The Alchemist is a novel written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. The book reflects Coelho’s 11 year studies in alchemy, and it has lots of symbolism and metaphors of life. The book is about fulfilling your dreams and finding ones purpose.  The piece became international bestseller and it has been translated over 60 languages.

Alchemy shortly

So that you’ll understand what the book is about, you’ll have to know what alchemy means. It can be said that alchemy is ancient ”art and science” which is focused to study evolution, awareness and mysteries of life. The name ”alchemy” is traced from Arabic where prefix ”al” means the same as ”the” in English. The actual word is ”chemy” which means black magic. Alchemy can be examined in three stages: physical, mental and spiritual.

Main characters:

1. Santiago: shepherd
2. Melkisedek: King
3. The alchemist

The story

The story begins when a is located in Spain where a young shepherd, Santiago encounters an old man, who turns out to be a king, Melkisedek. Santiago tells the man about his dream he had recently: in his dream he is lead to Egypt. Melkisedek encourages Santiago to travel to Egypt because there’s a treasure waiting for him in the pyramids.

Santiago starts his journey by travelling to Tanger. There he meets a man who claims that he can guide Santiago to pyramids, but instead he tricks him and steals all of his money.

As he continues his voyage to another city he meets a crystal merchant. The merchant offers Santiago a job from his store, so that he can gather enough money to continue his travels.

Continuing his trip Santiago encounters an Englishman who is studying to be an alchemist. He also hopes that he’ll find the alchemist from the desert, so  the twosome voyage together towards it.

Crossing the desert is long and tiring since the temperature during the days are high.  Along his way Santiago meets a girl, Fatima, who he fells in love with. Santiago instantly knows that this is the love of his life. Santiago is disappointed when Fatima tells him, that he must finish his journey before they can be together. A true love can wait no matter what.

Carrying on his voyage Santiago meets the alchemist, which the Englishman had been looking for. The alchemist is a wise, and a bit scary man. He teaches Santiago

As the journey goes on Santiago starts to realize  that the treasure was the journey itself, and everything he had encountered by far. Santiago is ready to complete his trip and get back to Fatima, but he alchemist still insists that he would continue his journey to the pyramids, because he hadn’t found the treasure he came to look for in the first place.

As they are approaching the desert Santiago starts to feel connected with the universe as he begins to understand its language. As closer he gets to the pyramids the more he starts to surrender to his true self and to the universe. But what was the treasure and how did he find it? I guess you’ll have to read the book.

The moral of the story

When Santiago started his journey he only had his sheeps and urge to travel and find the treasure. The more he passed trough Africa towards Egypt and pyramids, more he started to understand what the whole journey was about. It was about finding his true self, finding what he really had within him.

I think he book can be understood in many ways, and there are as many ways as there are readers, but the core is that you can’t find yourself without finding your strengths and weaknesses at first. All of the people Santiago met in his journey were metaphors of challenges along his way to the finish line. To find the treasure he had to come across them at  first. So, if you need to find yourself or what you truly want in life, you’ll have to come across obstacles, so that you’ll get to know yourself.

Sources:

Coelho, P. The Alchemist. Audiobook.