The Alchemist.

Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist is subtitled “A Fable About Following Your Dream,” and within the context set out by the author – that this is a fable, and not a traditional novel – it’s good.

The linear plot revolves around a shepherd boy who meets with a mystical man who implies that he is a physical manifestation of the Soul of the World and encourages the boy to pursue his life’s purpose, which involves a trip to the pyramids and a search for treasure. Along the way, the boy meets an Englishman who seems to be on a similar quest but for the wrong reason, a girl who appears to him to be his soulmate, and the title character, whose skill in alchemy is secondary to his wisdom about our “Personal Legends” and the vicissitudes of life.

The Alchemist has a strong religious component, and all I’ll say about it is that if you’re opposed to religion, the book will be a tough read because belief in God and in a purpose in the universe underpins the entire story. Coelho is clearly engaging in a bit of magical realism here, doing so within the context of a sort of ecumenical theism. Whether The Alchemist is a self-help book in addition to a work of fiction is a subject I will avoid here.

As a straight novella, the book works well because the main character develops. The Alchemist struck me as a straightforward example of how to structure a short novel: The main character is on a quest or journey with a clear endpoint, and encounters obstacles along the way that help him grow emotionally while providing tension and moving the plot forward. Coelho could have extended some of the tense moments to enhance the reading experience, and probably should have, since I estimated that the book clocks at under 50,000 words, a shade short of what’s required to build the crescendo I expect in a typical novel.

My main complaint with the book was that the translation came off a bit stilted. It’s possible that Coelho’s language is just choppy, but my instinct says that it was translated too literally, and it gives some of the narration a trite feeling that, at the least, couldn’t have been intended. Quick reads, which any 167-page book should be, need smooth prose to succeed, and The Alchemist didn’t deliver that.

Next up: Having started and dispatched a Wodehouse book en route to Baltimore on Friday, I’m now about a third of the way through Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, another of the great works in the tradition of magical realism novels from Latin America.