I also thought it was an easy read, especially since I was able to get through it before the discussion started. I got into it right away and enjoyed it all the way through despite figuring out early on that Veronika wasn't going to die.

In terms of the setting, I found it very interesting that a Brazilian author writing a semi-biographical novel chose to set it in Slovenia. Seriously, this made me wonder. Maybe he happened to be thinking about Slovenia one day and decided to use it or maybe choosing it was much more deliberate. I don't know.

For the characters, I felt that Dr. Igor was the craziest one of the bunch. It's one thing to temporarily lose your perspective but messing with someone's mind for a wacky experiment is really out there. Who did you think was craziest?

marydell | February 21, 2005 10:01 AM

I agree with Mary - Dr. Igor (love the name btw!) was truly a nutcase. I liked when Veronika's mom was speaking with him and it was obvious that she was thinking that this guy was, essentially, a fruitcake. I thought it was quite annoying that the author placed himself, for no apparent reason, in the book. Overall, it was pretty easy foreshadowing that Veronika wasn't going to die. She found love.
I wasn't a big fan of the book. I don't think I will be reading his other books.

Kate | February 21, 2005 10:19 AM

I liked this book a lot. It was kind of sappy that love "saved" Veronika, but I thought it was sweet. I thought the character Eduard was the most autobiographical for the author, based on what I've read about his life. I did like the take that the insane are the wisest because they lack inhibitions and dare to be different.
I do wonder though at the patients getting used to, and even seeming like they liked their treatments. The electroshock and insulin therapy seemed scary, but like they freed the minds of the patients. Maybe similar to young people experimenting with drugs?

ali | February 21, 2005 07:53 PM

This book was a friend's favourite Paulo Coelho. This is the fourth book of his that i have read. I have read his books in this order:

1) The Alchemist (which i loved alot, and it allowed me to make a big change in my life)

2) I sat by the River Piedra and Wept (This was another close friend's favourite book--it persuaded her to quit her job working in a restaurant waitressing for the summer (in England), and went backpacking in Italy.)

3) 11 Minutes (I really, really love this book)

4) Veronika decides to Die.

I read this book quite quickly, and was in a bit of a rush to finish the book. I quite like how Paulo Coelho decides to deal with the whole mental illness thing, and what it means.

I think his writings have a healing effect on many people, who do not conform, or who have dreams they decide to pursue. In the same fashion as "One flew over the cuckoos nest", and "Girl, interrupted"; this book causes us to question what really is mental illness, but the fear of facing up to life, and taking responsibility, the rough with the smooth. And choosing one's dreams and unique path with persistence, even if everything in society, and even close people try and persuade you otherwise, whether forcefully, or otherwise.

It also brings to mind this poem:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other peoples gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

Its always a good reminder that life is short, and we have no time to really conform to what society expects of us, or what we think society expects from us.

Christina | February 21, 2005 08:27 PM

Christina, I love your take on the book. It's absolutely true that life is too short to worry about what's expected of us. I recently had a conversation with a friend about being happy, which I think I am most of the time, but more than that I'd like my life to be enjoyable. I'm the only one who has to live it, and I thankfully have the luxury of being able to do what I want to do most of the time.

Although, like Ali, I thought the "love" ending was a bit sappy, I don't think that's what saved Veronika. She was saved by death. In thinking that her time was nearly over, she let go of her inhibitions because she realized she hadn't experienced enough of life yet. Love was what set her free from Villete, which is, of course, sappy.

marydell | February 22, 2005 05:53 AM

all right, hello. i'm back.
glad to see this show on the road.

i didn't know what to think about the fact that Veronika wasn't going to die. I thought maybe that'd ruin the story. But after getting to the end, with Dr. Igor's letter, I realized that it was part of his experiment. (will ge getting on Dr. Igor later...)

I, too, wondered why Coelho would think about Slovenia for the setting on the story. I wish I knew.

