The Alchemist
Ratings1,664
Average rating3.5
The book was intriguing at the beginning but as the book went on and on it slowly became uninteresting. Throughout the book, it talked a lot about the Soul of the World and how people find their Personal Legends. It was in those parts that I got confused and wanted to know more about the story.
I found this book at a secondhand store and remembered wanting to read it. I didn't remember what it was about, but the cover looked pretty and it was short in length. But if I had known it was more of a self-help book than a fiction book, I probably would've never picked it up. The beginning had a strong plot but as the story went on, it dragged and dragged.
I prefer fictional books with the theme of exploring our existence in the universe rather than a self-help book with a plot. At some points, I felt that the author was info-dumping a lot and the more the book tried to explain it, the dumber I got.
Originally, I wanted to rate this three stars because there were some little parts of the book I enjoyed. But the more I think about it, there is nothing I care about in the book. I felt no emotion for the characters except for Santiago at some points, the plot slowly deteriorated, and the meaning kept being repetitive and dumped thus giving it a one star.
Starting with the good: Jeremy Irons narrates the audiobook.
Now that that's out of the way, The Alchemist seems like just a toxic quasi-parable turned novel. Boy has dream, follows his heart to find his Personal Legend (I got really sick of that phrase); meets a bunch of new age motivational speeches in the desert between being tricked, robbed, and guided through a warzone; and finds the treasure was in the journey itself all along. The universe conspires to help the people who really look for it, you see, and if you die unfulfilled, welp, sounds like a you problem.
I would wonder why there aren't more satires of this book, but I suppose the simple reason is that Voltaire already wrote the perfect one in Candide, over two centuries before The Alchemist was published.
Wow! What an incredibly deep and moving story about following your passion into the great unknown.
After I finished the novel, I thought of the stories and questions the boy asks the alchemist. Each Q&A session is not only profound in the last act of the book, but I feel like everyone asks the same questions in their own way. The answers the alchemist gave the boy were mostly hyperbole, but in the end, they made you feel like he had overcome a great feat to discover his personal legend.
I feel like this is a book you could definitely re-read and gain more and more from it each time. It is not about the destination, it is about the journey.
i've read many annoying books but NEVER ONE THAT ENDED UP BEST SELLING????? the writing style was just too simple, everything about this book annoyed the livid shit out of me. It just kept going on and on like dude stop, i had no attachment to any of the characters, i wasn't melting at the one day romeo and juliet wannabe relationship between the boy and fatima.
the book keeps repeating this one idea over and over again like STOPPPPPPPP I DOMT CARE ANOUT THE SOUL OF THE WORLDDDDJDJJDIRJDJR FIND THE STUPID TREASURE DAWG. this boy is so immature, going w anything that his heart sets on like dude???? where's the logic?
the dude gives up everything he's got to chase after something he saw in a dream. the whole heavy emphasis on destiny really pushed me to my breaking point. i really don't like this book.
0.5/10 cos i found some nice quotes
I just revisited this book after over a decade and I was flabbergasted, as if I'm going through a new book.
Paulo Coelho has illustrated the world and life in a short and exciting story. It is among the most inspiring book I have ever been through. And the audiobook performed by Jeremy Irons is by far among the best audiobooks.
One can learn a lot from this wonderful story. And it is worth being revisited after sometimes again!
Este libro es muy sencillo en su lenguaje
Es un libro para encontrar inspiración y magia
Lo lei porque me lo habían regalado hace años, pero lo lei hasta ahora y creo que llego en el mejor momento porque me sirvió bastante para refugiarme en una fantasia bastante sencilla pero con significado.
Recomendada para navegar en la fantasia y darse un escape de la vida diaria.
Why do I feel like this is a self help book someone forced me to read as part of an intervention? I did not get the plot at all, the book had a lot of parts that were just.. unnecessary? This also feels like I'm being yelled at by a motivational speaker with dramatic music in the background.
I have no real problem with this book and the lessons contained, however, it was nothing new and nothing profoundly deep. It's a fictional tale to teach life lessons, like working hard for your dream. It was fine, but didn't find it life changing. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others. I don't believe that a person has one destiny or obligation.
Quotes I enjoyed:
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
“Because I don't live in either my past or my future.I'm interested only in the present”.”
5 stars, a rating I reserve only for books that have changed something in my life and this certainly did. Powerful storytelling, also powerful encouraging the readers to be bold and brave if they been given a dream. There are others but you must have to read it for yourself. Isn't it crazy though that the author's own writing career is like that of the protagonist fulfilling his Personal Legend?
