Sunday, January 19, 2014

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho




A young woman leaves Brazil to become a prostitute in Geneva.

Maria, disappointed with her hohum life in Brazil, encounters a Swiss man who offers her a job in his nightclub in Geneva.  Looking for a change, she takes him up, but growing lonely in cold Switzerland, she begins working at an upscale brothel.  There she meets two special clients who tempt her with two different visions of life, one profane and one sacred (but still pretty profane).  She ponders which path she should take.

I thought this was going to be a literary novel, a “worthwhile” novel, and after a couple of pages I realized it wasn’t.  But by that time, I couldn’t put down the book.  I was totally sucked into the story of resourceful Maria and her spiritual search.  The story is entertaining but also philosophically pretentious and sublimely silly.  A confection of loopy dogma.  Many pages are devoted to the sacred mystery of the vaginal orgasm.  With the help of a sensitive man, Maria achieves her once unbelievable goal.  Whew.  Or should I say, Wow.



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