To Paulo Coelho fans, his latest offering, eleven minutes, will make for a very different reading experience. It is a stupendous piece of writing, comprising all the qualities that make him a prolific writer; his explorations of the heart and mind, his discovery of the truth and the manner in which he says what we have been itching to unearth for ourselves.
eleven minutes charts the story of a young Brazilian girl called Maria from childhood to adulthood, the course of her life from innocence to prostitution. It is a skillful rendering lived through the tangles of wants and desires. It is a love story with a happy ending, and a story of romance, of maturity, of forbearance, of courage and of mettle.
The book deals with sex. That is its preoccupation. It is the single thread that strings together the gamut of happenings, trials and events in the life of Maria, a prostitute who, during the course of her dealings with men, chances upon what she upholds to be the greatest truth of all times….that sex binds all humanity together and that this act, so ancient, so revered, so sanctified, so often misused and abused, lasts for all of eleven minutes.
Maria is a young girl like any other, preoccupied with dreams of a Prince Charming, marriage, a luxurious home by the sea, children etc. She falls in love a few times but has her heart broken. As she proceeds from adolescence to adulthood, she learns to manage men by giving them what they desire, attention, coy looks and sometimes sex. She sails through life thus, until she gets her first chance to travel to a far off land, in search of adventure and love. She contemplates hard, and takes the plunge despite being aware that it could be a wrong decision. Yet, thats how she wishes to live her life. That sums up the fundamental message of the book; Life is all about choices and risks; some take them and some don’t even attempt.
The journey from her native Brazil brings her to Switzerland. Her first employment as a Samba dancer exposes her to the hard life. Yet she does not view herself as a victim, of life or of circumstances. From the onset, Maria views her experiences as an adventure she has voluntarily undertaken to discover the hidden treasures of life, to find love, and ultimately, happiness and contentment.
Coelho’s masterful understanding of the human nature come to the fore in the passage where Maria compares her journey to the adventure seeker who gets on the roller coaster at a funfair, “in search of excitement, but once it starts, they are terrified and want the cars to stop……I am here because I chose this fate. The roller coaster is my life;……If I had fallen asleep and suddenly woken up on a roller coaster, what would I feel?……if I believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of this machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. It becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, a safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, I must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with excitement.”
Then comes the dilemma that is to shape her life, as Coelho expertly shows how she falls into the rut of prostitution. The first time she is propositioned, she feels utter despair. Yet she accepts the proposal because she sees the money as a means to an end. It is a trap she chooses to fall into. She is surprised that she feels no sense of guilt. She only hopes that the experience makes her stronger.
While Maria reconciles to her life as prostitute, companion, friend, lover to the men she sleeps with, she also constantly battles with the idea of true love and whether it exists. She comes to a valiant conclusion, one that she follows when she falls in love, that LOVE meant freedom. She also fixes a deadline to return to her homeland since she knows that the life she leads is easy to get used to, and that she, as a dutiful daughter should return to her parents and attempt to give them comfort and happiness in their old age.
Maria does meet the love of her life. A painter, who sees her inner beauty, her inner light, her soul as much as her physical beauty and the life of sin she leads. They go through a roller coaster ride of their own, loving, desiring, yet afraid of losing it all. In the end though, love conquers all.
There are significant references in the book to the nature of sex, its place in ancient times and its progression to a subject of taboo and misconceptions. Coelho uncovers how facts about the female body were misrepresented and denial of their wants and desires subsequently spread from one culture to another, under the pretext of religious sanctimony.
There is an excerpt in the beginning taken from Luke 7: 37 – 47, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” Maria’s sins are absolved and forgiven at the outset. Significantly, this approach permeates the whole book, and as we proceed, we realize that the author makes one concession towards her, the most important one; he treats her like a human being with real emotions, real thoughts and real dilemmas. He makes Maria stumble and emerge braver with each fall. Life, as shown through her eyes, is not black or white, all wrong, or all right. There are a million shades of grey, half-truths and harsh realities in it. Ultimately it is all about choices. Choices determine who we are but cannot take away from us our very right to live and love.
eleven minutes is the story of this young girl who undertakes the journey of life, has the courage to dream, to be true to herself, who takes each day as it comes, who sees adventure and significance in all that she undergoes; and her experiences, good, bad and ugly, shape her life, and lead her to love.
Throughout the book one gets the familiar feeling of been there, done that, but never pondered over it. And that is what Coelho does best. Makes one introspect and reflect; makes his readers understand his characters; get into their skin as if it were them in that dilemma; having to make that choice; that life altering decision. A shift from his previous stories, where he allows his readers to dream, here, he attempts to expose his readers to a subject that is harsh, difficult and shocking. As he says in his Dedication, “what matters most to the author is the honesty with which a book is written.”
eleven minutes is truly an honest effort !
