Book review: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist provoked a tsunami of groans and derisive laughter when its title, written on a folded up receipt, emerged from the black-ribboned fedora at the Knights Templar and Paulo Coelho’s 1988 book was thus duly selected for discussion at the next meeting of the book club. But with sales of about 65 million copies and innumerable readers who claim it has had a transformative, inspirational effect on them, was that mockery and disapproval warranted?

In one sense, that question can immediately and without further ado be answered with a resounding ‘yes’.  The literary qualities of Coelho’s writing are widely held to be non-existent. This is evident enough from the arid, unoriginal prose style, overburdened with heavily laboured symbolism, which comes through in the English translation.

“No matter how many detours and adjustments it made, the caravan moved toward the same compass point. Once obstacles were overcome, it returned to its course, sighting on a star that indicated the location of the oasis.”

Coelho’s style is the unconvincing aping of Aesop’s fables or the Bible by an inept child. What’s more, it cannot fall back on the defence that it is a translation. Often, literature is said to lose something in the process of transferral from one language to another, but in the case of Coelho, it has been remarked that the corrections the professional translators have felt compelled to make in fact made it more readable.

Lovers of the book claim that it’s the message, the lesson they learnt from the book, that’s important. This brings us to the plot, which borrows liberally and without any acknowledgement from ‘The Ruined Man Who Became Rich Again Through a Dream’, one of the stories in the Thousand and One Nights.

The original fable is immeasurably superior. It is much more succinct than Coelho’s version and achieves its aim without the unnecessary inclusion of a female character stripped of any ego or personality, who inexplicably falls in love with the protagonist at first sight and waits for his return after he abandons her to search for treasure.

Furthermore, the Arabian tale doesn’t feel the need to drive home its point through the incessant inclusion of repetitive, bland aphorisms: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Apart from anything else, this ‘inspirational’ epigram seems manifestly unrealistic.

The absence of literary merit in Coelho’s work is unsurprising, given his views. He espouses a philistine anti-modernism, and said in an interview with the Folha de S Paulo that James Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses “caused great harm.”

Coelho’s real message is that you do not need to make any effort to understand challenging literature or learn the craft of writing in order to make millions from a bestseller. Coelho has proved that this is true, but in doing so he reduces the role of reading and writing to self-help – I would add entertainment, but I don’t find sham spirituality particularly entertaining.

It may be enough for many millions of readers at some point in their lives, but anyone who is interested in literature as an art form will find the Alchemist hugely lacking in substance.

Caspar David Friedrich - der einsame Baum (detail)

Originally published on Sir Edward Coke's Jots and Plots