Ok, just another review of what I may call as a piece of art by a great author. The author known for his amazing, magical writings, woven with extreme simplicity, has surely given something that elaborates life. Although, the main character is a prostitute, and the book itself does have a lot of sex, but it shows a path of living a life full of pain, suffereing and pleasure too. It shows that the life has its share of sadism and masochism at all nooks and corners. It has love wherever you go, regardless of any territory, religion, caste or race. It shows that no matter what are your suffereings, you still shouldn’t lose hope.
Maria’s hope for finding the right man, marrying him...or buying a small farm back in her hometown, all were her dreams, things that she hoped to do once she got out of prostitution.(by the way, I haven’t yet finished the book, but couldn’t help writing about it!) Now, it has been mentioned by and large in many incidents that Maria enjoyed what she did. She did like the feelings her orgasms gave to her. By Lord she found God in her orgasms!
So I won’t really think of this character as a pitiful one, where, as a dear fellow reader wrote here, a girl has to do IT because of ill fate or circumstances.
And Paulo hasn’t really wrote a sex book. It doesn’t have a bit of sleaze as the usual Jackie collins or any other writer.
For any reader, looking for an erotic brazialian experience, please don’t buy this book. By comparing it with a usual Jackie Collins or some erotica, all you are doing is degrading words by a simple yet genius, fictional but a honest man. This book, in the most elementry manner, has made me imagine myself in the shoes of a prostitute. And yet it hasn’t failed to teach me to be alive, even when I am in a position as tough as a prostitute.
Paulo Coelho, without exaggerating the point, has once again proved that he is the wizard with the magic touch, the real Alchemist with a pen.