaire already wrote the perfect one in Candide, over two centuries before The Alchemist was published.

Another book on Audiobook.com

Ultimately, a children's book.
Designed to be inspiring, it is well written and engaging, with a certain charm. It certainly is very short. I read it in 2-3 hours.
However, I haven't been a young adult since well before this book was written. I found the magical thinking and God mambo-jumbo to be a bit wearing. The final well-signaled plot twist would probably have seemed more profound if I were younger and it were more novel to me.
Then there is the point that finding a chest full of gold on somebody else's property in Spain at almost any point in time over the past 200 years is going to involve more than a little litigation, taxation, or bribery. Not completely happily-ever-after.
The setting in time is more than a little confusing. Obviously trying to achieve a certain sort of timeless vibe, there is a conspicuous absence of technology. No trains, planes, or automobiles. No telephone or telegraph. Only revolvers and rifles. I think it is supposed to seem 19th century. That makes the Englishman's interest in alchemy just barely plausible. But then the absence of colonial powers in North Africa, save for one Englishman, seems bizarre. The combatants in the wars in the region are conspicuously unidentified. There is a reference to an unidentified book whose beginning seems somewhat like Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago, but, seeing as this would place the timeline firmly and implausibly in the Franco era, it just further confuses the setting in time for me.

An enjoyable read but it did not resonate with me as much as I had hoped or expected.

This is one of those books I'd heard a lot about and seen around, but I didn't pick it up until recently. The story is powerful, and it's an excellent parable/fable on how to truly live your life. Definitely a book I need to add to my collection.

I read it because I'm a bookseller, one of my sections is spirituality, and this book is stocked there. I didn't think I'd like it all that much but it surprised me! It's got some profound moments and some beautifully phrased ideas.

Vague spiritual jibberish with a message that can be summed up “You already have everything your heart desires.”

My expectations for this world-renowned classic of modern literature was so damn high that the reality of what it truly is was almost devastating. I've been wanting to read The Alchemist ever since I can remember because of everyone's high praises of the book, but I had never gotten around to it until today because I was ostensibly forced to read it for work. This book is continously labelled as “life changing,” but I found it to be nothing but a rehashing of old-fashioned Christian values, clichés, and truisms. Let's dive into a more complete review of this story, shall we?

Part I: In Which a Shepherd Meets Strangers

Our tale begins with our protagonist, a shepherd boy named Santiago but that's not important because we will never refer to him by name ever again after the opening line, and only ever call him “the boy” or “the shepherd” from now on despite the fact that he has stopped being a shepherd for years. He is content with his little life of sheep herding and whatnot, and obsesses over a cute girl in a neighbouring town seriously, he won't shut up about her. He never stops to consider that maybe, just maybe, she has zero interest in him. Fastforward 20-odd pages, he meets a gypsy woman of whom he is terrified because gypsies “steal children and are devil worshippers” (no, I'm not joking. It's in the book) who tells him that he must go on a journey to Egypt as per his twice-occured dream. Cool. Then, he meets some crackpot who thinks he's a king an old man who basically tells him the same thing so nothing really, because the kid already knew this but stealsobtains a tenth of his flock of sheep in exchange for the “"”information.””“

Enter a whole lot of repetitive woke dialogue about the universe wanting the boy to succeed blah blah, the shepherd (who is not a shepherd anymore) gets on a boat and sails 2 hours to Tangier to start his quest for his Personal Legend (a new-age way of saying his fate/destiny). The boy is in Tangier for about 5 minutes before he a) goes into an inner monologue of how scary and evil the Arabs are, and b) his sheep just wanted water and food. 6 minutes in, he gets robbed (to reinforce the idea of the Evil Arab TM) and then wallows in self-pity for a few pages. Our boy then comes to the Major Realization TM that he has to work if he wants to achieve his dream, so he decides to annoy help a merchant by tending to his shop of crystalware.

FASCINATING.

