Review of Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

‘Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria’, begins the famous author Paulo Coelho’s ‘Eleven Minutes’.

Coelho, whose simple yet inspirational fables had life-changing effects on people, is telling a story that will show you the possibility of sacred sex – sex in the context of love. ‘Eleven Minutes’ is a discussion of sex in a way that’s no less innocent than a fairy tale.

Maria, the protagonist of the novel is introduced as a young Brazilian girl who dreams of a Prince Charming like her friends. But her early experiments with romance convince her that love is a delusion. Her boyfriend ditches her because she knows nothing about kissing. She learns to feel that self-sex is best. Attaining her maturity, she becomes a shop-girl even though she has high ambitions. But a vacation in Rio helps her meet a Swiss tourist, Roger, looking for dancers for his club in Geneva. Maria accepts his proposal and steps into the world of dancers. She is taught ‘samba’ by a Moroccan man who knows nothing about it!  But soon she loses the job and joins Copacabana, Geneva’s expensive prostitution! She saves her earning so that one day she may return to her native village in style. But when she is absolutely lost in sex and desires, she meets a handsome artist, Ralf Hart who makes her see her inner light, and begins to regain the lost sight of ‘love’. What happens afterwards is for you to find out.

Coelho’s language is simple and his message is as transparent as water. His bewitching sentences made me read the book more than thrice already. He says, ‘When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. I saw this happen today as the sun went down. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! No herons, no distant music, not even the taste of his lips. How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly?’

Is there any better way than these simple yet insightful sentences to express the gloom of a heart-broken girl? The novel has diary entries of Maria which is sure to make you think. You may find yourself reading the same sentences again and again, pondering over it. One can call it a romance novel but very different from Nicholas Sparks or Harold Robins. Coelho has his magical style!  ‘Eleven Minutes’ sweeps you off your feet and takes you into Coelho’s world where you learn that life is a roller coaster and once you are on it, you cannot expect it to move gently; it will have its ups and downs. You realize that sex is the synonym of love. Coelho points out the thin border line that exists between love and sex in our lives and invites us to get rid of it.

Besides, the same message of ‘The Alchemist’ echoes here once again; ‘follow your dream’ just the way Santiago and Maria did. ‘Some books make us dream, others bring us face to face with reality, but what matters to the author is the honesty with which a book is written’; I can assure every reader that Coelho has been truly honest and has used his ability to combine dream and reality in ‘Eleven Minutes’. Coelho’s detailed storytelling is sure keep you enchanted, dreaming and his down-to-earth thoughts will allow you to look at the world from a new angle.

‘Eleven Minutes’ is a quest to discover your ‘inner light’. Are you ready for it?

The book is available in Bookworm.

Reviewed by Efadul Huq

efahuq@gmail.com