The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: A Parable for Our Age

I read for a lot of reasons. I read because it’s entertainment. I read because it is the best way I know to see the world from the point of view of another person. I read because books can teach at a much deeper level than documentaries and I read to see out wisdom. “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho is a book that does all of those to some extent, but at its heart it is a parable and one that doesn’t hide that its goal is to pass along wisdom. And there is a great deal of wisdom in “The Alchemist”.

What is the Alchemist About?

As a parable, the events in “The Alchemist” are secondary. What is important in“The Alchemist” is how Santiago, the principal character, reacts to the events. Yet, the events are not exactly unimportant because they are part of the story and part of the personal legend of Santiago.

When the story begins Santiago is a sheepherder who has become a sheepherder because he wants to travel and see the world. It is something he is good at, but one day he has a dream of a great treasure at the pyramids. He is convinced the dream means something and so he goes to a Gypsy woman to interpret her dream and she agrees if he promises to give her ten percent of what he gets. He agrees, and she tells him that there is a treasure at the pyramid and he should go there and get it.

He is disappointed, but decides that it doesn’t matter because he won’t have to pay the woman anything unless he finds a treasure. Then another man appears. At first Santiago thinks of him as just an old man and is polite to him only because he should be polite to an old man. But the man tells him he is a king and asks for ten percent of his sheep in return for help. Santiago isn’t sure but eventually he does it and he encourages him to go to the pyramids to find the treasure and gives him two stones to help him see the omens.

Santiago travels only two hours to the south and is tricked out of all of his money at the first port, so he can’t even afford the boat trip home. He ends up working in a crystal shop. And because he has a goal, he makes the crystal shop much more profitable than it had been in the past, even though that was never his goal. It turns out that while the merchant who owns the shop thought he wanted to make it better, the truth was that he was happy with what he had and was scared to get more, so didn’t take the minor risks of change.

Eventually Santiago joins a caravan which is going to Egypt. There he meets an Englishman who is trying to turn lead into gold. But while he studies his books, Santiago pays attention to the world around him. In this way Santiago can find wisdom in even a grain of sand while the Englishman who thinks wisdom has to be something complex and deep misses even the most basic of wisdom.

Eventually they reach an oasis and are forced to stay there because of conflicts between tribes. While there Santiago meets a woman who he falls in love with almost immediately. He also meets the alchemist who thinks that Santiago may be his perfect apprentice and helps him. They are trapped in the oasis for sometime until Santiago has a dream that the oasis which is neutral ground will be attacked. He tells the chiefs who decide that they will allow the people to arm themselves. And if they are attacked, they will give Santiago gold for every enemy who is slain in the fighting. But if they are not attacked, he will be executed.

They are attacked and Santiago gets enough money to continue his trip to the pyramids and travels with the alchemist. He is worried about leaving the woman he has fallen in love with behind, but the alchemist tells him that true love doesn’t hold you back from your personal legend. It trusts that you will return. And so they go, though now Santiago has far more baggage than he did before, as he has something important to lose.

As they travel, they are caught by the most powerful of the chiefs. The Alchemist tells the chief that Santiago has brought gold for him and gives him everything that Santiago has. This upsets Santiago, but the alchemist points out that it is rare that gold can buy life and that without it they would die. He also tells the chief that Santiago can turn into wind.

Santiago has no idea how to do that, but he has been learning through the entire trip and this is his test. His chance to use the many lessons of his journey and so he communes with the sand, the wind, the sun and even the soul of the world and discovers that they are all imperfect lead being slowly turned into gold. He discovers that his soul is connected to the hand that created all, and that he himself can do miracles. This way he turns himself into wind and survives.

From here the rest of the trip to Egypt is easy, and he arrives at the pyramids where he digs. As he does, some men come along and mock him. Saying that he will find nothing. And one man points out that he too had a dream of a treasure. There was a box of gold and gems buried under a tree in Spain, but he was not insane enough to travel across the world for a dream.

Santiago could have been angry that his trip took him across the world to find a treasure a few miles from where he lived, but he was not. Instead, he laughs, seeing the joke but also the importance. He had learned a great deal along the trip. He had found a woman to love, learned wisdom, and seen the pyramids. And so he returns to where the story started and digs up the treasure.

What I like about The Alchemist

As a parable, there is a ton to like about this story. I believe that the wisdom in it would be different if I read it again and different for you. Some lessons are in simplicity. That the true nature of alchemy can be inscribed on the side of an emerald, and it is men making the world complex that create the need for the many books. But the lesson that I most strongly got was that of turning lead into gold. The genuine power of Santiago as an alchemist isn’t the physical process of turning lead into gold, but the spiritual process. In each situation things go terribly wrong for him and yet instead of giving up or becoming frustrated, Santiago takes it as a chance to become better. He turns the lead of his situation which could weigh him down and hold him back into gold, which he uses to pay for the trip.

What I like less about The Alchemist

This book is a masterpiece, and there is little negative I can say about it. But it’s also an allegory, and like Tolkien, allegory is not my favorite type of storytelling. I believe that if an author wants to just say something that they should just say it and if they want to tell a story, then they should make the wisdom part of the story, not the point of the story. But as I said earlier, this is a parable and there are some notable people who disagree with my feelings on those and have used them to some effect so I have little doubt that it is a powerful way to express ideas and better for many people than the more direct methods.

Conclusion

While I can recount the moments that happened in “The Alchemist” and even point out some lessons I picked up for it, the book is not one that can be fully expressed in summary. It is a short book and one that should be read if you want to understand what it is because even if I were able to fully articulate the ideas and thoughts that it stirred up in me I doubt those would be the same as what it stirred in you. And I think this is a book that people, especially young people, should read because there are many important lessons in this book and understanding even a few of them will improve your life.