Sofa Cushions
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a tale that breathes such simplistic beauty that by reading its words we shed irrelevance with just a turn of the page. For anyone who is not familiar with it—you are missing out on a world of esoteric wisdom. In this way, I suppose if you don't already hold the key, it may not make much sense to you (Perhaps, it may even cause frustration).
But for those who enjoy a nice glimpse at age old mysticism, the Alchemist will not disappoint. It all starts with an ancient story of Narcissus—who finds comfort in staring at his own reflection in the water, yet whose fate is to drown in this very same lake. After his death, a flower blooms in remembrance of him—the narcissus. And the lake turns salty with tears. When the goddess of the forest comes to ask the lake why she would weep over his death, the lake replied that she did not notice Narcissus' beauty. Rather she did not see him at all. “I could see in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.” Without his presence the lake wept at the absence of her own divine reflection.
This particular initiation into the journey that is presented within the Alchemist foreshadows the symbolic and spiritual nature of the entire novel. The story is short and sweet—as straightforward as pure wisdom is able to manifest into words. The introduction hints the lesson we must learn at the beginning of such an endeavor. Narcissus is he who is a slave to his own ego—a martyr of the material realm fueled by the self-serving principle. This age old tale of the narcissist shows that such a force has the power to become our own undoing. On both ends the recognition of such beauty within this world has the potential to overwhelm us to the point that we fall completely within it and become lost in an enchanted state until death, like Narcissus. Or like the lake, we weep over the discovery of such beauty and cannot find a way to live without it—thus we become bitter. In the end, the true lesson is outlined through the boy, Santiago's own journey and encounter with such forces.
In pursuing his 'Personal Legend'—the thing which gives his own life meaning, the boy encounters forces greater than himself that begin to take the form of a unique, all-encompassing, ancient language. It is this universal language that guides him on his way to his one true destination, the fate for him that was always written 'Maktub—it is written' as the Arabs would say. The desert provides a stage to capture the subtleties of this great journey in that the compass always points to the end—fulfillment of one's life goals, despite the many obstacles that were written into the sands before the boy ever arrived. Each test was placed to keep the boy on track to show him the truth behind the worth of what lies at the end of the road. And however tempted he may be to sway off the destined course, the boy's pursuit of his 'Personal Legend' is more powerful than the most ideal side-quest ever imagined.
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993), x.
