A good parable--like "The Prodigal Son"--should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The problem with this little book is that it does precisely the opposite.

Coelho's message--and, boy, is this a book with a message--is that each of us has his own Personal Legend, and that if we recognize that legend and pursue it sincerely, everything in the Universe (which is after all made up--wind, stone, trees--of the same stuff we are) will conspire to help us achieve it. Corollaries: 1) people who don't recognize their legends are never happy, 2) people who fail to realize their legends are afraid, and 3) people who refuse to pursue their legends, even when they know what they are, are both unhappy and afraid. (I admit I've left out a nuance or two here and there, but not many. There aren't more than three or four nuances in the book.)

I fear that the result of taking such a message seriously will be to make the successful even more self-satisfied, the narcissistic more self-absorbed, and the affluent more self-congratulatory. At the same time, those who are unfortunate will blame themselves for their bad fortune, those who lack self-esteem will lose what little they have, and the poor will see--no, not God, as the beatitude says, but--the poor will see they have only themselves to blame.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. I can see how a few individual young persons, hemmed in by parental expectations and seeking their own paths, may find enough hope and courage here to help them venture forth. But I am convinced the damage done by books like this--like The Secret, The Celestine Prophecy, and anything ever written by the late Dr. Wayne Dyer (or, for that matter, anything he may ever choose to channel from beyond the grave)--is far greater than the little good they may achieve.

If you like parables, don't read this book. Go read a book of Hasidic tales collected by Martin Buber, a book of Sufi stories collected by Idries Shah, or a book of parables and sayings by Anthony de Mello instead.

Or then again, you could just try Jesus. Jesus is always good.

This book is a miraculous piece of writing that created the kind of devoted fans that you find only to holy books. I think simplicity has its way of getting into people's mind.

The book is full of messages and symbolizes our life actions interwoven in very complex yet elementary patterns that can be deciphered if one persists and has a longing in his heart. It is not just following the heart blindly but never ignoring what it says. Its important message is to keep in accord with your heart no matter where it takes you because the treasure is where there is the heart.

Now, that was the gist of the book. But my reading experience with this book was horrible and, most importantly, boring. It was a letdown except for its insights (which were rather scattered but impactful). It was more like a new age book, with some elements of prophetic vision, aimed at opening a new dimension of spiritual values within. However, it didn't strike a chord.

There are too many things one can learn from “The Alchemist”. Its all about following your dream and about taking the risk of following your dreams, which is actually so difficult to do and there are very few people in this world who actually do, I mean risk it all, just to follow your heart and your dream. Beauty is, the author is so right in saying that when u decide to follow your dreams the entire universe conspires in your favour which he called as the “beginners luck” and we all have been witness to this beginners luck at one or other point in our lives. Also, he talks about a stage in our journey towards realizing our dreams, where everything just goes haywire and there is everything working against us and it almost takes us to the brink of abandoning everything and just getting back to what was so familiar and comfortable (i.e. our usual daily life which we get used to) this is actually the time when we are being tested for one last time and it means also that we are really close to our objective. The example given was really great and yes nothing new but we forget simple things in our life like "the darkest hour of the night is just before the dawn". It is actually true that so many of us just leave the struggle when it gets really tough and the chips are really low, whereas actually we were so close to the objective, if only we would have had a little more patience we would have been there. In one of the episodes he talks about death, yes the fact we always forget, the only reality about our life, it is a constant which is not going to change rest everything is uncertain. There are a lot of us who either think that it happens to others and then there are others, who are so busy running after the materials that they don’t have time to think about anything, leave alone death. Yes, and those who do think about death, mostly fear it, some fear death because of the physical pain attached to it (such people actually fear the pain rather than the death, I am one of them) and there are some who think they do not want to die because its not time yet for them to go. Ironically but true, this decision about timings has thankfully not been left to us. So, how do we get over the fear of death or make it our friend, a companion? And not waste our beautiful life worrying about dying all the time. One of the possible solutions lies in this book, it reads "if i have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other". Yes very much right, one would never know when he or she wakes up in the morning that if it was the last day of his or her life and in fact, that day would not be any different from all the other days already spent. So, why not take everyday as the last day of our lives and live it up. Frankly speaking i really know what i am talking about, because I am in a profession which involves a lot of risk and death doesn’t have to look for reasons, it can just spring up from any bush in form of a small little piece of metal called a bullet coming out of the darkness of the night or just a deafening sound from under a culvert that I cross everyday. Here, everyday can be the last day of my life, every meal can be my last, every call to my wife can be the last time I would hear her sweet and loving voice and the kids… Anyways, so what I personally follow is, everyday when I wake up or every time when I move out on an operation, I say to myself "what a beautiful day to die" and there on, I just do what I have to and what I have been taught in all these years in the army and go through all the motions and concentrate on the job at hand rather than worrying about my death and I am really at peace with the fear of death. Another beautiful thought which I came across about death was in the novel by the author called "Confessions of a pilgrim". I derived from it that death can be visualized as a beautiful person who is always sitting besides us, so close to us that it travels with us wherever we go and it also accompanies us to our bed. Its a beautiful companion, a faithful companion, the only one who will never be unfaithful to us, rest all the companions are just lesser mortals and have been unfaithful at one point or other. Death always stays with us and actually speaking that’s the only companion who would accompany us all through our lives right from the moment we acquired some shape in our mother’s womb to the moment when we would get the vision of that white light and that feeling of lightness when we would finally leave this body also sometimes expressed as "VASTRA" (clothes) in the Indian mythology. As per the Indian mythology, the soul never dies, it is indestructible, it only changes a body just like we change clothes. Our soul is a part of God and it goes back to him. We can find the mention of the mighty soul of ours around the last portion of 'The Alchemist' where the shepherd realizes that ultimately it his own soul which is the “hand that wrote all” and his own soul was the part of soul of God. I firmly believe that there is no fiction involved in this story of the shepherd, but this is a true expression of mysteries and realities of our life, which we never pause to discover. There is message that this book wants to convey to us!!! I have never been into writing anything ever in my life, yes not even a personal dairy, but since the time I actually started writing which was just a month back, I realized that if we just write our thoughts as they occur, the resultant has a touch of mystery, because what we wrote with all our heart and soul, sometimes tends to surprise us. We tend to learn from what we ourselves wrote. We never realized that we had so much inside us and we don’t know from where, it all came. “The hand that wrote all”, yes I think its our soul that speaks out, the soul we never recognized, the one we never knew, the one which is part of soul of God…. …All religions have over all the years have preached a man “Know thyself, you will find God”, “look within yourself u will find all the answers”, these words are so common but how many of us actually are ready to pause and give it a try. It may sound crazy, may be the book has a effect that may appear really crazy but I am sure there are some people who would identify with me. May be when Paulo Coelho wrote this book his soul was revealing itself and that’s why some of us can identify with it because our souls are the part of same soul of God, just like his is. May be these lines of his novel were written by the “Hand that wrote all……………”

