BOOKS: The Alchemist: A Fable About Finding Your Dreams

Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream was a charming way to pass several hours of highway driving. It was kind of a cross between Tales of the Alhambra and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Like Washington Irving’s Tales, it is slightly magical and set in some non-specific past that suits fables and fairy tales. And like the Tales, it begins in Andalusia and trades in fantastical Moorish characters, though this story actually crosses the Straits of Gibraltar and travels to North Africa. It resembles Jonathan Livingston Seagull in being infused with a New Age pseudo-religious philosophy that can seem captivating at first blush, enthusiastically packaged in a charming story. Just don’t think about it too hard, or the gossamer profundity dissipates, and you might start to wonder how the girl in the oasis is really any different than the merchant’s daughter in Tarifa (the Rosaline for this Andalusian shepherd’s Romeo), or whether personal legends are only for boys, or whether the mildly unwieldy phrase “personal legend” worked better in the original Portuguese. (Darn it, I let myself think about it too much.) In the end, the philosophical treasure to be gleaned from this book is no more nor less than the wisdom dispensed by the Mother Superior in the Sound of Music when she sings Climb Every Mountain. And you like that song, right? So just enjoy the tale of the enterprising Andalusian shepherd in search of travel, adventure, and treasure, and before you know it, you’ll have driven a few hundred miles.