Eleven Minutes........of immense praise!

Just finished another one by this great writer Paulo Coelho. Yea....i just can't get enough of him.

Eleven Minutes is about sex, love, companionship, adventure.
It is the story of a prostitute. But aa...don't make assumptions just as yet. This book doesn't exploit or victimise or sympathise with this much-hyped and sensationalised profession.

It is the story of a countryside girl, Maria, who on stepping beyond the boundaries of her village, finds her destiny. A destiny she chooses. There is no pressure on her to take the path she chooses. i liked the part where she says, who says you don't have a choice. You choose this profession, not the other way around. Clearly, it is not fate that leads her to the dark alleys of Rue De Berne.

She reveals the inner thinking of a sex-worker in a very dignified and as-is way. No drama, no emotional disturbance. In fact, she takes it up to experience some adventure in her life, without being frivolous about it. The respect and professionalism (not falling in love with her clients) she attaches to her work is amazing and compels you to think prostitution as just another job where the product you sell is your own body.
Many myths of sex, climax for one, are busted. :-)

Equally outstanding is the definition of love made in this book. i can't help but produce an excerpt here - Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with. i think it demystifies love in the best form i have read so far.

Maria's quest for love is so actual. The way she goes about finding it is heartwarming. An interesting and completely different aspect of love and suffering is brought forth in this book. The fact that men don't really have an overpowering sexual urge, it actually is a notion that they are obliged to carry forward, is a revelation. And in true Paulo Coelho style, there are engrossing stories and legends that are shared. If nothing they open up a very different perspective, you'd never imagined.

i was stunned by the beautiful concept of gifting (specially for your life partner)i found in here. Just read it - Instead of buying something that you would like to have, i'm giving you something that is mine, truly mine. A gift. A sign of respect for the person before me, asking him to understand how important it is to be by his side. Now he has a small part of me with him, which i gave him with my free, spontaneous will.

All the small details, characterisations, settings, technicalities, they are all perfect. Maria's notes in her personal diary are fantastic. Another small excerpt i really like is - It was going to be impossible to escape her own trap, she would lose this man without ever really having him.

The male characters Ralf Hart and Terence among the many others are befitting too. Maria plunging into the uneven and unpredictable road to love holding on to her secure and practical dream of a farm and the works is brilliance personified.

i like happy endings. And in this book, i specially liked the end. It would have been easier to give it an ending otherwise, spiced up by martyrdom, justifiably so too. Actually the beauty lies in the fact that till the very end you don't know whether it is going to be happy or not. The end or maybe a beginning is very film-like and dream-like, like every girl wants it to be.

... i can go on and on about it.
Beautiful and pure is what it sums up to, if it has to be summed up.