Veronica Decides To Die by Paulo Coelho

 Veronica Decides To Die is a novel by Paulo Coelho. I write the review in English, though I read the book in Spanish, so it may be that many aspects of the book’s language may have disappeared in translation.

The novel deals with several significant issues impinging upon the lives of ostensibly ordinary people. But, perhaps because of social definition, perhaps via self-identification, perhaps as a result of the hand dealt by experience, these people are treated by the ordinary in extraordinary ways. Veronica and her associates are treated in very special ways indeed, receiving, amongst other things, doses of insulin high enough to incapacitate and electro-convulsive therapy designed to stimulate temporary amnesia. They are all, for the purposes of Veronica Decides To Die, inmates of an asylum.

And the location is important. The asylum, probably referred to by some as a madhouse, is in Ljubljana, Slovenia, just at the time when the former republic of Yugoslavia is in the process of breaking up. There is a strange and, certainly within these pages, little exploited parallel between the mental disintegration of these individuals and the break-up of a state that has previously sought advantage in unity and incorporation. Thus, the novel examines – though none too deeply - the relationship between sanity and madness, unity and separateness, individuality and society, personal and accepted response.

Elements of plot may be discovered by readers of the novel. But nothing is revealed by recording that interactions between four of the asylum’s inmates, Veronika, Eduard, Zedka and Mari that form the backbone of the book, along with their relationship to Doctor Igor, who is in charge of their care and also his own research project. We encounter the histories of these characters and find clues as to why they may have chosen less than conventional ways to express themselves.

And it is the developing relationship between the eponymous Veronica and Eduard, a schizophrenic young man, that forms the central thrust of the story. At the start of the book, Veronica wants to die. She is depressed. She jokes about how no one on the planet seems to have any idea where her country, Slovenia, might be, as it emerges from the conflict, pain and growing wreckage of Yugoslavia. But for Slovenia, nation status was being achieved for the first time in his modern history. It had always been part of somewhere else, perhaps like every individual was forever incorporated into some social group loosely labelled “society”. Isolated, alone, many individuals struggle to define or cope with their own individuality, a void which, unchecked or unfilled, may lead them along paths that grow unfamiliar.

In some ways, Veronika's despair at feeling alone in the world drives her to take an overdose. She survives. But she is changed, mentally and physically, and so is admitted to an asylum for treatment. It is there she meets Eduardo and others, whose individual histories have created their separation from what is perceived as normal by the rest of some vague notion called “society”. These principal characters relive some of their past experiences to illustrate what might have brought about the changes in their characters, transformations noted by others that led to their isolation.

Their stories are not unlike the unique concordance of events that were currently propelling a nation to an independence it had previously never known. It was the rest of the world that was creating the conditions, but it was Slovenia that changed. For these people something caused them to react or behave differently from the norm, hence their status, but it may have been the actions of others, or indeed circumstance that created the conditions that changed them.

A weakness of Veronika Decides To Die lies in its tendency to be both analytical and rational, without ever actually declaring itself to be rooted in either concept. Equally, by the end, this might be its strength, because there is always room for interpretation. Characters within its pages do analyse their relationship to the spiritual, the religious, and occasionally the chemically induced. They explore themselves, discover new or previously ignored aspects of themselves and are surprised in the process.

By the end, the characters have engaged. But they have apparently been fulfilling someone else’s purpose throughout, someone invested with society’s authority to observe and monitor. Whether that person is the doctor in charge of the asylum or the writer holding the pencil is an interesting question.

The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho - a voyage to somewhere

Whenever I read Paulo Coelho, I feel I ought to be embarking upon a journey. But every time it seems that the trip merely revisits itself and, in the end, I always feel I am back where I started. Now it is just possible that this might just be the point, if point there be.

Surely, then, The Pilgrimage might have taken me somewhere. Obviously it is the story of a journey, and not just any journey. The author becomes a pilgrim and walks – well, almost – the length of the road to Santiago de Compostela. He starts in the French, nay French-Basque Pyrenees. He and his guide – I hesitate to use the word master, with a capital M, that Paulo Coelho employs – spend several days going round in circles. This surely is a premonition of what is to follow.

In his eagerness to achieve an end, Paulo doesn’t notice the lack of progress. His guide tells him he is too eager to reach his goal, that he should recognise the value of experience along the way. It’s the only way to avoid self-deception. Perhaps that’s the point. Paulo takes the advice he is offered and eventually spiritual revelations reveal themselves. The book lists several exercises for the reader to follow.

You can find your Master, learn how to Breathe, feel your Blue Balls and utilise the Capital Letter, sometimes. And though I may have an idea about what Christianity might be, I declare no understanding whatsoever of what the Tradition might involve, despite the fact that it and the achievement of its apparently all-important Sword dominate the book. I was none the wiser at the end, but the advice offered that one should not sit on one’s Sword will be remembered.

Paulo Coelho is a gifted writer and devotees flock to read his books in their multiple millions. What they find there is, perhaps, what he found on his journey to Santiago, which is probably himself, themselves… The process is engaging and enjoyable. It is marginally informative, possibly pretentious, but extremely well done. Like the writer, the reader is drawn to the end of the journey and is left, as happens with most things in life, precisely none the wiser, inhabiting the same persona, suffering the same limitations as at the outset. But then we are also perhaps ready to embark upon the next chapter in the ongoing story. Been there. Seen it. Done it. Will repeat. Sound advice.