The Alchemist

The Alchemist -Part 1

Summary

A young man, called Santiago, in order to pursuit his dream of travelling here and there, becomes a shepherd and forgets about his father’s dream for him of becoming a priest. Traveling all around Andalusia, Santiago’s on his way to a city where he met a shopkeeper’s daughter a year before. Although before getting there, he makes his last stop to Tarifa in order to meet a Gypsy woman who’s supposed to help him interpret a dream he had twice but never got to the end of it in both of them. The dream was that Santiago was after a treasure, but whenever he was going to know the location of that treasure, he wakes up. The dream’s interpreter tells him that she’s going to deduce his dream; on the other hand he needs to give her one tenth of the treasure when he finds it. The boy agrees, therefore the fortuneteller tells him the following; that he needs to go to the Pyramids in Egypt in order to find his treasure. Later on, Santiago continues his path, and takes a moment to sit on a bench and read a book. In a few moments, an old man approaches him and gets seated next to him; he starts a conversation and introduces himself as Milchizedek, the king of Salem. And that he has a target, which is to help him achieve his dream known in the novel as the “Personal Legend” in exchange, the young shepherd has to give him on tenth of his sheep. Thus, the old man gives him two stones; a black and a white one that can help him take decisions. Santiago decides to go to Egypt to seek for the treasure, on his way, he stops in a Arabic village where he meets a Spanish man that promised to help him however ended up being a thief and taking all the money he had. Left alone, in a strange city to him, our protagonist finds a crystal shop and offers it’s owner to work for him so that he can collect money to go to Egypt to chase his path.  Nevertheless, the shopkeeper told him that he’s never going to be able to collect that much money in order to go to his destiny. With hope and happiness fading away, the boy decided to take the job so that he can buy some sheep.