As for the characters. I still haven't made up my mind about Veronika. I do know that I did not dislike her. Everyone can relate to her on some level. She represents the macrocosmic element in the story.

I felt Mari was a mother figure-a very strong woman.
Eduard, oh Eduard. I kept picturing him in my head as Munch's scream. The impression that I got from him was that of the gentle individual.
I having nothing on Zedka.

Hmmm, it never crossed my mind that "love" saved Veronika. I just thought that she found life again. Which, in any case, relates to Mary's idea that "death" saved her. I don't think I found the end as sappy as some have stated. Eduard and Veronika's budding love happened in short time--I suppose that's why I don't see it as sappy. I dunno...there's more, but I can't put it into words.

ana | February 22, 2005 11:22 AM

Something that I thought was cool was how Zedka would experiment out of body experiences during her insulin shock treatment. It's just strange. What do you think about Coelho having her experience that? It could have been something else. Obviously, this makes Zedka the more spiritual...ah, there you go!

I really like what Christina has said about this. :-)
I agree with that idea.

All right. moving on to other ideas:

-some of you think that Dr. Igor was very nutty and crazy. what i thought was nutty about him, was his "Vitriol poisoning theory." aside from that, he lies to Veronika about her heart condition. In my opinion, his reason for lying to her, apart from his experiment, is so that she may re-evaluate her life.
Is that a GOOD DEED?

-the lines and sections in ITALICS were very interesting. this tool is what brought VDtD to be full of different perspectives as these sections focus on passages on different characters, sometimes even their thoughts. the ITALICS move you in and out through the story to see all around the characters. I thought it was a very good tool.
Was it a good tool?

-The most interesting part about Veronika are her reasons for dying. Then we witness her reluctance to mingle, to become involed, or to become attached to any person in the hospital. Aside from what she says, I think this was partially pride. Then she slowly learns to risk what? She is going to die. What makes her change?

-oh, something i wanted to mention about the end. I liked a lot how the story came to an end softly. It worked the story out of my/your at the right pace as to not shock or disappoint you. --especially because it ended with Dr. Igor's letter. Ah! that's what makes Veronika's falling in love NOT sappy.

ana | February 22, 2005 11:41 AM

corretion
that's:
the end works itself out of my MIND, or your MIND at the right pace. :-D

ana | February 22, 2005 11:43 AM

Like more than one person has mentioned, this was a pretty easy read. I was initially worried that I wouldn't be able to finish the book before this month, but what do you know? I finished it in one day.
I thought this was an interesting novel with an interesting premise. The end wasn't a large surprise because I had read Coelho before and I knew that he would end on a positive note. However, I liked the idea that the "insane" were actually living more intensely than the "sane" because they had no inhibitions to hold them back.
As to the characters, I kind of liked Dr. Igor, despite his weirdness. Okay, I'm lying. I only liked him at the end because I was kind of weirded out by his weirdness. I found Veronika very hard to sympathize with. She wasn't depressed, she didn't have a hard life, she wanted to commit suicide just to escape boredom. But I guess that kind of apathy was necessary for the plot; because she always took the easy way out, she could never fully live her life.
I don't know how I feel about Zedka's astral projections. It's not something I really believe in, so it's easy for me to discount it and I'm not sure if it really aids the plot at all.
I have nothing on Mari and Eduard, except that I knew that Eduard and Veronika were going to run off together. Overall, this was an easy read and predictable, but feel-good as it was meant to be.

enygma | February 22, 2005 08:13 PM

How cool to read everyone's comments!

Yeah...i found the Astral thing weird, but i think its PC's way of introducing 'weird' things into mainstream readership. I thought that perhaps you guys might be interested in excerpts from an interview he gave with Beliefnet.

Q: You mentioned that you're Catholic, but you've said elsewhere that your Jesuit upbringing was painful in some ways. What do you see as the value of, and problems with, organized religion?

