Eleven Minutes

Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho, what a book. I was introduced to Paulo through The Alchemist and I enjoyed reading that book. With Eleven Minutes, I have grown to love Paulo’s sense of writing more as it is not only educational but filled with symbolism and phrases that resonate with a person.

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: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️