Part II: In Which the Boy Becomes an Entrepeneur and then Travels to Egypt

After a year or so of working for the Evil (but not really because his employer is super nice and generous) Arab TM, the boy decides he's going to give up on Egypt, buy some sheep, and go back to Spain. But wait! The omens! In reality, the boy chooses to forgo his comfortable life for more palpitating adventures across the desert! Our precious, Very Smart boy then goes to book himself a passage with a caravan and meets a jaded atheist an Englishman who is on a quest to find a real bonafide alchemist somewhere out in Egypt. Nice! The pair (along with a hoard of other travellers and camels) set out to cross the desert and... nothing of consequence happens. The boy and the Englishman have very long and boring conversations that are just cyclical and repetitive as hell, and once in a while, the boy remembers his poor old sheep back in Spain, as well as the “raven-haired Moorish girl” he still obsesses over. sigh

Rince and repeat this formula until the end until you get the Great Revelation TM at the end that, wait for it, his happiness and self-realization was always at home! Travelling all the way out to Egypt was just a means for him to realize that, like any good Bible parable, the good shepherd boy will find comfort and true happiness in amongst the sheep in a sleepy little village.

FANTASTIC!

Now, in case you didn't pick up on my sarcasm throughout, here's a breakdown of problems in this book:

1) Racism! (the boy is full of preconceived ideas about gypsies and Arabs.
2) Bigotry! (the boy mocks and/or likens religions other than his own to devilry.)
3)Mysogyny! (the boy at one point says that the girl he likes doesn't know anything because she can't read, and that she wouldn't understand stuff like him, because he's so damn woke and deep).
4) Animals are dumb! (Seriously, on every other page the boy reiterates in one way or another how his sheep are just mindless creatures who trust him implicitly (do I see an analogy here between God/people??))

How wonderful, a “"”philosophical””” piece that perpetuates 1) Christian values and 2) societal stereotypes and misconceptions. I have been enlightened.

Before anyone jumps at my throat to say that I “didn't get it” or “read to literally” my answer is: no, I did not. I can very clearly “see” the message here; it's just that it's not a very good one (nor is it presented in a stimulating and engaging way). The pseudo-philosophical treaty doesn't tackle any new and fascinating concepts about the self. If you want to be truly enlightened by abstract concepts, go read real philosophers and learn from them instead.

I just revisited this book after over a decade and I was flabbergasted, as if I'm going through a new book.

Paulo Coelho has illustrated the world and life in a short and exciting story. It is among the most inspiring book I have ever been through. And the audiobook performed by Jeremy Irons is by far among the best audiobooks.

One can learn a lot from this wonderful story. And it is worth being revisited after sometimes again!

Thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a sheepherder and his dreams. Sweet and satisfying ending.

Yes, it's as silly as you heard it was. Why does it get a second star? Because it's mercifully short.

Started with a good story but got a little too preachy about god closer to the end.

a beautiful story about destiny; i could not connect to some of the themes in this book but overall it tells profound lessons about life.

This book can be summed up by two one hit wonders. Listen to Your Heart by Roxette and What is Love by Haddaway. Mix in some religious allusions and affectations and there ya go. But then again, I could be describing any self help book. I've tried reading this book a few times over the years and I stand by the 3 star rating I gave it previously.

Had I read this at an earlier time in my life, I would have liked it a lot more. It reminded me a lot of The Little Prince, with its traveling main character and desert setting and Big Symbolic Images and Philosophical Themes. I don't know why, but I never connected with the characters or the story.

A wonderful fable about life and living it without fear and doubts.

I really enjoyed it and it made me want to walk the grassy fields and the desert sands equally.

Oh man there were so many great lines in this book. This one was the best I think:
“We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate.”
Or this one?
“I'm afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I prefer just to dream about it.”
I think the sad, honest and brutal truths about life is what makes this book so beloved.

The only thing I did not like was the ending it just isn't as magical as the rest of the book I felt unsatisfied with it. So almost a perfect book for me, it is written in a simple manner like all fables are and it's mostly set in Egypt in it's deserts, dunes, pyramids, oasis. Among my favorite settings to imagine.

It's a slow read with a point of view/writing that doesn't connect with me.