Summary (part one):
The Alchemist is a novel which is written by Paulo Coelho in 1980’s, originally in Portuguese but it was translated to another 60 languages. Santiago is the protagonist of the story who is an Andalusian shepherd young man, one of his dreams is to travel all around the world and to find the treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. The story begins with the protagonist sleeping on his jacket in the church in Andalusia at dawn time.
It all starts, when Santiago arrived and stayed at night at the church. He falls asleep on his jacket while using the book that he keeps it with him all the time as his pillow. He woke up and realized that he was very close to his sheep, he called them all by names and as if he was talking to them. They are very simple creatures, though, wanting only water and food. In exchange, they give him attention, trust, meat and wool.
Recently, he is thinking about a girl, the daughter of the merchant who bought from Santiago wool and told him to come back in a year at the same time, with which he had spoken to her and felt in love with her.
Santiago had promised a lot from his one-tenth: First, a gypsy old woman who read the palm and let people know about their dreams, to give her one-tenth from his future treasure, in exchange he supposed to have a hint from her but it was only wasting time. Second, he met an old man; Melchizedek who told him that he was the King of Salem, in deal to help him how to find the treasure and how to have a Personal Legend, Santiago will give him the one-tenth of his sufficient sheep. The young boy thought that Melchizedek was the Gypsy’s husband as a result of the same information of the “one-tenth”. They talked about love and treasure. “If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it”: said the king (p.25), I love this quote because it is fact, we can’t promise people on something before having it. Another old man gives him the two omens.
On Santiago’s way, villages had appeared, new people reencountered, and new ideas came. People who gives him direction to the treasure in Egypt. He sold his sheep against two stones of omens (Urimm and Thimminum) to find his own Personal Legend. He didn’t have money to buy water and food so he worked to a crystal glass cleaner. Besides, the crystal merchant let him know a lot about Koran.
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