Eleven
Minutes explores the life of a prostitute named Maria. I find the choice of
name ironic as it is widely associated with the Virgin Mary known as Maria in
some cultures. Maria was taken out of her home country by a scouter that
promised to turn her into a star in a country foreign to her, Switzerland.
Soon, she grasped the language, threatened to sue the scouter, and ended up
with too much money for her to know what to do with it.
The money
eventually finished and Maria had no means to return to Brazil, her home. She
then started to trade herself for money and that is how she made a living for
herself until she finally had more than enough money to buy her aeroplane
ticket home.
Throughout
her career, she experienced love than pain and finally love again. As a skin
trader, one is not advised to fall in love with her clients. Yet the man that
stole her heart, started off as a friend. Maria was not willing to let the
friendship blossom into something that might hurt her but in the end, she
could not suppress her emotions any longer and she and Ralf Hart ended up
together.
I liked how
Paulo described prostitution. It is not a disgusting act as some people might
think of it now, but it is how people made a living, how they could help people
who were lost or lonely, and how it was once seen as holy. Yet now, now it has a whole
different connotation attached to it. I personally believe that men should be
allowed to do whatever they want as long as it does not cause harm to another
person.
Here is a
paragraph I enjoyed: “What do you expect? Having chosen adventure, shouldn’t
they be prepared to go the whole way? Or do they think that the intelligent
thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on a
carousel, going round and round on the spot.”
Lastly, I’ll
end this with quips I enjoyed: “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve
over,” and “It’s odd how, when you live in a city, you always postpone getting
to know it and usually end up never knowing it at all.”
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lovely ✨
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