June 28, 2007

  • I know Paulo Coelho has written oodles of books but somehow I've gotten away with not reading any of them until now. I don't know anything about his other books, but based on the Dedication in the begininning, I'm guessing that Eleven Minutes is a bit of a departure from his other works. Correct me if I'm wrong ...

    I feel like there were two distinct sections to the book. The first half moved along pretty smoothly with the story of Maria, disenchanted with life at a young age...moved from Brazil to Geneva in search of better things...only to choose a life of prostitution. Although some people may have no choice in selling their bodies; Maria makes it quite clear that the choice was hers to make.  Even though she needed the money and didn't have many viable skills, she really did not need to resort to prostitution for survival.  I was quite surprised at how much she was able to intellectualize life.  Coelho has her journal entires throughout the book so that you are able to hone into Maria's thought process. Although I don't doubt that there are intellectuals stemming from the most rural regions of Brazil, some of Maria's journal entries just weren't believable for me.  I believe she was about 19 years old and even if she had the intellect to write some of those things ... I don't believe she could've also had the maturity.

    Anyhow, as I said, the first half of the book progressed nicely for me and then it spirals into a jumble of musings on love/sex/life/touchy feely mumbo jumbo.  All really not for me. And then you have a fairy tale Hollywood ending - literally, as it mimics the famous scenes of Casablanca.  That was just the icing on the cake in me really(!) not caring much for this book.

    Two out of five smileys