A: The value is that they give you discipline and they give you collective worship and they give you humbleness towards the mysteries. The dangers is that every religion, including the Catholic one, says "I have the ultimate truth." Then you start to rely on the priest, the mullah, the rabbi, or whoever, to be responsible for your acts. In fact, you are the only one who is responsible.

Q: In your book "Veronika Decides to Die," Veronika is bored with the sameness of every day. How can people break out of the sameness?

A: Once someone asked me, “What do you want to be your epitaph?” [on your tombstone] So I said, “Paul Coehlo died while he was alive." The person said "Why this epitaph? Everybody dies when he or she is alive." I said, “No, this is not true.” The same pattern repeating and over again, you are not alive anymore.

To die alive is to take risks. To pay your price. To do something that sometimes scares you but you should do because you may like or you may not like.

Q: You also say people should watch for omens. Can you describe what you mean by omens?

A: Omens are the individual language in which God talks to you. My omens are not your omens.

They are this strange, but very individual language that guides you towards your own destiny. They are not logical. They talk to your heart directly.

The only way that you can learn any language is by making mistakes. I made my mistakes, but then I started to connect with the signs that guide me. This silent voice of God that leads me to the places where I should be.

The interview above i think, explains alot where his books are coming from. I like reading them, because somehow i feel that his books encourage me to judge less, and to let different people to live different lives, and to follow my heart.

Enygma- i understand what you mean about not understanding why Veronika decides to die. I knew someone who wanted to die, who had seemingly everything she could ask for. (to the outside eye). However, i think, deep inside, she was dead a long time ago.

I think she felt that she was living for everyone but herself.

Her heart was alive, but her spirit was never given a chance to be alive.

I think that is why Veronika decides to die. She did not choose what she wanted to do, and chose something that was practical and that would earn her money. (giving up on her deeper dreams.)

Christina | February 22, 2005 09:32 PM

enygma: are you saying that you didn't like Dr. Igor? hmmm...am i the only who did? i did like him. i saw him as more benevolent than the nurses. i think dr. igor was ultimately a good person despite some of his actions, like allowing electro-shock treatment and insulin-shock treatment. but he's the person who supplies the "freedom" to everyone, in some weird sense. he is not completely humanistic, but beneath his quest for his experiment, he is trying to help people--in a sick way. hah

i don't know...i didn't feel apathy for veronika, but i did get into her point of view. i thought her reasons were interesting. i've observed people that don't "live" their life everyday and it never occurred to me that one of those people might one day end their lives out of boredom. veronika made me realize that it does happen. i'm still not sure whether i wanted her to die in the end or not. but i was happy with the results.

yeah, the astral thing. i don't know what to think of it. i have met people who claim they've encountered out-of-body-experiences. i wish i could understand it. people say a lot about this subject, but i wouldn't know. it was interesting to get some of that in the story.

christina:
thanks for that excerpt. very cool.

ana | February 22, 2005 10:52 PM

I initially didn't like Dr. Igor because I didn't know what his ulterior motive was. I knew he was lying to Veronika, but not why. Being the cynic that I am, I assumed that he was going to do "something bad" to her and it was only when I learned that he lied to her in order to help her that I liked him.
This book was kind of weird for me because I'm still trying to figure out if I like it or not. On one hand, it's a pretty good book because it's all about living your life to the fullest and being a non-comformist but on the other hand, it's kind of a fluffy book with a predictable ending. At least, it was predictable to me. Did/does anybody else feel this way?

enygma | February 23, 2005 03:38 PM

I liked this book in general. I did not like the part in the book where the author put his two cents worth in. It had nothing to do with the story, and that is why I disliked that section. When I bought the book at the store, the salesperson told me about that part in the book. Since she told me that before I even read the book, I already had my mind made up that I wouldn't like it. I was able to put that aside until I reached that section. My impression of the author is that he is very egotistical. His story is a good one, and I liked the characters and the ending, although I agree that it was predictable. There are books I would read again and again, but this is not one of them.

