The Alchemist

Manchmal lese ich ein Buch genau im richtigen Moment. So war es mit Der Alchemist von Paulo Coelho. Ich war unruhig, voller Fragen, irgendwie auf der Suche – und dann kam Santiago. Der Hirte, der von einem Schatz träumt.

Eigentlich ist die Geschichte einfach. Ein junger Mann folgt seinem Traum, reist durch die Wüste, begegnet Menschen, Zweifeln und Zeichen. Aber was wirklich passiert, passiert zwischen den Zeilen.

Coelhos Sprache ist schlicht, fast märchenhaft. Ich habe die Sätze aufgesogen, manchmal laut gelesen, manchmal sofort nochmal. Weil sie so klar und gleichzeitig so tief sind.

Was mich berührt hat: die Botschaft, dass jeder Mensch eine Bestimmung hat. Und dass das Universum hilft, wenn man seinem Herzen folgt. Kitschig? Vielleicht. Aber in dem Moment war es genau das, was ich hören musste.

Der Alchemist ist kein Buch, das Antworten gibt. Es stellt Fragen. Es erinnert. Es ermutigt.

Ich habe es in einem Zug gelesen – und am Ende still gelächelt. Nicht, weil alles plötzlich klar war. Sondern weil ich gespürt habe: Ich bin unterwegs. Genau wie Santiago. Und vielleicht ist das schon alles, was zählt.

Santiago is a shepherd who has a dream and travels to Egypt on the basis of that dream. He processing the world through the idea that everyone has a "Personal Legend" that must be fulfilled, a concept that is both insightful and useless. It's mostly wielded to explain bad things by saying someone must not be taking actions in alignment with their Personal Legend, and that good things are from pursuing it. 

I am reading a translation, so it’s possible that it’s more dazzling in the original language, but the version I’m reading is flat and boring. People think things, do things, then think about how they did things. It’s plodding and just shy of dull, I only finished it because I’m reading it for a book club. 

Santiago is boring and insipid. I don't like him, neither as a character nor as a narrator. Santiago gets to know a few people but the descriptions of them are simple, categorical, and frequently xenophobic. He spends the longest with the crystal merchant, and that was the best section of the book. His interactions with women are flat and centered around his idea of them in a way that was off-putting for me. 

I’m not sure how much worldbuilding was actually accomplished, and how much the book relied on me as a reader to know, for example, where Andulsia (in Spain) is in relation to Egypt. It uses the real world for its setting and relies on Biblical references for its fantastical elements, exploring new places through the naïve gaze of its protagonist. 

The ending is so breathtakingly simple that I don’t know whether to applaud or be upset. It’s a journey story, which normally I would like, but this just didn't appeal to me at all.

I had read The Alchemist before, in Spanish, a few years back, and I have to say I read at a good time in my life when, much as the book describes, I was in pursuit of my personal legend. So, when I saw there was a graphic novel adaptation of the book, I was very interested. I think the adaption by Derek Ruiz does a good job of bringing the novel to life for readers. The art by Daniel Sampere is well suited to the tale. The art is colorful, and it brings the setting of the tale to life. The graphic novel is a very easy book to read; it took me a couple of hours to get through it, and it is book you may want to reread again that still captures Coelho's message pretty well. I think also that some readers may want to find the full text novel to better savor the prose as well as take more of Coelho's message in. Overall, a nice inspirational tale and a nice reading experience. It is the tale of shepherd Santiago who has a dream and then goes forth on a quest to find a treasure, but what will he find, if anything? And who will he meet along the way? I can tell you he will meet various people along his journey, each with lessons to offer. And on an interesting note about the art, the artist used the likeness of Paulo Coelho for one of the characters, so be on the lookout for that.

Libraries with graphic novel collections will probably want to add this one. I would say teens and up would be a good audience for the book. If you have not read the novel before, this is a good way to do it. If you, like me, have read the novel before, this adaptation may help you appreciate it a bit more.