There isn’t always a clear transition between scenes, with some pages literally jumping from day to night without warning. The pacing of the graphic novel still gets clunky. Most of the original narration is replaced with first-person introspection from Santiago, keeping the reader in Santiago’s mind and also preventing the art from being covered with blocks of text. The graphic novel takes much of that narration out, and that’s probably for the best. It creates an easy flow that carries the reader through the book even where there is minimal action. The narrative voice is one of the star aspects of the novel, moving the story at a steady pace from one thing to the next.

The Alchemist is a parable for following your dreams, and much of the prose reads like a fable. In his introduction, Paulo Coelho goes on about how the Sea Lion Books adaptation is exactly what he dreamed of, so I went into the graphic novel (adapted by Derek Ruiz with art by Daniel Sampere) with relatively high hopes, but I soon found those hopes petering out. Really, it’s unsurprising that someone would try to make a graphic novel out of it. Originally published in Portuguese in 1988, Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist has sold millions of copies and inspired quite a following. Thus begins the shepherd’s journey into Africa, where he meets a thief, a merchant, an Englishman, a woman, and an alchemist, and learns how difficult and how rewarding it can be to follow your dreams through to the end. Just as Santiago is about to pass on the suggestion he encounters a king, who tells the boy he should listen to the omens and follow his dream, for that is his Personal Legend-the one thing he is meant to do in this world. Santiago, a shepherd from Andalusia, has had the same dream twice, in which an angel brings him to the pyramids of Egypt and tells him that this is where he will find his treasure. The Alchemist | Novel: Paulo Coelho / HarperSanFransisco | Graphic Novel: Derek Ruiz and Daniel Sampere / HarperOne

The alchemist graphic novel