Carol | February 23, 2005 06:26 PM

Dr. Igor: Although his lie to Veronika gives us a happy ending, I still don't like him. Initially, Veronika wants to kill herself sooner in order to die on her own terms, so the lie could have had a very bad result. She luckily cannot find anyone to get her more pills and instead receives some guidance from Mari.

The nonsense about Vitriol really bothered me. Dr. Igor likens himself to Freud and expects his discovery to astonish the world, so the lie he tells is purely selfish. He doesn't cure Veronika and he doesn't make her see that suicide isn't an answer. He simply gets some more data for his paper.

marydell | February 23, 2005 07:26 PM

Marydell: I like what you said about Dr. Igor. I was thinking though, most psychiatrists, and mental health doctors are cold and analytical, and hardly ever able to truly care for their patients. They always have their selfish ends in sight, well, most of the time.

In a way, alot of their patients are guinea pigs.

The same way, that for a lot of writers, the people around them are their guinea pigs.

Does that make sense?

christina | February 23, 2005 09:50 PM

man, everyone keeps saying how it was the ending was predictable. i honoestly didn't think that veronica would live until .... almost near the end, literally. why didn't i catch on? or what made you guys catch on? maybe i missed some details.

okay, the part about Coelho including himself. i previously stated that i didn't like it myself, but after reading it again, i appreciated. i understand why he wrote it. including himself in the story was the way that he found where he wouldn't be breaking a promise to himself. i don't think it's the greatest section in the story, but it definitely does NOT make me thing that Coelho is egotistical. VDtD is based on his own personal experiences. i think it's understandable, no?

christina: makes sense, yes, about the people surrounding writers being guinea pigs to writers. i don't think that bothers me...artists have to get inspiration from anything they can.

ana | February 23, 2005 10:57 PM

okay, so the last part to this discussion:

-i couldn't help but think back to Running With Scissors throughout the entire read. I kept comparing in my head the different perspectives. in RWS, the main character, Augusten felt trapped by the insanity with which his life was surrounded. yet, in VDtD, the insane ARE the free. of course, there's a minor detail: RWS is a memoir and VDtD is fiction. does that difference mean anything? does it matter that one is real life and the other is only based on real life but it's really fiction?

-there was one notable disappointment in VDtD. i thought his writing was supposed to be poetic and brilliant. then i realized that we read a translation and that that probably did no justice to the original writing. the only elements i could appreciate through translation was the actual storytelling, the perspective on the issue of insanity, and the outlook on life that it offers. as far as language goes, i expected more.

-what did i gain from VDtD...i guess just a positive outlook in life. just when i think that there's nothing else to it, surprise, there's more....

-i can't help but feel like VDtD was too short to be worthy of a good lengthy discussion, where we talk about things other than the plot.

-okay, so in my opinion, i did like VDtD. i enjoyed reading it and gaining a new perspective, or a renewed perspective. maybe that's what Coelho is about: a positive and encouraging outlook.
i still don't see the predictability of the story...okay, the predictability in it's entirity. naive me...someone please point it out.
other than that...for reasons that i don't know, this story felt like a fairytale.

ana | February 23, 2005 11:13 PM

Hi there. I'm a new member and just wanted to say hello. I'm a librarian in New Orleans and have been lurking around bookblog for a couple of months now.

I confess that I started Veronika Decides to Die for the sake of this site, but didn't finish it. I see so many books coming across the circulation desk that I only read the ones that really grab me; this works out to about four books a week, but I have a current backlist of 150 (I'm sure many of you can relate). I need either character or plot to come through strongly in the beginning of a new book, and although I gave this one a fifty-page chance, I couldn't get into it. I would have liked to see what Veronika's life was like before she made the big decision, but I didn't, and it made me not care so much what happened to her. Some plot would have helped me keep going, but a suicide attempt by a character I wasn't into didn't give it much staying power, and while I like the concept of the asylum inmates being the sanest folks of all (see, of course, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), it just...didn't grab me. I can't explain it beyond that. Maybe it's something to do with this being a translated work; I do have a harder time with those, but I know this is my own bias.