___
My Rating System:
5⭐️: Excellent book AND influenced a change in my views ⬅️⬅️⬅️
4.5⭐️: Excellent read
4⭐️: Great read, will recommend
3.5⭐️: Enjoyable read but missing something that will make it great
3⭐️: An okay read that I didn't regret spending time on it
2⭐️: Didn't enjoy
1⭐️: Didn't enjoy and had serious issues. Will suggest to avoid.
Estoy de acuerdo con las críticas diciendo que El alquimista es un libro de autoayuda con disfraz de novela. Paulo Coelho hasta escribe en mayúsculas los nombres de los conceptos importantes en la vida de los personajes. No creo en los conceptos como el “Alma del Mundo” que constituyen la filosofía del libro, pero me gustó la presentación de esas ideas en forma de una parábola. Hay una mezcla interesante de referencias religiosas también.
Los dos problemas principales del texto son la filosofía ya mencionada y el sexismo. Coelho propone siempre “escuchar al corazón” y “seguir los sueños”, lo cual me parece un mensaje superficial que el lector podría haber encontrado en cualquier libro de autoayuda. Al fin, el tesoro que Santiago ha estado buscando todo el cuento es... dinero, así que el libro se presta fácilmente al materialismo. Coelho le dice al lector que todas las cosas del universo tienen su propia Historia Personal, incluso los objetos inanimados, pero sólo se presentan ejemplos de los hombres siguiendo sus destinos. La mujer más importante en el argumento, Fátima, es el amor de Santiago y nada más. Es más, está contenta sólo con esperar el regreso de Santiago, porque es una “mujer del desierto”. El lector nunca aprende cuál es la Historia Personal de Fátima, sólo que su tesoro es Santiago, un hombre.
No obstante, aunque yo no sea una persona espiritual, me gusta que este libro me haya enseñado un poco sobre cómo ven el mundo las personas espirituales. Por ejemplo, me es interesante cómo Coelho mezcla dos conceptos contradictorios, el destino y el libre albedrío. Coelho dice que Dios ha escrito un destino para todas las personas, pero muchas no escuchan las señales de Dios y como resultado no siguen su camino predestinado.
El Alquimista es un libro con imperfecciones fundamentales, pero tiene una presentación atractiva y me ayudó a entender un poco mejor la perspectiva espiritual.
Edición (dos años después): No sé que me pasaba a la cabeza cuando escribí esta reseña, pero basta decir que no recuerdo este libro con tanta afección como cuando originalmente lo leí. Ya sabiendo un poco más sobre la religión y la filosofía, puedo decir que el pensamiento de Coelho es fundamentalmente hueco, vacío, y falso. De hecho, opino honestamente que El alquimista es una de las peores obras de literatura que he leído.
While certain aspects of this books are quite extraordinary, this really got me thinking that the simplest things that one could ever want are right in from of them. And, that in order to realise that, sometimes you have to take a very indirect route to understand that. I really enjoyed this book because of that. It's very self reflective and allows the reader to really identify with at least one of the characters, if not multiple.
Definitely worth a read if you want a short inspirational story.
Who doesn't know about this book even if you are non reader you atleast heard of this book. Its a masterpiece if you read this book in your initial reading.
the mc, supporting characters, & the setting reminds me of the little prince but a little more on the aspect of pursuing and finding one's passion? idk there are some interesting lines and points but it felt a bit draggy. kinda liked the ending tho
Reading time: 65 minutes
It's a gorgeous book that wants you to think it has more depth than it actually does. I would categorize it as thought provoking. It's tough because it presents this ideal that everyone just innately knows what their dream is. Personally, I've met very few people who knew what their dream was. The majority of those people do achieve their dream and find that it wasn't what the expected.
My expectations for this world-renowned classic of modern literature was so damn high that the reality of what it truly is was almost devastating. I've been wanting to read The Alchemist ever since I can remember because of everyone's high praises of the book, but I had never gotten around to it until today because I was ostensibly forced to read it for work. This book is continously labelled as “life changing,” but I found it to be nothing but a rehashing of old-fashioned Christian values, clichés, and truisms. Let's dive into a more complete review of this story, shall we?
