PAULO COELHO:

 VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE

The writer of this novel is Paulo Coelho. He is famous brazilian novelist. He was

 born in Rio de Janerio and became famous when he published „Alchemist“, his sixth

novel. „Veronika decides to die“ is his 15th novel. I loved this book because it is

thoughtful, and it questions us about meaning of life.

The novel begins with the Bible quote „Behold I give unto  you power to tread on

serpents, and nothing shall by any means hurt you“. It is useful introduction

 because it says nothing can completly kill us if we fight against it, like Veronika was

fighting with her life. The story takes place in mental hospital „Vilette“ in Ljubljana,

Slovenija. We don't have many details that makes story picturesque because we

don't need it, descripions are unnecessary, the story is more important than the

nature, rooms etc. I liked the ending of the story, because it changed everything, and

it disoveres us the big secret. There is also retrospective in the story, when Eduard is

telling about his life in Brazil, before he came to Vilette, and also when Zedka was

talking about her past life, too. The author get me interested in the story when he in

one chapter told that he wrote this book when he heared Veronika's story from his

friend, and that through the story of Veronika he will speak out of his similiar story 

 when he was in mental hospital, too. There are 2 conflcits in this story: suicide

 versus the value of living, and the 2 different kinds of socitey. Those 2 types of 

socities are: group of the people that are all the same conflicts people who are

different than them. We can say that book is about definiton of madness. Like the

dr. Igor said, madness is what majority denies to be normal, not necessarily the best,

 but what majority thinks is the best.

The main character of the story is Veronika, 24 year old women who decided to end

her life because she thinks it is useless. One night, she decides to end her life by 

taking pills. Her plan didn't work, and while she was waiting to die, she read a

newspaper article which first sentence is: „Where is Slovenia?“. She decided she will

take the term nobody knows where is Slovenia for her reason to die. She survived

that night, and morning after, she was taken to mental hospital „Vilette“. The

doctors told her her heart was damaged by pills, and she is about to die this week.

In Vilette, Veronika, through other patient that she had met, dicoveres that every 

moment of her life is important and that she lives just once. Characters from the

 book reminded me of „mad“ people, people with mental ilnesses, after reading this

 book, I don't think the same as I was thinking before I read a book. I think those

people are not so „mad“, but society makes them that way, and they are different

from others and they are just called „mad“ because socitey doesn't understand them

and their way of living. Thing I liked the most are Veronika and Eduard and their

 

relationship. Veronika is beauty, has good job, good lovers, she has everything all

 young women are dreaming to have, but her every day is the same. Eduard had a

rough childhood, his parents didn't supported him, actualy, he wanted to be a

painter but his parents wanted to educate him, because his dad was ambassador and

he could find very good job for him. Veronika and Eduard first met when, one night,

 Veronika was playing piano and Eduard was listening to her. As there were more

and more nights, they got closer. Through relationship with Eduard, she realises

that other Veronikas exist inside her, Veronika that she could love. She hates the

 way she had lived her life, never bothering to discover these hundreds of other

 Veronikas who were more interesting, mad, curious, braver than Veronika she

claimed to be. She gets the instict to spend her last days alive behaving

inappropriately and the way she was keeping all the life inside her. One day,

 Veronika and Eduard decided to escape to Ljubljana castle, so Veronika can die the

 way she wants. Veronika makes Eduard swear that he will paint her before she dies,

and he promises. The morning after, Veronika is still alive.

For me, the worst charcter of this novel is dr. Igor. He is the headdoctor of Vilette,

and he is working on his project. He wanted to find antidote for the cause of insanity 

 Vitriol, a toxic which is produced by our body, because then, he will become famous

and people will finally know where Slovenia is. He lied to Veronika that she is

having heart disease, and he was giving her his antidotes, in other words, Veronika

 was his experiment.

Paulo Coelho was writing from the third-person view. He used past tenses, and the

focus is on Veronika, her thoughts, her experiences and her events. The vocabulary 

of this book isn't very hard, but there are some I didn't understand, especially 

medical words; like vitirol, catatonia and scrutiny.

I really liked and enjoyed this story. I read it quickly, and the book was very 

interesting for me. Also, I loved this book because it isn't all about Veronika, it is

also about the writer's life story. I mentioned earlier that in one chapter Coelho

mentioned that he is retelling his story while he was in mental hospital through

 Veronika's story. When I finished the book, I was thinking, firstly, is Igor good or

 bad character and then could Veronika's story be possible and realistic. I conculed

that everyone has little Veronika in himself. Everyone is little insane, and everyone

thinks about the meaning of his life. Althrough this story made me a better reader, I

think this story has made me better man, because I'm not looking mad, insane

people like I was looking at them before I read the story. Now I realise, that people

consider insane is all this that is different from them and their opinions of „good

life“.