Lerene's Book Review

The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho

Review by Lerene du Plessis

To realize one’s destiny is a person’s only obligation.”
-from The Alchemist

Have you ever asked yourself? What is the purpose or direction in life? With my school career coming to an end soon, I find myself asking this question quite frequently. Although it isn’t a question asked by scholars alone, I feel that the subject matter we study gives us a different perspective of the world - and our place in it - that students of other programs may not experience. This perspective, I feel, makes it a lot harder to choose a career, life path for the traditional reasons of wealth or status.

Written by Paulo Coelho, one of the world’s bestselling authors, The Alchemist follows a shepherd boy named Santiago through the depths of the Egyptian desert in search of hidden treasure. Symbolic of the life journey that we all go through, Santiago’s trail represents the rocky path we face in search of our own personal goals. The book is an acknowledgement of the fact that carrying out our dreams is not an easy task and there come times when we wish to give up and take the “easy” route. Coelho calls this path our “personal legend” and what he aims to do with his book is show us, through Santiago’s character, that the most important thing in a person’s life is working towards this calling.

The story addresses a question that I think we all ask and is a very inspirational “handbook” on how to deal with it. I say handbook because it is a very short and easy read, yet contains a wealth of great content. The book has been translated into fifty-six languages and has sold more than twenty million copies. Prominent figures such as Bill Clinton have been pictured reading it, and its reviews are nothing short of fantastic.

I’ll leave you with a short passage from the introduction to this book, and wish everyone good luck in achieving your own personal legend. Don’t give up; it will all be worth it in the end.

There are four obstacles [to achieving our personal legend]. First: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear, and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. But it’s still there.

If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle…

(Pick up The Alchemist to continue!)