Author: Paulo Coelho
Publisher: Harper Collins
Rating: WARTY!
Illustrated by J.G. Jones
(KO-ALE-U) pub.
I started listening to Michael Scott's The Alchemyst on audio and then came across this graphic novel in the library. The similarity of titles caught my attention, so I had a quick look and thought it looked interesting. It wasn't. But still, I get to do a double-alchemy post! Not that this novel has anything at all to do with alchemy. The titular alchemist plays almost no part in the story. It should have been titled 'The Shepherd'. The alchemist is a dab-hand at frying up lead in a fry-pan and turning it into gold, however. I found that very enlightening.
Coelho (pronounced KO-ALE-U) is a Catholic, and this novel is nothing more, bottom-line, than his proselytizing to the Muslims that his ways are better than theirs because they're dumb and violent and he's all that (and a box of treasure). I would have put it in more general terms: all organized religion is dumb and all-too-often violent. You want to practice a religion, fine! I have no problem with that as long as you're not hurting others, or sacrificing animals, or imprisoning women. No real god of love would ever ask for things like that. Where I have a problem is when you start trying to force me to live your life because you think your religion is a better way and expect me to take that on faith. This is exactly what Coelho is doing here.
I read an article in which Coelho says he's interested in the virgin - the female face of god - but the god of the Middle East has no female face. Yahweh is a mountain man - a savage, bloodthirsty god who demands blood sacrifices, and for whom the Christian death cult has done nothing to soften by sticking a latex laughing Yeshua mask on his face and calling it love. All it offers is actually love - where love is a score in tennis. Even today Christianity still soaks all of its faith in the blood sacrifice of the firstborn.
» Can you spot the orange text against the desert sand? «
This particular story is so simplistic that it’s pathetic. A Spanish shepherd finds "enlightenment" (for enlightenment, read: treasure chest) - and that's it! The problem is that the way he discovers it is so ass-backwards as to be childish - as indeed most of these stories are. Yes, Philistine Prophecy I'm looking at you. This is a sad little fairy tale for children, so what does it say that so many adults have been mesmerized by it? I think it says far more about the brain-washing and mind-numbing power of religion, and the god-awfully simplistic mentality of all-too-many of the reading public than it ever does about Coelho's writing chops.
This shepherd is abnormally fond of his sheep, treating them like children, yet he has no problem eating them or giving them up when he is advised by a fortune teller to go find treasure in Egypt. There's little enlightenment in exploiting defenseless animals. The stereotypically "gypsy" fortune teller's only charge for her services is one tenth of the treasure he finds!
The fact that the fortune-teller is a total bone-head is quietly glossed-over. The treasure isn't in Egypt, but in the very place the shepherd slept the night before! If she had told him that, she would not have wasted a significant portion of his life, and he would have found the treasure that very night. I think she's a teller in the banking sense, and she definitely made for herself a fortune in return for sending this guy on a dangerous goose-chase at zero risk to herself.
I realize that fans of this novel might be likely to chastise my take on this and assert that if this had happened, then the shepherd would have missed the joy of his journey and more importantly, the Egyptian girl he discovered in making that journey, but this is nonsense. The fortune-teller could quite easily have advised him to visit the oasis and meet the girl - and it would have been a lot easier on him with all those riches instead of traveling as a near pauper.
As it was, he was robbed twice and had to spend the better part of a year working for a glass-seller in Tangier in order to recoup sufficient cash to continue his journey! He nearly lost his life on more than one occasion. I saw no real enlightenment here other than the patently obvious lesson that he should not trust strangers so blindly, and should take appropriate care when traveling in foreign neighborhoods. That was as clear as lead crystal; no fortune-telling was required!
» Paulo Coelho says the enlightened can talk and smoke simultaneously without opening their mouth! «
The shepherd is supposed to be smart, but he turns out to be extraordinarily gullible - which is how he's robbed the first time. Not much enlightenment there! At one point, a guy dressed like a regular guy but claiming to be a king of a distant land gives him two stones, one black and one white, telling him one will answer any objective question 'Yes', the other, 'No' and so, in tossing them, he will get an answer. Literally tossing them would have been wise. For this "advice", he gives this guy his entire flock. Why a king would want or request sheep is a mystery. Why the shepherd even believed this guy after being ripped-off once already is even more of a mystery.
The shepherd joins a caravan headed towards Egypt and at the oasis, he encounters an Egyptian girl and instantly falls in love with this woman about whom he knows nothing and to whom he has barely said a word. I do think it's wonderful that all Egyptians speak perfectly good English however, even young girls at oases in the butt-crack of nowhere. I did not know that! How enlightening!
Maybe he was enamored of her because she was slavishly carrying water, but his only real interest in her seemed to be that she was "beautiful", because that's all that matters isn't it? Forget about anything else. Will she make a worthy partner? He doesn’t care. Will she be a wonderful lifelong companion? He doesn’t care. Will she be a reliable ally? He doesn’t care. Is she smart? Decent? Worth-knowing? Fun? Good company? Does share his interests? Who gives a camel fart: She's beautiful and shapely! Because you know that this is the only possible value any woman can bring to the table - that and being youthfully slender. Seriously? This is pathetic and juvenile.
» Race that horse through the baking desert and see how enlightened she becomes! «
This whole story was supposed to be about a journey towards enlightenment, but all it was in the end was a treasure hunt, and the treasure didn't even turn out to be the girl. It would have been a much better story if the treasure had indeed been the girl - in that she would have become a worthy partner as he grew to know her. That's what I thought it would be - either that or the actual journey itself bringing him something he would never have achieved by continuing life as an Andalusian shepherd. But no! It’s nothing more than 'show me the money' when it isn't 'show me the honey'!
A better story would have been to have found the girl (or a guy) who was nothing special, perhaps even disfigured or outcast (or both), and grown to love that person as he grew to know them. Coelho expects us to buy that love is very important, and I agree with him there, but lusting for a hot girl at the oasis, and thinking you love her at first sight without knowing a single thing about her completely betrays his message.
A word to the wise: if you want true enlightenment, study science. Nothing will blow your mind more effectively or benefit humanity more reliably. I rate this novel warty.
