The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho : Reviewing an international bestseller

I purchased Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist for 25.37 $, on 2014.09.17. It was suggested to me on the internet along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One hundred years of solitude. Those days I was an undergraduate studying business management and I was not exposed to world literature that much.

After a turbulent time period from 2014 to 2022, on June 18th I saw a list of eleven books to be read to improve my English on Facebook. In that list, the fourth book was 'The Alchemist'. It triggered me to read the book at an instance.

And after a request for a review from a Goodreads friend I realized why I should not write about this book which is very quotable and may be one of the most quoted books of the 20th and 21st centuries.

What mostly attracts me to this book is its short and sweet nature with a magical touch.

I will quote the prologue in the book to capture the essence of magic in this book.

I will not explain the two-page simple prologue to the readers of this review but will make sure they grasp the beauty of it by this extraction.

" I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected."

When you read this novel it feels like a self-help book about discovering your inner voice and believing in yourself. Hence the concepts and theories of "Think and grow rich" by Napoleon Hill published in 1937 definitely come to my mind.

And also if the readers of this book wish to visualize the cultural and aesthetic aspects of this book watch Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005).

The poetic words and philosophy hidden in this novel remind me of Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931). I have read many Sinhala translations of his books like "The Prophet" (1923), "The Mad man" (1918), and "Broken Wings" (1912).

My 3-star rating which is surprisingly low is because I don't want to make a book that is magical and at the same time filled with coincidences to be a masterpiece. But yet I cherished reading this beautiful book.