The title of this book attracted me initially. I wasn’t a major fan of Coelho after reading The Alchemist, because I thought that the ending was real shitty (Before judging me, please take into account the fact that I was a pre-teen brat when I read the book for the first and only time.)
Despite the fact that I didn’t like Alchemist, I picked up a copy of “Veronika Decides to Die” online. I read through the first chapter and was hooked. I wanted to know the rest of the story of Veronika’s life. She obviously wouldn’t die, that’s why there were 210 pages in the book. But what then?
As I raced through the first chapter and scrolled down further, I was bummed to notice that the .pdf I had downloaded contained only one chapter of the book. ONLY ONE CHAPTER.
I was so bummed, I didn’t even go look for the whole .pdf online. “What’s the point?” I thought to myself, “I’ll never find what I’m looking for.” (Ugh, story of my life)
Until a fine day in March, 2019 , when I found a copy of the book at the Booksbyweight sale. And pounced on it immediately. I had finally found the book I wanted to read so badly. (Spoiler alert: fairy tales exist only in and on bookshelves)
The plot of this book is pretty straightforward: A 24 year old Slovenian, Veronika, decides to die by taking a handful of sleeping pills, expecting to never wake up again. Fortunately, she does not die, and is instead admitted to a local mental health hospital called Villete. Her diagnosis is gloomy: she has another week to live, thanks to the overdose’s side effect on her heart. Veronika is relieved to know that the end is still possibly near. But little can she predict how the inmates of Villete will lead her to rethink her decisions (yes, plural. Not only the decision of taking her own life/. Some other ones too) through their own madness. This book is a story of hope and second chances and is as precious as life itself.
This book doesn’t only tell the story of Veronika. It also tells the story of Zedka, a lady who is admitted to the asylum for clinical depression. It also tells the story of Mari, a successful lawyer who started experiencing panic attacks very frequently. It also tells the story of Eduard, a schizophrenic with a dream of being an artist.
A paragraph in one of the early chapters of the book states that:
Paulo Coelho wanted to know all the details of what had happened, because he had genuine reason for finding out about Veronika’s story.
The reason was the following: he himself has been admitted into an asylum, or, rather, mental hospital as they were better known. And this had happened not once, but three times, in 1965, 1966 and 1967. The place where he has been interned was the Dr. Eiras Sanatorium in Rio de Janeiro.
Precisely why he had been admitted into hospital was something which, even today, he found odd; perhaps his parents were confused by his unusual behaviour, half-shy, half-extrovert, and by his desire to be an ‘artist’, something that everyone in the family considered a perfect recipe for ending up as a social outcast and dying in poverty.
When he thought about it- and, it must be said, he rarely did – he considered the real madman to have been the doctor who had agreed to admit him for the flimsiest of reasons (as in any family, the tendency is always to place the blame on others, and to state adamantly that the parents didn’t know what they were doing when they took that drastic decision).
pg 16, Veronika Decides to die
What I liked about this book is the fact that fate lead me to it at precisely the right time: I was old enough to understand it (unlike my disaster with The Alchemist) and had experienced enough in life already to be able to relate to almost everything that Veronika spoke about.
The stories of Zedka, Mari and Eduard may seem like the stories of supporting characters, but I would not recommend treating them as unequal to Veronika’s own story. Zedka’s story of an undying love, Mari’s story of helplessness in the face of uncontrollable panic attacks and Eduard’s dream of being an artist and not continue in the footsteps of his father’s profession are gripping tales that may strike a chord in the heart of the reader.
One particular aspect of the book that got me thinking was this one: All of us are made of layers and layers of emotions, experiences, feelings, thoughts and every other abstract noun I can think of. In short, our personalities aren’t as shallow as a pond. They are as layered as an onion (thank you, Shrek, for letting me borrow your dialogue). So when we hear about someone attempting to end his/her/their own life, we see a one-dimensional part of their personality. “He killed himself because he didn’t get a good grade.”,”She killed herself because her boyfriend cheated on her.”.
But, don’t you see, these are just slices of the bigger picture. You, a mere reader of a newspaper, don’t have the resources or the inclination to get a hold of the diaries these people wrote. And even if you could/did, you wouldn’t be able to see a 100% correct view of them, because the people themselves did not have a 100% correct view of who they really are/were and what they really want/wanted from life.
Too deep, ain’t it?
This book has (spoiler alert) a hopelessly optimistic ending. I felt it was apt.
Would I recommend it? Hell yeah.
~Amateur-Book-Reviewer
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