The Alchemist: a bewitching new year’s read
If you want to re-centre yourself, find casual magic in the mundane, and get a grip on life in 2022, reading this book would be a sure way to kick off the new year.
About the Book
The cover of this book is dazzling and I proudly grant it the “most aesthetic book cover” award. The inside of this book is a blend of folktale and self-help. There will be people who find this book extremely overrated, and there will be people who sincerely appreciate it. Regardless, perhaps everyone will need a book like this at some point in their lives, even if the concepts seem big, dry, and blank to begin with.
An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago embarks from his homeland on a quest for treasure buried near the Pyramids. He encounters all sorts of people on the way — prophets, thieves, and breadwinners; manipulators, believers and dreamers. As he searches for his symbolic treasure, he finds love and learns to ground himself in his values. There are several studded and famous quotes guiding both Santiago and the reader pursuing one’s own quest.
Who should read it
Thanks Harleen for the book suggestion and this book is a good new year’s resolution book. It’s a very ruminating and reflective, but deviously simple read. If you have massive amounts of time and would just like to return to the simple rules in life, you might be able to read The Alchemist 100 times.
I can appreciate the tale because it is an uncomplicated tale, a smooth swallow, with universal values and simple affirmations towards everyone’s own lives. At a difficult time, all we want as readers is some amount of comfort. One or two core values of honesty and ambition are capable of bringing us clarity in the outlook of our own complicated lives.
Five Quotes to Share
Quote #1: “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
This quote comes up when the old man explains one’s destiny and the Soul of the World. Santiago utters it when he is at crossroads and doubting himself for pursuing his treasure. It becomes his motto.
And this quote is the central message, repeated and repeated. The diction here of “conspire” is amusing, prompting a mystical main character moment vibe, as if the world is against Santiago. The universe and Santiago are then alliances, secretly plotting a goal and overturning their own fates. But with some repetition, the amusement fades and the sentence erodes. If you want something enough, you will make sure you get it.
Quote #2: “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
This quote is what Santiago thinks of before beginning his journey of a lifetime. It marks the point of his transition, between his dreams of strange lands and his undertaking on a long and difficult journey.
The possibility of having a dream come true makes life interesting indeed. My dear Oscar Wilde once said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Quote #3: “Because it’s not love to be static like the desert, nor is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it’s not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
The boy is standing on a cliff, wind swirling around him, talking to the sun. The love he talks about is not merely the love he harbours for the girl, but the love he holds for the world. This passage is a ray of sunshine. When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. So much power packed within four letters, love.
Quote #4: “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that 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.”
The boy confides that he fears to suffer. The wise one remarkably responds to his fear, telling him that suffering ceases when his heart is in search of something glorious. Religious undertones pave way for the greater purpose the text conveys. Although I’m not religious, I think the love and kindness for the world conveyed by many religions is universal, regardless of institutional or personal beliefs.
But I argue that suffering does not simply dissolve when fear turns into passion. Viktor E. Frankl said it best, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.”
Quote #5: “He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”
The boy glimpses a baker on a plaza. The boy is a shepherd because it is the only way that he can afford to travel, so he wanders to different lands in search of his destiny. The baker, on the other hand, is settled into his life and has established his course of life, not knowing that he could change anything the moment he wanted to. When the baker was a young man, he wanted to travel too. But when he was older, he set aside some money to open a shop, and as the shop generated revenue and he started a family, it became more and more difficult for the pursuit of travel.
I think that you are never too old to learn something new or to try new things. We are all young and old at heart simultaneously. Wrinkles are only visible on the outside when someone points them out. By themselves, they don’t mean much. And settled or not, you can wander lonely as a cloud, or revisit Tintern Abbey as your heart desires. Cast aside all else and pursue your personal destiny.
The words are so simple, and the messages too. But life isn’t simple, and these principles are there to be brooded over. The four letters in “love” cannot be simpler, and some of us use the word so frequently it loses meaning. But you can the word as an encapsulation of experience, emotion, and millions and millions of stories that stem from it.
Same thing with The Alchemist. The messages cannot be more open and blank, but if you couple them with other themes and read the tale as a metaphor for the journey of your own life, the story becomes bewitching.
