Swimming With Crocodiles

Day 0 – Prologue: The Alchemist

August 2005

I first heard of the novel ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho on the BBC ‘Big Read’ season during the Summer of 2005. It struck me as a book that I should find following the reviews it had, and it looked easier to read than Ulysses (which took me approximately ten years, having read a page or two at a time whilst sitting on the toilet!). I knew that The Alchemist was a book about omens, and the life of its author seemed very colourful and fascinating too. He had studied alchemy – the art of turning base metals into gold and discovering the elixir of life. In his life he has apparently been kidnapped and tortured by paramilitaries, confined to a mental institution as a young man simply because he was an artist, had encounters with black magic and drugs; and since becoming an author has been widely published in many countries as well as his native Brazil selling over 43 million books worldwide. I made a mental note to buy The Alchemist if I saw it!

One day travelling to work I was late and was listening to Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. The guest that morning was Paulo Coelho. The programme was so absorbing that I sat in the car park and resolved to be half an hour late (instead of the usual ten minutes late) and listened to this captivating fellow and his life. One thing that struck me was his belief in omens and coincidences. He said we should learn to read signs in nature, and that if there is something we really desire or aspire to then nature will conspire to get it for us. Coelho believes that we are all capable of realising our dreams and fulfilling our destinies. Not only that, but it is our duty to try. He explained that he only started to write a new novel whenever he encountered a white feather anywhere; as he explained that he took this as a sign to do so. I decided there and then that if The Alchemist was in any bookshop in Pwllheli (where I worked at the time) then I would get it that very day. When I went for a walk into town during dinner break I had largely forgotten the radio programme and the book. I had wandered into the small bargain bookshop next to the Tourist Information Centre in Pwllheli, which stocks tourist, travel and guide books mainly and not much in the way of fiction. I had actually gone in there to buy a travel guide to Kenya where I was going on Honeymoon soon, but couldn’t find one. While I was in there, however, I saw a book by Paulo Coelho called “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept”. I remembered what had happened that morning – so I bought it. I then walked across town to the “Bookseller” a shop run by a nice chap called Steve, who stocks lots of books of all kinds (and actually looks not unlike Paulo Coelho himself). I went there with the intention of ordering ‘The Alchemist’ as I had taken it upon myself that everything that had happened so far this morning had been a sign to do so. If anyone had it in stock Steve would, but he would certainly be able to order it fairly sharpish. To me Steve in the book world is the equivalent of a drug dealer, or one of those fixers you get in a German prisoner of War camp. I entered the book shop where Steve was sat behind his counter reading. We exchanged greetings and I began to search the travel guide books. I couldn’t find anything on Kenya at all here either – and neither could Steve when I asked him. I then said I was also interested in ‘The Alchemist’ by Paulo Coelho, thinking that this was any even bigger long shot than a travel book on Kenya. “Oh, like THIS one!” he said cheerfully holding up a copy of the book he had just been reading. There were a few in stock. Well – I had completely lost count of the number of omens and coincidences since Desert Island Discs regarding this book, and so I did walk away from the bookshop that day with the novel I was going to read when on honeymoon. The book is about a journey and so I thought it would be quite fitting whilst both on safari and on honeymoon. The back cover reads…