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Amazon Review
Paulo Coelho's astonishingly beautiful writing in Eleven Minutes virtually guarantees it the cult status that The Alchemist already enjoys. But what is the Paulo Coelho phenomenon? How can an author who (only a short time ago) was virtually unknown to most readers have taken the world of books by storm--and witT
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Amazon Review
Paulo Coelho's astonishingly beautiful writing in Eleven Minutes virtually guarantees it the cult status that The Alchemist already enjoys. But what is the Paulo Coelho phenomenon? How can an author who (only a short time ago) was virtually unknown to most readers have taken the world of books by storm--and without the benefit of glitzy advertising? The answer is simple: quality. Such books as The Fifth Mountain andThe Devil and Miss Prym are enough to explain a considerable following for the author, with their atmospheric prose and involving characters.
Eleven Minutes tells the story of young Maria living an innocent life in a Brazilian village and is played out in a measured fashion, but with all the author's brilliant scene-setting (very lush here) fully in place. But then Maria experiences love and suffers great pain. From this point, Coelho has us inexorably in his grip. Maria's disillusionment with love leads her to Geneva where she finally ends up selling her body (Coelho may offer us the beauty of life, but never at the expense of its harshness). Maria's approach to sex is complex--this is no mere revulsion arising from what she is now doing with her life. And then she meets a seductive young painter, who may or may not offer her a new path in life. But does she prefer to continue on the dark sexual odyssey she has embarked on, at the expense of real love?
There are echoes of DH Lawrence in Coelho's exploration of the sacred and spiritual aspects of sex and it's a brave author who tackles a subject that can so easily slip into strained seriousness. That never happens here, and Maria's journey is one that the reader willingly undertakes; the lesson she learns are lessons for the reader. --Barry Forshaw
"Adult Fiction - Romance - Inspirational
Want to read from the same author:
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept & Veronika Decides to Die & The Devil and Miss Prym"
"“At every moment of our lives we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
“It is not time that changes man, nor knowledge; the only thing that can change someone's mind is love.”
“While she was waiting for her Prince Charming to appear, all she could do was dream.”
That is the true experience of freedom: having the most important thing in the world without owning it.
All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a li"
teenspirit. added this to a list 1 year, 9 months ago
"Original Title: Onze Minutos
Year Published: 2003
Summary: Maria is from a small town in Brazil and goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland, only to find that reality is harsher than she expected and she ends up working in a brothel on Rue de Berne, the heart of Geneva's red-light district. The book deals with issues surrounding sex and sexuality, such as prostitution, sacred sex, and sex in the context of love. Because of its graphic descriptions, the novel has been described as "erotic".
Mari"
""Meu objetivo é compreender o amor. Sei que estava viva quando amei, e sei que tudo que tenho agora, por mais interessante que possa parecer, não me entusiasma. (...) Embora meu objetivo seja compreender o amor, e, embora sofra por causa das pessoas a quem entreguei meu coração, vejo que aqueles que me tocaram a alma não conseguiram despertar meu corpo, e aqueles que tocaram meu corpo não conseguiram antingir minha alma."
"Hoje passei diante de um parque de diversões, e fiquei observando"
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