Book Summary: The Alchemist

The Alchemist is the story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd, who goes on a journey to find his Personal Legend. The novel starts with an introduction where the alchemist is reading the story of Narcissus where goddesses and the lake speak of the handsome man. The next two sections of the story, part one and part two, focus on Santiago and his personal quest. In the epilogue, Santiago achieves his personal legend. In the introduction, the alchemist reads the story of Narcissus, where the man is so infatuated with himself that he fell into the lake and drown. The lake asks the goddesses if he was beautiful, but the goddesses say the lake would know that better than anyone else. However, like Narcissus, the lake was staring at herself …show more content…
He brings in more business to the shop for about a year. The owner tells him about how he fears to complete his personal legend because he feels the dream is probably better than the reality. This puts Santiago back onto the path of his personal legend, because he does not want to live in question about the pyramids. So he sets on a journey through the desert with a caravan. He becomes friends with an Englishman who is on a journey to find an alchemist. The caravan makes it to Al-Fayoum, an oasis in the desert where a village resides. The caravan is told by the leaders of the village that they must stay, because there is a war going on in the desert and the oasis is the only safe land. However, Santiago has a vision that the village is going to be attacked and ends up saving the village from being unarmed. So the leaders of the village allow him to leave with the Alchemist of their village to seek his treasure. Santiago struggles with leaving the love of his life, Fatima, at the village, but the alchemist convinces him that this is the only way. Finally, in a month's time Santiago makes it to the pyramid and begins to dig for his treasure. However, he keeps searching and can not find his treasure from his Personal Legend. Eventually two men come up to Santiago and laugh at him for his foolishness. One of the men tells the shepherd how he had a dream just like his except the treasure was