The Alchemist: A Different Realization
I waged a war with myself on the ground of whether I should express my two-cents on this widely-loved book, or not. But in order to remain true to myself, and to anyone who might stumble upon this, I shall do it regardless.
Please understand that I do not mean to offend any fan of either the book or the author. This is only a subjective take borne out of personal upbringing, preference, and circumstance. I have been trying to read ever since I could talk, and with all the years that my meager mind has spent life reading, my middle-school self might have appreciated this book with a little less discontent.
The Alchemist is far from my first Coelho read, not even the second, nor my third. But it is the first Coelho book that I finished.
Remembering the words of a Brazilian acquaintance who expressed his displeasure at the mention of his compatriot in a conversation some months ago, he told me that Coelho is abjured by their literary society, and even more so by the privileged minority, for his “cheap literature.” At the time, I only responded with furrowed brows as Coelho had a special significance to me. I didn’t press him. Months later, I understood what he meant. The writing was subpar. The metaphors were clichéd. Even the theme itself was hackneyed, worn out with overuse by hundreds of other literatures. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, it tried to dole out the same allegories and emotions as the much more celebrated The Little Prince by Antoine Marie Roger de Saint-Exupery but only fell flat. It’s not Philosophical, as many have put it, rather, it’s a self-help feel good fiction made to do just that, minus the depth.
Another reason why I found it anticlimactic holds a rather intimate ground, but held the larger cause as to why The Alchemist was a large letdown. Before I had the chance to discover the writing myself, there was a time when Coelho was the talk of many where one could only hear how moving his prose was, and how poignant his books were for personal discovery, particularly the book in question. It was a good first impression, and I shelved it to “to read one day.” Some years later, when I was at the height of my fixation on the author of the famed Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, I met someone who called himself the Coelho to my Murakami. Being young, impressionable, and a little quixotic, I found it rather poetic, all the more due to the fact that literature served as a background to what could be a modern Austen tale. I gave Coelho such a high regard while he plied me with Brida, Veronika Decides to Die, Eleven Minutes, and By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept. I never finished any one of those. I often found myself frowning whilst trying to read between its lines and deciphering the point below its shallowness. That should’ve been an indication, but my love-addled brain saw it through rose-tinted glasses. “Ah, maybe tomorrow,” I told myself one day, then the next, then the next… until I never did.
It was only when the Coelho to my Murakami became a hard lesson I was proud of learning from did I read one Coelho book, The Alchemist, to the very end. At first I was confused, “Wait, this is it?” It was like waiting with bated breath for a phantom surprise that would astonish me in the end. It never came. All the years of buildup, only to fall inelegantly short. It’s always a wonder how something can affect your perception, your dogma, and when you’re roused from the deep sleep it has put you in, through the thick smoke that has warped your vision for some time… you see things as they are, sometimes considerably better, and other times they’re not so special at all.
So at the very least, The Alchemist may not have been for me, but it represented an event that I hold dear, a lesson that I will always commit to memory. I struggled to find profound philosophical meaning in its words, but it unconsciously became a symbol of an epiphany and I didn’t have to look too far for that. In a way, it has touched me as it had others.
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