DaveWells.us

The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
Harper­One 2006World­Cat • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder

San­ti­ago, a young Andalu­sian shep­herd, is con­tent with his sim­ple itin­er­ant lifestyle — he trav­els where he wishes and is respon­si­ble only for his flock. Then, he dreams of find­ing trea­sure near the Great Pyra­mids of Egypt. With the encour­age­ment of a gypsy for­tune teller and a mys­te­ri­ous old man, San­ti­ago decides to sell his flock and search for the trea­sure. The jour­ney takes much longer than expected, and Santiago’s path is greatly influ­enced by the peo­ple he meets along the way. As he trav­els, his world­view, his goals, and his con­cept of trea­sure change as well.

Coelho’s tale is inspir­ing, although it occa­sion­ally teeters on the edge of being inspi­ra­tional, in the annoy­ing self-help sense of the word. Still, the story is a com­pelling one that plays host to a plethora of inter­est­ing char­ac­ters. The book’s prose is almost effort­lessly read­able, evi­dently the prod­uct of a coop­er­a­tive effort between Coelho and trans­la­tor Alan R. Clarke. The only down­side to this is that the book lacks the won­der­fully pecu­liar turns of phrase that often result from a trans­la­tor work­ing alone.