Paul Coehlo's "The Alchemist"

The Alchemist is one of those books that I glanced over repeatedly until I noticed that it seemed to be everywhere. One of my good friends read it last summer and would only say, "You should read it. I want to talk about it." Enigmatic... The copy I found at a secondhand bookstore came with an introduction from the author. In answering the question, "why are these books so popular," he writes, "All I know is that, like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God's blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend." Most people, he argues, don't have the courage to confront our own dream, and he gives several reasons for this: we are told from childhood it is impossible, we are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream, we are afraid of the defeats we will face on the path (and the easiness of saying, 'oh well, I didn't really want it anyway'), and finally, "the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives". My friend said that she's encountered several people who cite this book as "life-changing," and I can only assume it's because of these "life lessons" in following your personal calling. While I enjoyed the book, I think I disagree with its base message.

The novel, if it is a novel, was originally written in Portuguese and published in 1988. It has since been translated into 56 languages and has sold more than twenty million copies (as of 2002). The narrative has the feel of a well-told myth, in part because it is the story of a long-ranging quest, and in part because the characters remain sketches while peripheral characters pass by quickly. Santiago, the shepherd, dreams of visiting the pyramids in Egypt, and the book is the story of how he fulfills this personal calling, the challenges and defeats he encounters along the way, how he overcomes disappointments, and how he prioritizes this personal calling above all else. A central belief in the book is that if you are putting everything into achieving your personal calling, "the universe" will help you. Some of this is mystical - when Santiago is captured by a band of soldiers in the Sahara, he is able to call on the wind and the sun to fool them into thinking he is some kind of magic man. Partly the "conspiring universe" exists in these kinds of natural personifications, but as the opening introduction hints, Coehlo also argues for a kind of luck that comes to those who fight for their personal callings. Santiago loses and recovers his personal fortune something like four times throughout the tale, through stupidity (how often can you be robbed blind?) and smarts (he proves to be a hand at several businesses - not at all incongruous...).

For me, the whole belief system seems inherently selfish. In particular, the second obstacle Coehlo mentions in his opening intro: love. He writes, "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." Santiago meets his true love at an oasis in the middle of the Sahara desert. Fatima, as a woman of the desert, "knows that men have to go away in order to return. And she already has her treasure: it's you. Now she expects that you will find what it is you're looking for." Maybe it's the gendered construction of this - as a woman, all Fatima wants out of life is a good man, and she's more than willing to wait around until Santiago fulfills his personal calling. I agree with the alchemist, a somewhat mythical character who is very in touch with the Soul of the World and who serves as a guide for Santiago from the oasis to the pyramids. He says that if Santiago ignores this deep calling, he will eventually become unhappy and that the only way he can live happily is to fulfill this calling first before he settles down. However, almost no personal callings that I can think of are easily answerable/accomplishable in the space of a few years. In fact, Coehlo's last point acknowledges that personal callings are most likely to be lifelong pursuits. So, if you have to wait to love somebody and create a life with them until after you have fulfilled that calling, doesn't that mean a lifetime of waiting? And honestly speaking, how likely is that you'll either a) find a person who has met their calling (be it you, like Fatima, or an actual thoughtful personal calling, like any real woman *ahem*) and that that person will be willing to wait for you or that b) you'll fulfill your calling in a reasonable amount of time and settle down with said person only to.... live a life without purpose?

I think this is the crux of what I don't understand about Coehlo's mythology. One, what kind of person only has one personal calling in life? And who, once they have achieved that single calling, is happy to live a life of ignorant bliss in the solitary knowledge of this one lifetime accomplishment. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, who doesn't change over time? Unless you're a cardboard cutout, you're a dynamic person and your preferences will change as you grow and experience more. And so, it seems necessary that your personal calling(s) will change over time with you, and that they might even grow to accommodate people you love. Maybe I'm oversimplifying, but it seems to me this plan is ludicrous: 1. identify your personal calling (let's hope you didn't pick something too young, like "I want to meet Barney..."), 2. throw everything else out the window until you meet this personal calling, 3. live a happy, satisfied life without a replacement calling/desire/goal.

Despite all of that  negative reaction, I might still say read it. It certainly inspired a lot of thought for me, and after all, I want to talk about it :)