Veronika Decides To Die : Book Review

About the book

Title : Veronika Decides To Die
Original title : Veronika decide morrer
Author : Paulo Coelho
Year of publishing : 1998
Genre : Psychological fiction
Number of pages : 210

About the author

Paulo Coelho de souza is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist best known for his “The Alchemist”. In 1982, Coelho published his first book, Hell Archives, which failed to make a substantial impact. After making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1986, Coelho wrote ” The Pilgrimage” , published in 1987.

The following year, Coelho wrote “The Alchemist” and published it through a small Brazilian publishing house that made an initial print run of 900 copies and decided not to reprint it. He subsequently found a bigger publishing house, and with the publication of his next book,”Brida”.

Since the publication of ” The Alchemist”, Coelho has generally written atleast one novel every two years.

“If I see a white feather today, that is a sign that God is giving me that I have to write a new book.” – Paulo Coelho

Analysis of the book

“Veronika decides to die” is a novel by Paulo Coelho. It tells the story of Veronika, a 24-year-old Slovenian who appears to have everything in life going for her, but decides to kill herself.

The book is partly based on Coelho’s experience in various mental institutions and deals with the subject of madness. The gist of the message is that ” collective madness is called Sanity”

This books tells us that life is not about giving up, it is about living the way it is and in our own terms.

Summary of the story

The story is about a girl named Veronika who is upset with her disturbed life . She is tired and don’t want to face the problems which she is undergoing in her life. So she decides to end her life by committing suicide. She takes a handful of sleeping pills and writes a funny suicide note because she wants people to remember her in a hilarious way.

When she opens her eyes she finds herself in a mental asylum where she slowly comes into company of Mari, Zedka, Dr Igor and Eduard. Dr Igor tells her that her heart’s condition is not good and she only have a few days to live. After that when she meets Eduard she slowly falls in love with her and she decides to live her in those limited days , in whatever way she wants.

Now, she can do anything whatever she wants because in a mental asylum no one is there to judge her and no one is there to put limit into her desires.

Later, she fell in love with her life and she went with Eduard to enjoy her life in a more enchanted way.

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”

“People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.”

Conclusion

At the end, it was revealed by Dr Igor that Veronika was not going to die. She was going to live. Dr Igor told her earlier that she was not going to live because he wanted her to fall in love with her life and love her life . When he saw that his trick worked he told Veronika the truth and Veronika felt more happy on hearing that and went on to explore her life more with having Eduard beside here.