Tuesday 4 August 2015

The Alchemist - Paulo Coehlo

I get why this book has remained popular after all these years since its first publication. Its so simply written. And states all these things that we already know about life and ourselves, though we hardly acknowledge because they're so fundamentally ingrained. These understated but profound aspects of living and believing that are so organic to the human way, that they're somehow no longer conceived or remembered.  Nuances of communication, and thought and logic and belief that we almost ignore, if we even remember that they're there.
For a Fantasy genre fan as myself, I found this book compelling because it almost makes the reader the protagonist  of the book. The actual protagonist - Santiago -  is simply referred to as the 'Boy'. As with all the important characters of the book, they remain mostly nameless when referred to. All the reader can visualize is their journey.
This is a book of journey and lesson. A good friend of mine inspired me to read it and it seemed to pop up randomly so many times in my life that it was meant for me to read it.  Coehlo often relays via the Boy, 'don't ignore the omens', and I dared not ignore this one.

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