Reviews & Overviews by Rod Cameron

        

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
The Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho has written a number of best-sellers. Some are fiction, others are more factual. The Alchemist concerns Santiago an Andalusian shepherd boy who dreams of treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. He goes off on a quest for this treasure and on the way meets a number of people who act as teachers. At it’s simplest, the story is a simple child-like fable. However, the people the boy meets can be considered as spiritual messengers for the reader as well as for Santiago. The Alchemist is a gentle ‘easy read’ with a potential for deeper contemplation. For example, “My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy confides one night as they look up at a moonless night. “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself,” the alchemist replies. “And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.” Deep, and the stuff that cult books are made of…
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco Date: 1988 Pages: 174 Pages Price: £7.99 ISBN: 0-06-250218-2 Format: Trade paperback Reviewed by: Rod Cameron Date Reviewed: September 2005

Copyright : Roderick Alasdair Cameron 2001 - 2012                   rod@rodcameron.co.uk