That is what all of Coelho’s Books are essentially about I would say, Understanding the Journey - and Eleven Minutes is especially important therefore. I have never read a man write about a woman’s heart as profoundly as him, it is like he lived it! We live in a time where change is not just rebellion, its also a struggle and yet almost a condition for existence.
Eleven Minutes is Coelho’s book on sex, and sex is associated traditionally and emotionally with many a phenomenon - ownership of the body and thereby of the soul.... the question of morality arises essentially out of this, the question of right and wrong comes out of this; but this is not how we understand the struggle - we understand the struggle through the experience of sex as different from the experience of love, and we wonder, every woman that I have known, wonders, after the first romance dies, will she love again? She wonders even as she knows the answer, but she wonders because she gave herself, and in that process for sometime, she gave herself up.
For a woman, sex is surrender - it is so because deep inside us, we do not own our own bodies, we look at them through the eyes of another, at times society (which is where we have things like sin coming into picture) or through the eyes of a lover - we want to be right and be acceptable - and it can become pleasurable and enriching (because that is an important purpose too) only if it has been done with love - love makes surrender beautiful - but done take me wrong, I am not undermining the physical pleasure involved, but that is not ’only’ what it is about, and we realise that - we struggle for it or against it, but we all realise it!
And Coelho brings it out beautifully. He also brings out the need for us to own our own bodies - to complete ourselves in ourselves, which is where the physical pleasure comes in, as it comes in with the fact that we have the power to touch and influence ourselves, it also comes in with the realisation that irrespective of the physical pleasure sex touches us deeply in our hearts when it gives us a sense of completion, a sense that cannot come without love.
This integration, of the body, with the soul, and the soul, that is always a part of a larger universe, not just society, but the air that we breathe and the earth that we experience, every experience, every learning, every encounter, and therefore his phrase ’the soul of the world’; this integration, is what makes it sacred, sacred sex - sex, in the context of love - love that gives it meaning and substance!
I think men should read it as much as women should - it will take much longer than eleven minutes, to read, to understand even more...but thats what it is about -understanding the journey, thats what makes it worth the while! The book has the power to make you believe. :)