Control Review: The Alchemist

I, Dalton Lewis, have a confession to make: I don’t understand all of the literary works that I read — especially the ones attempting to be high art. Fortunately The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, is a little more accessible than most other works of literature of the current era. I know that there are people who understand the entirety of the symbolism and irony inherent in the great works of literature of the last fifty years — but no. They don’t. They don’t understand nearly all of it.

I read The Alchemist the other day. It is the story of a shepherd from Portugal or Spain who goes to Africa and wants to trek to Egypt to find a treasure that will teach him some special knowledge or insight into his life and the goals of his life. He gave up shepherding and sold all of his sheep and traveled across the sea to Africa — where he had adventures with a number of interesting people. He met someone who made crystals, met a beautiful woman who was in the middle of a war, and had to convince warlike nomads to let him live and let him pass through their territory.

These people all give the shepherd some insight into his life or the goals of his life. He wants to study alchemy, the process of turning one element or metal into another one. I believe that the original intent of alchemy was to turn lead into gold to make money, but that wasn’t really possible. The actual goal should have been making a stronger type of iron or steel — that would have been both more useful and more profitable.

Nevertheless Paulo Coelho tells his story with direct, simple sentences and concrete actions and dialogues. He doesn’t overdescribe anything, instead wanting the novel to sound like an allegory or fable. The style reminds me of The Little Prince, a simple story with a lot of ideas. I often explain things in general instead of coming up with concrete scenes, and Coelho has no trouble showing instead of telling.

I want to write intelligent works of literature, so why is this guy so much better than me at storytelling? This story wasn’t a hit until he believed in it and pushed it and convinced people to give it a chance. I don’t do that with my books — I think that they are poor because they do not sell very many copies. I get depressed and depraved because my writing sucks and no one likes it. Well, guess what — you should like it. I work my ass off to write a good story, and I’m sorry if you don’t appreciate my hard work, reader.

Why do some writers tell intelligent stories about actual ideas? The shepherd looking for wisdom is a simple fable that shows something about life and reality. This doesn’t have action sequences or dashing heroes or scintillating pornography. It just has ideas, and that’s all it needs to be brilliant. Maybe I should learn something from that.

Thanks, and take care, friends.