Part I: In Which a Shepherd Meets Strangers
Our tale begins with our protagonist, a shepherd boy named Santiago but that's not important because we will never refer to him by name ever again after the opening line, and only ever call him “the boy” or “the shepherd” from now on despite the fact that he has stopped being a shepherd for years. He is content with his little life of sheep herding and whatnot, and obsesses over a cute girl in a neighbouring town seriously, he won't shut up about her. He never stops to consider that maybe, just maybe, she has zero interest in him. Fastforward 20-odd pages, he meets a gypsy woman of whom he is terrified because gypsies “steal children and are devil worshippers” (no, I'm not joking. It's in the book) who tells him that he must go on a journey to Egypt as per his twice-occured dream. Cool. Then, he meets some crackpot who thinks he's a king an old man who basically tells him the same thing so nothing really, because the kid already knew this but stealsobtains a tenth of his flock of sheep in exchange for the “"”information.””“
Enter a whole lot of repetitive woke dialogue about the universe wanting the boy to succeed blah blah, the shepherd (who is not a shepherd anymore) gets on a boat and sails 2 hours to Tangier to start his quest for his Personal Legend (a new-age way of saying his fate/destiny). The boy is in Tangier for about 5 minutes before he a) goes into an inner monologue of how scary and evil the Arabs are, and b) his sheep just wanted water and food. 6 minutes in, he gets robbed (to reinforce the idea of the Evil Arab TM) and then wallows in self-pity for a few pages. Our boy then comes to the Major Realization TM that he has to work if he wants to achieve his dream, so he decides to annoy help a merchant by tending to his shop of crystalware.
FASCINATING.
Part II: In Which the Boy Becomes an Entrepeneur and then Travels to Egypt
After a year or so of working for the Evil (but not really because his employer is super nice and generous) Arab TM, the boy decides he's going to give up on Egypt, buy some sheep, and go back to Spain. But wait! The omens! In reality, the boy chooses to forgo his comfortable life for more palpitating adventures across the desert! Our precious, Very Smart boy then goes to book himself a passage with a caravan and meets a jaded atheist an Englishman who is on a quest to find a real bonafide alchemist somewhere out in Egypt. Nice! The pair (along with a hoard of other travellers and camels) set out to cross the desert and... nothing of consequence happens. The boy and the Englishman have very long and boring conversations that are just cyclical and repetitive as hell, and once in a while, the boy remembers his poor old sheep back in Spain, as well as the “raven-haired Moorish girl” he still obsesses over. sigh
Rince and repeat this formula until the end until you get the Great Revelation TM at the end that, wait for it, his happiness and self-realization was always at home! Travelling all the way out to Egypt was just a means for him to realize that, like any good Bible parable, the good shepherd boy will find comfort and true happiness in amongst the sheep in a sleepy little village.
FANTASTIC!
Now, in case you didn't pick up on my sarcasm throughout, here's a breakdown of problems in this book:
1) Racism! (the boy is full of preconceived ideas about gypsies and Arabs.
2) Bigotry! (the boy mocks and/or likens religions other than his own to devilry.)
3)Mysogyny! (the boy at one point says that the girl he likes doesn't know anything because she can't read, and that she wouldn't understand stuff like him, because he's so damn woke and deep).
4) Animals are dumb! (Seriously, on every other page the boy reiterates in one way or another how his sheep are just mindless creatures who trust him implicitly (do I see an analogy here between God/people??))
How wonderful, a “"”philosophical””” piece that perpetuates 1) Christian values and 2) societal stereotypes and misconceptions. I have been enlightened.
Before anyone jumps at my throat to say that I “didn't get it” or “read to literally” my answer is: no, I did not. I can very clearly “see” the message here; it's just that it's not a very good one (nor is it presented in a stimulating and engaging way). The pseudo-philosophical treaty doesn't tackle any new and fascinating concepts about the self. If you want to be truly enlightened by abstract concepts, go read real philosophers and learn from them instead.
This book is magical.
Paulo Coelho managed to create a charming tale about how everything is not impossible as long as we believe and try to achieve it.
Must read!
A book for the soul. I'm glad that this book found me at the perfect time of my journey.
It was a good book I'd say. The translation was bad at times and didn't get why the author simply mentioned Santiago throughout all the book as just The boy. The story was interesting and intriguing. Loved the equality of different ethnicities and especially religions! Islam and Egypt were described really well. The ending wasn't that satisfying tho... SpoilerI understand the author meant the journey to be more of a personal and spiritual treasure and self-discovery but... We don't even see him meeting Fatima again or The alchemist or what happened to the Englishman. Anyways I recommend it!
a short read, but was a little slow in the middle for me so i got stuck for a while. overall, i do recommend this book for others. when i finished it, i felt inspired and hopeful that i will some day realize my own personal legend and be able to help others along the way.
i didn't realize this book had such negative reviews, but i agree with some that we should still think critically about everything we read. this book was written a while ago, but i do wish it wasn't framed so that Fatima's personal legend was basically being a desert woman that awaits her male lover her entire life. however, i do believe in how the universe conspires to help you achieve what you want in life, so if you believe in this too then you will enjoy it