The Alchemist - "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

So the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is my latest foray into the non-speculative end of the novel pool.

This is a book about a boy from Spain who has a dream that there's treasure near the pyramids and goes on a journey to look for said treasure. He makes a trip through North Africa to go look for it and along the way he goes on a sort of spiritual journey too. Along the way he meets some nice people, gets robbed a few times and finds a girl that he likes. Oh and there's also an Alchemist guy.

It's very short and there really isn't much story to it. The writing is flowery and the story is punctuated by philosophical mutterings about religion and God and 'The Soul of the World'. Indeed, the whole story is more of a platform for Coelho's vague ideas about how God loves all His children. At no point does the Alchemist offend and it isn't really boring or anything, but it's ultimately a book about nothing.

So as I said, a fair chunk of the short-book is dedicated to a sort of spiritual awakening on the part of 'the boy' (the main character does not have a name). This read basically like any scene from any book where some form of mystical power is bestowed upon the protagonist. By listening to his heart the boy can speak to the wind and then to the sun and then look unto the Hand of God, which in turn let's him realize that all things are part of the Soul of the World and that the Soul of the World is in turn an aspect of God and thus he can perform miracles and turn himself into the wind.

Use the Force, Luke.

The difference between the Alchemist and a good story though is that there is no conflict in the Alchemist. He isn't going to use his Soul of the World powers to do anything besides steal money from a church (that's where the treasure ends up being) and then live out his days being happy. The story is simplistic and unambitious. There are only really three characters in the book. There's the boy, who is Pursuing His Dreams. Then there are the helper type guys who appears throughout the book dispensing philosophy and encouragement, who might have different names but who are really just one person with different titles. And then there's the one named character, Fatima, who is a girl he likes.

My point: there isn't any actual story in this story. It's a religious philosophy text dressed in a layer of fiction.

The actual philosophy is perfectly inoffensive. It's standard Christian Jesus-loves-everyone feel-goodism translated into a form that attempts to make it have universal application through a Soul of the World, which I guess is also an analogy for the Holy Spirit (whatever that is). It really doesn't go any further than that, as there are no evil characters in the book, so I thus feel comfortable dismissing it as being utterly shallow.

The other message is 'follow your heart' which is, of course, tripe.

But the shallow philosophy is not the problem. Fiction has been used as a platform for philosophical and political insights for a very long time. I don't have a problem with book with a message. But the difference between this and your 1984s or whatnot is that those books have actual stories! If you ignore all of Orwell's political commentary, you still are left with a boldy imaginative and engrossing story. If you ignore Coelho's philosophical dung, you're left with blank pages.

And that just isn't how a novel should be.