Writers have their trademark subjects of writing. While some
can’t go beyond writing about college, some can’t go beyond love; others can’t
cross writing about women and some about sexuality. Similarly, Paulo Coelho’s
trademark is ’spirituality’. His books find a spiritual, inner, deeper tint to
everything visible or invisible to human sight.
I would have never read any books of Coelho’s after my brush
with Alchemist, which I found very boring and too over hyped. But then Tanmay
dragged me into a bookshop in Colaba (we were SO confused about this shopping
spree that we went in and came out of the shop 3 times! :P). He had apparently
read a part of this book earlier and recommended it. So I picked up some five
books from the store, including two of Paulo Coelho.
The cover of the book reads quite interesting… but this is
certainly one of those rare books who’s cover synopsis do not justify the real
story inside, maybe because what is in the book is not a story… it is an
experience.
The book begins with a Forward by the writer who knows that
he is going to touch a topic that might raise oppositions and so he tries to
clarify his stance. Coelho says that he knows that his readers are of varied
age groups and backgrounds and that the subject he deals with in this book
might offend many. This is indeed true because the book goes into the depths of
a taboo – Prostitution.
Though even for a society as conservative as India,
prostitution has become a more or less accepted topic, and sympathy towards sex
workers is a growing feeling in various societies, including the uneducated and
rural ones to some extent.
But this book is not about prostitution, it is more about
sex… something even more tabooed. Some steamy scenes that the author describes
in bold language are unparallel to most erotic writings that I have come
across. There are countless descriptions of prostitutes in bed with men and
their fantastical love makings. To the extent that one of the chapters deals
with a man indulging in sadism and masochism with a prostitute, and the writer
shamelessly talks about the details about the incident.
Eleven Minutes talks about a Brazilian girl, from the
interiors of the country—Maria.
The story is a most expected one, small town girl… big
dreams… tries to chase… gets trapped into prostitution… falls in love with a
customer… realises the reality…
But if the novel had just this much to it, I wouldn’t have
been writing about it!
Maria grows as a girl from the beginning of the novel to a
woman towards the end of it. Her ordeal through the ups and downs are very
close to life because the writer shows that what happens to us is less about
what happened and more about how one faces it and what one makes of it.
Maria –the prostitute-- goes through the worst that one can
think of, but never even once does she let her life or the incidents take
control of her… she takes control of whatever happens to her and turns things
around. Each time her heart is broken, Maria strengthens her mind to understand
that life is like that. Each time she sleeps with a man for money, she reminds
her self that she is doing this out of choice and not compulsion.
Coelho and his spiritual inclinations don’t shy away from
finding their existence in the mundane affairs of a prostitute. The author
finds in her a ‘light’ and the discoverer of this light is Ralf Hart, a young
artist, her customer who turns into her true love…
Throughout the narrative there is the contrast between the
world outside Maria and the one within her. Each incident that she witnesses
has two sides to it, one that appears and the other that she perceives of it.
The book at various times takes its reader to another level
of understanding, sometimes providing spiritual experiences that bring you back
into the real world with greater joy and satisfaction.
What may appear to some as inert sex and sexual fantasies is
far unfathomable.
Sadism and Masochism, two subjects that most Indians live
their lives in ignorance with are discussed in Eleven Minutes like an inherent
and accepted part of our lives. But their interpretation in Coelho’s style of
writing which make the pain and suffering of physical torture in sexual actions
as much more than just sadism. It becomes spiritual… a way to reach the
superior through punishment. Though it goes over the board sometimes but this
part of the book provides the purgation of emotions for the readers.
The story reaches another level of reality or real world-like
situation when protagonist’s submission to temptations is shown not as her
failure, but as an experience which makes her complete. Life after all is not
all about the good or band things that happen to us.
As the book ends one is left with a happy feeling of the
success of a young girl who at the age of 25, has gone full circle from being a
daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover, a prostitute and a wife.
PS - The title "Eleven Minutes", by the way, refers to the 11 minutes spend in love making... the 11 minutes that make us... you and me..