Comprehendible input
Inspired by Stephen Krashen and his theory of comprehensible input, I decided to begin reading books in Spanish. Good news: I’ve been loving it and have already seen significant improvement in my Spanish abilities.
As I write this I’m almost done with my second book and am enjoying reading more than I have since elementary school. My Spanish is intermediate: I can get my point across but I always feel like my vocabulary is holding me back. I’ve tried using tradional learning methods, but have always found them to be boring and not very effective. The one resource I’ve found effective and enjoyable is Language Transfer and I highly recommend it to beginners, but it only lays out a foundation and it’s up to you to build on it.
The perfect book for an intermediate Spanish learner
El Alquimista (The Alchemist in English) was a perfect intermediate choice. The ‘chapters’ are short (3-5 pages), the language is relatively simple, and the story is engaging. I think the fact that it is a translation (Portuguese to Spanish) was helpful, as it made the language more accessible. As I read Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) I find the language to be considerably more difficult and I would attribute a lot of this to fact that it was originally written in Spanish.
O Alquimista, written by Paulo Coelho and originally published in Brazil in 1988, follows the journey of Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd who dreams of finding a treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. It engages in themes of destiny and the importance of listening to ones heart. As is typical of South American literature, it employs magical realism to infuse an otherwise straightforward story with a sense of wonder and possibility.
Spanish: a Romantic Language
One of my biggest take aways from El Alquimista and reading in Spanish is how much more ‘romantic’ the language is. I suppose that might sound cliche, given that Spanish is a Romance language, but I think there’s some truth to the name. The language is more poetic, more expressive, and more emotional. It’s hard to experience this without reading yourself and I can’t quite put into words why this is. For me, the difference is unmistakable and makes it so much easier to get lost in the story.
Self-help or literature
Upon completing El Alquimista I went to the books Goodreads page and was quite surprised to see many reviewers criticize it for “being a self-help book masquerading as literature”. If you can read a novel and come away with this take, magical realism probably isn’t for you.
I would encourage anyone thinking about reading El Alquimista to take it for what it is: the tale of a sheperd’s journey from Andalusia to the Pyramids. Every novel has an underlying message but that doesn’t mean it’s value is entirely derived from it message. To write off El Alquimista as simply a self-help book is to write off a whole genre because you are unwilling to appreciate the story being told by it.
Magical realism engages in making the impossible normal. It explores social issues, power structures, and historical events while reminding us of the potential for the extraordinary within the ordinary. The story does not exist without the message, just as the message does not exist without the StylePropertyMap. To appreciate magical realism you have to appreciate the way which the author melds the two together.
Open Minds, Open Worlds
I really enjoyed El Alquimista. I was left with a burning desire to go see what the world has to offer, not because it will lead to treasure or riches, but because there is so much out there to see. I would recommend approaching it with an open mind and a willingness to enjoy the story for what it is. It is a great book and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into read in Spanish or magical realism.