In any case, I love the list of books y'all have read so far (I too have read many of them) and I hope to finish next month's book. I'll stick around in any case.

Daisy | February 23, 2005 11:25 PM

ana, I thought it was predictable because of the general tone of the story, which was similar to the tone of a previous book I had read, The Alchemist. The theme of this novel is that life is worth living and I knew that Coelho would make sure that his heroine would discover that and continue on to live out her lesson. Also, you mentioned that it was like a fairy tale; I didn't notice it at the time, but there was a dreamlike quality to the entire novel, that fairytale feeling, that also made me certain about the ending. :)

enygma | February 23, 2005 11:46 PM

lol, that's fair, enygma. i didn't think of that...how that dreamlike, fairytale feeling made one certain of the end. now i see it.

welcome daisy!

ana | February 24, 2005 09:21 AM

oh, daisy, i almost forgot.
not all translated works are bad.
most of Gabriel García-Márquez are well translated.
some Pablo Neruda is also well translated.
and of course, Kafka...but you get the idea.

welcome again :-)

ana | February 24, 2005 09:24 AM

Ana: I agree with you in principle; I'm sure that many, many translated works are not only good but great. It's just me, I think; I have a hard time with anything that hints of not being written in English in the original. I guess I should teach myself a variety of other languages if I want to read everything translation-free...

daisy | February 25, 2005 12:09 AM

Thanks all of you who participated. :-D

ana | February 25, 2005 09:25 AM

Hello,
I am so delighted to find this book blog!!!, especially since your are at present commenting a book by Paulo Coelho. What a coincidence! I have been very much into reading his work lately. "Veronika decides to die" is one of my favorite books by this author. I must agree with many of your comments, also with the critics that Coelho has not always been translated too favorably.
On the other hand we should be glad that he´s available in so many languages. "The Alchemist" is a fable that has changed the life of many people for the better.
I am certainly one of them.

A strong recommendation I have to all of you is having a look at Paulo Coelho´s Online Magazine "Warrior of the Light". There, the author posts every second week his most recent column. Usually it´s short stories or reflections about life, love and the ongoing search for wisdom. It´s possible to receive the stories by email. They are sent out as a newsletter for free at http://www.warriorofthelight.com

Well, I will be around here. I am so happy to have found your group of book ´n blog fanatics... ;)))

Best,
Devi

Devi | March 1, 2005 11:54 AM

I ordered this book when it was first announced and it was just delivered two days ago. Thankfully I already have the next selection. Darn Amazon!! I will still read and post my thoughts.

Chandos | March 2, 2005 06:37 PM

wow, that sucks, Chandos!
crappy Amazon

anyway,
very cool that u'll still read it
(you really don't have it, no prob. at all)
but thanks!

ana | March 2, 2005 10:34 PM

nothing wrong with amazon.

Toronto Books | April 14, 2005 05:28 AM

"There are no bad books, except those which are badly conceived and badly executed. Every word of beauty is a word of truth. But in order that the most brilliant light may be produced and made visible, a shadow is necessary; and the creative word, that it may become efficacious, needs contradictions. It must submit to the ordeal of negation, of sarcasm, and then to that more cruel yet, of indifference and forgetfulness.

"Affirmation and negation must, then, marry each other, and from their union will be born the practical truth, the real and progressive word. It is necessity which should constrain the workmen to choose for the corner stone that which they at first despised and rejected. Let contradiction, then, never discourage men of initiative! Earth is necessary for the ploughshare, and the earth resists because it is in labour. It defends itself like all virgins; it conceives and brings forth slowly like all mothers. You, then, who wish to sow a new plant in the field of intelligence, understand and respect the modesties and reluctances of limited experience and slow moving reason."

-- Eliphas Levi, 1870

Tono Rondone | April 27, 2005 11:04 AM