Book Review

Name: Siddhant Sanjay Giri

Class : SE IT

Roll No : 9045

Subject : Soft Skill

Topic : Lab Assignment 2 (Book Review)

Book Title: The Alchemist

Book Author: Paulo Coelho

Date of Publication: 23.10.1988

Number of Pages: 208

Book Cover :

Main Characters: 1. Santiago

2. Fatima

3. The Englishman

4. Melchizedek

5. The Crystal Merchant

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6. The Alchemist

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Setting: The Alchemist is set in an indistinct time in the past. It is clearly a
pre-modern time, before automobiles and most modern technology
existed.

The main plot of the alchemist takes place in the Spanish pastures,
the Spanish town of Tarifa, the city of Tangier in North Africa, and
the Sahara desert.

Santiago is a shepherd. He loves his flock, though he can’t help but

Synopsis:
notice the limited nature of the sheep’s existence. Seeking only food
and water, they never lift their heads to admire the green hills or
the sunsets.

Santiago’s parents have continually struggled for the basics of life

and have smothered their own ambitions accordingly. They live in
beautiful Andalucía, which attracts tourists to its quaint villages and
rolling hills, but for them it is not a place of dreams.

Santiago, on the other hand, can read and wants to travel. He goes
into town one day to sell some of his flock and encounters a tramp-
king and a gypsy woman. They urge him to ‘follow his omens’ and
leave the world he knows. The gypsy points him toward the
pyramids of Egypt, where she says he will find treasure.

Crazily, he believes her, sells his flock and sets sail. A thief in Tangier
robs him of his savings. So much hard work and discipline for a little
adventure! But, strangely, Santiago is not devastated, apprehending
a greater feeling: the security of knowing he is on the right path. He
is now living a different life, in which every day is new and satisfying.

He keeps reminding himself of what he was told in the market

before he left: ‘When you want something, all the universe
conspires in helping you to achieve it.’

● Following the dream

This belief is a marvellous one, a support for anyone embarking on

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an important project. But is it a hope based on nothing? If you think
about the energy you put into something once you are committed
to it, probably not. The ‘universe conspiring’ to give you what you
want is, more precisely, a reflection of your determination to make
something happen.

The Alchemist (1993) does not get away from the fact that dreams
have a price but, as Coelho has said in interviews, not living your
dreams also has a price. For the same money, he said, you can
either buy a horrible jacket that does not fit or one that suits you
and looks right. It is better to have problems that make sense
because they are part of what you are trying to achieve.

The old man who Santiago meets in the town square tells him not to
believe ‘the biggest lie’: that you cannot control your destiny. You
can, he says, but you must ‘read the omens’, which becomes
possible when you start to see the world as one. The world can be
read like a book but we will never be able to understand it if we
have a closed existence, complacent and unwilling to risk anything.

● Love

The Alchemist is remarkable for being a love story that renounces

the idea that romantic love must be central to people’s lives. Each
person has a destiny that exists independently of others. It is the
thing that you would do or be even if you had all the love and
money you want.

The treasure Santiago seeks is the symbol of the personal dream or

destiny, but he is happy to give up on it when he finds the woman of
his dreams in a desert oasis. The alchemist he meets in the desert
tells him that the love of his woman will only be proved real if she is
willing to support his search for treasure.

Santiago’s dilemma is about the conflict between love and personal

dreams. Too often we see a love relationship as the meaning of our
life but the obsession with romantic coupling can cut us off from a
life more connected with the rest of the world. Surely the heart has
needs? Live your life around the dream, Coelho says, and there will

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 be more ‘heart’ in your life than you can comprehend: ‘No heart has
ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every
second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with
eternity.’

Romantic love is important but it is not your duty; that is to pursue

your dream. Only through devotion to the dream is the ‘soul of the
world’ revealed to us, the knowledge that destroys loneliness and
gives power.

The major conflict of the book is Santiago’s personal tension

Key Points/Conflict:
between completing his Personal Legend to travel all the way to
Egypt to find a treasure at the pyramids and settling along the way
for the treasures he has already earned.

In a nutshell: We too easily give up on our dreams, yet the universe

Analysis/Evaluation:
is always ready to help us fulfill them.

Much of self-help literature is about pursuing our destiny, but

dreams do not always pull us along; they speak persistently but
quietly, and it does not take much effort to smother the inner
voices. Who is willing to risk comfort, routine, security and existing
relationships to follow something that to others looks like a mirage?
It takes courage, and dog-eared, stained copies of Coelho’s classic
have become the constant companion of people who need to make
fearless decisions daily to keep true to a larger vision.

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