Audio narrated by Jeremy Irons (4h)

So....that's it, huh? I have been staring at my phone for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what I should write for a review. Realistically, I know that not every book can promise fire works, but I found "The Alchemist" to be really really really*GASP* (whispers) boring.

I know I am going to spend a lot of my life in the future apologizing to other readers around the world who absolutely adore this book, but it felt a bit predictable and flat for me.

This Review ✍️ Blog

قرأتها منذ عامين، وانا اقرأها كنت احس بأنني اعرف روحية النص وبأنني قرأته في مكان آخر.....

وبعد سنتين كنت اقرأ بعض الصفحات من "الف ليلة وليلة"(حكاية إفلاس رجل من بغداد)، فعرفت اين قرأت "الخيميائي" ولماذا كان ذلك الإحساس بروحية النص، فدافع البغدادي (الف ليلة وليلة) في رحلته هو الحلم (مثل سانتياغو في الخيميائي)، سافر البغدادي الى مصر (وكذلك فعل بطل كويلو)، تعرض البغدادي للمخاطر والتنكيل به (وكذلك بطل كويلو)، تكذيب الحلم والإستهزاء بصاحبه (الوالي عندما يتكلم مع البغدادي في الف ليلة وليلة، والزعيم لسانتياغو في الخيميائي وهو يحفر النفق)، الحلم المضاد (الوالي للبغدادي: هناك بيت في بغداد وصفه كذا وكذا فيه كنز (بمعناه)، والزعيم لسنتياغو: في اسبانيا كنيسة يرعى فيها الرعيان..الخ (نفس الكنيسة التي كان يرعى بها سانتياغو)، العودة وايجاد الكنز (في كلا القصتين) و "الف ليلة وليلة قبل الخيميائي بمئات السنين!!!!

“And, when you can’t go back, you have to worry only about the best way of moving forward.”

Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy, yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different than he ever imagined.

Let me preface this review by saying that although I did not like this book, I totally appreciate the meaning behind the fable and the message being put forward here (well... part of it). It was just done so in the most tedious and boring way possible.

Even now, just typing the words “Personal Legend” makes me want to scratch out my eyeballs. Maybe that’s to do with the manner in which “legend” is used in present day... but I found it cringe-worthy. Throughout the entire novel you are just bludgeoned to death with the concept of your Personal Legend. I hate the notion that if you REALLY want something and you try hard enough that the universe will help guide you to your Personal Legend. I just don’t believe life works like that!

