Dec 01, 2004 11:02 PM
16531 Views
(Updated Dec 01, 2004 11:06 PM)
Well, The Devil that I am talking about is not a fake one (like we have seen here) but a real Devil. The Devil is The Devil of a truly fascinating novel The Devil And Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho.
This is the same author who had given us a magical fable The Alchemist. The book was an international best seller. This book too has peaked the selling charts and gone on to become another International Best Seller. The story is like a Hollywood Blockbuster movie with emotions, laughter, evil, good & lots more.
The Devil and Miss Prym concludes the trilogy And on the Seventh Day. The first two books were: By the River Piedra I sat down and wept(1994) and Veronika Decides to Die(1998).Each of the three books is concerned with a week in life of ordinary people, all of who find themselves confronted by love,death and power.
According to the author lives of individual, just as in society at large, the profoundest changes take place within a very reduced time frame. When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment there is no point in pretending. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.
The book begins with the Author's Note in which he has given examples of the good & evil from various Persian mythology & The Bible. The above paragraph is a somewhat extract of Author's Note.
The story is about a battle between The good & The evil. Only one of them can triumph in the end. But who? The story is just about that. In one eventful week the Devil and the Good confront each other, with each trying to superimpose on other. But then will the good with its virtues be victorious or will it be the Devil with his devilish powers that will triumph. To convey this message the author has come up with yet another fascinating story.
The story is about a village named Viscos which has only 281 inhabitants and is controlled by a meagre half dozen individuals. The oldest among them is Berta who has extraordinary powers to communicate with spirits. The village considers her a witch.The youngest woman is Miss Chantal Prym who works in bar and is searching ways to make herself happy.
The story is about a stranger named Carlos who has all the riches in the world. But in some unavoided tragedy he looses his entire family.From that day The Devil takes over him & he is persecuted by the belief that human beings are essentially evil. But however his good side does not let him fully believe this. Hence to get the answers to his questions he arrives in Viscos carrying 11 gold bars.
The village Viscos too has had its own history of a battle of Good vs. Evil. The stranger gets Miss Prym on his side & shows her the 11 gold bars that he hides in the forest. He tells her that he is ready to give this bars to the village if in the next one week they commit a murder and he gives Miss Prym the responsibility to convey the message in to the village.
However Miss Prym's angel forbids her from doing this. But then her devil makes her do it. In this struggle she conveys the message to the village . The village now becomes an accomplice to this sophisticated plot, which will mark their lives forever.
Will they choose The Good or The Devil? Will they commit a murder? If Yes, Who is the chosen victim? In one eventful week, each of them face questions of life,death and power and each of them have to choose their own path. So who wins the battle in the end? Does anyone has to sacrifice his life for money? Does Carlos gets his answers? Will the good triumph over the evil?
To check out the intriguing answers to this intriguing questions read this fascinating novel.
Here is what The Times said about the book:
In his stunning new novel, Paulo Coleho dramatises the struggle within every soul between light and darkness, and its relevance to our everyday struggles: to dare to follow our dreams. The Devil and Miss Prym is a story charged with emotion, in which the integrity of human being meets a terryfying test.
A couple of nice excerpts:
There is no such thing as Good: virtue is simply one of the many faces of terror. When man understands that, he will realise that this world is just a little joke played on him by God.
Life can seem either very long or very short, according to how you live it.