I am all about pursuing your dreams and not being afraid to do so. And that’s the message I can get behind - but the rest was just utter nonsense to me. Perhaps I am not spiritual enough to fully embrace The Alchemist. I was rolling my eyes so often that I almost detached my retinas...

I’m really trying to think of something positive to say - it was short? And there were some nice illustrations... but that’s all I got. I guess the writing wasn’t bad, it was more the story that I found very boring. I also found it to be quite preachy and condescending at times. And now I’m back to being negative... I TRIED!

If you are a big fan of this book (and I know there are many), I hope I don’t come across as mean or insulting. I’m truly happy that this book enlightened you in some way or that it resonated with you, but ultimately, it just wasn’t for me.

One and a half stars.

To tell the truth, this wasn't as fantastic as i expected it to be ... Perhaps because it is too famous i was so -you know- so eager to read it and this thing exactly disappointed me 'cause it didn't reach my expectations ...

عندما تسمع عن روايه ترجمت لاكثر من 60 لغه وبيع منها اكثر من 70 مليون
نسخه
ينسج خيالك عليها انها روايه عظيمه وتتوقع منها اشياء مهمه
��ذا العمل ��قبع فى مكتبتى منذ اكثر من عام ولا ادرى ما سبب اهمالها كل هذا الوقت ولا ادرى سبب معين لقرائتى لها
ولكن المهم انى قرأتها : احسست بضحاله شديده وانا اقرأها وجدتها سطحيه ومبتذله
لا ادرى هل رأيت انها مبالغ فى قيمتها الادبيه ام ان المشكله توجد فى انها خذلت طموحى الشخصى فى فحواها
لا ادرى . حقا لا ادرى
اهو مبالغه شديده من الكاتب لكى يوهم القارئ بانه جاء مخلصا له وناصحا له على طريقة معينه فى حياته (من قرأ فى التنميه البشريه سوف يفهم قصدى) وهو غالبا ما وجدت الابتذال فيه
واحقاقا للحق انا متفهم جدا مبيعاتها المهوله لانها ببساطه قدمت للقارئ ما يريده بالضبط من نصائح وووو

Follow Your Dreams: A Fairy Tale?

The boy wanted to be a shepherd. He was unable to leave his destiny alone. Instead, he chose his fate, and changed it.

Now he gets to travel the world, searching for treasure (literally and figuratively).

Like every treasure hunt, there is adventure and danger! And stories and personal growth. And memories and the benefit of the experience.

Egged on by the mystical: The old gypsy woman. The God-like elder. The crystal glass mentor. The naive English man. The caravan guide and the alchemist!

The boy has his own mind and experiences, but it doesn’t prevent him from being open to advice.

His open mind keeps him focused and motivated, and kept alive whenever his life is in danger.

Lots of spiritual energy and religious morality, but it doesn’t stop the wars or violence. Or murder. Maybe even encourage it. A bit.

Still a story about a journey is always captivating and capable of giving good advice. The Alchemist is no different…

So, it gets five stars.

4.5 stars

This is like a motivational speech tucked into the confines of a fiction story. Santiago’s inner turmoil is so painfully reflected in my own life and my conflict with doing what I want versus what i’m comfortable doing. This book really pushed my boundaries and, although set in a place and lifestyle I’ve never experienced, I heavily related to. It's inspiring and haunting all in one breath. It's lighthearted, but also thought-provoking.

The setting begins in the fields of Spain but eventually switches to Santiago’s journey through Africa, so I found the scenery and conflict arising from their locations very fascinating. I rarely read classics set outside the US or England, which I should pursue more of, and this was very enjoyable with Islamic supporting characters.

I grew frustrating in the middle of this book, because it seemed almost assaulting in its message. The dialogue is very transparent and this book says exactly what it means with little to no metaphor or embellishment, which I originally thought was tacky. The more I read, however, the more I realized how interesting of a tactic it is. This reads almost like The Little Prince or a children’s book where the moral is delivered to you in a wrapped package with a bow. It delivers its message up-front, but it gives the reader enough space to determine how he or she wants to absorb that message. It's brilliant.

Santiago is a fascinating main character that I think anyone could relate to. This book is truly ageless because it’s about following your heart and your life’s destiny, and although this book does dabble in discussions about religion and how God plays into that role, it’s very subjective in its interpretation. Islam and Catholicism are both depicted in this story, but even as an atheist, I was able to recognize the intention that Coelho was putting forth: overcoming the obstacles that are barriers to your personal calling. (honestly, this entire book is so quotable.)

Now that i’ve effectively turned into a philosophy professor, I’ll stop. But I did really enjoy this story. If you’re not a fan of literalness (is that a word?) in classics, then I would pass on this one, but its imagery and setting is so neat that I would nudge anybody else to grab it from a used bookstore. If anything, it’s under 200 pages, so just go for it.