Sunday, February 26, 2012

Books Review - Eleven Minutes


Eleven Minutes is a novel by Paulo Coelho based on the expleriences of a young Brazilian prostitute called Maria. This novel was published in 2003. Maria a girl from  a village of Brazhil, with innocent brushed with love failures at an early adolescent stage and  hatred for love goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland, only to find that reality is a lot harder than she expected. After working in a nightclub as a samba dancer for a brief period, she realizes that this is not what she wants. After a heated discussion with her manager one night, she storms out and begins to look for a career in modeling. After a long unsuccessful search for a position in that field, and as she starts running out of money, she engages herself for 1000 francs for "one night" with an Arab man. Delighted with the easy money and after compromising with her soul she lands in a brothel on Rue De Berne the heart of Geneva’s  red light district.
There she befriends Nyah who gives her advice on her "new profession" and after learning the tricks of the trade from Milan, the brothel owner, she enters the job with her body and mind shutting all doors for love and keeps her heart open only for her diary. Quickly she becomes quite successful and famous and her colleagues begin to envy her. Months pass and Maria grows into a professionally groomed prostitute who not only relaxes her clients' mind, but also calms their soul by talking to them about their problems. Her world turns upside down when she meets Ralf, a young Swiss painter, who sees her "inner light". Maria falls in love with him immediately and begins to experience what true love is (according to the author, it is a sense of being for someone without actually possessing him). Maria is now torn between her sexual fantasies and true love for Ralf. Eventually she decides that it is time for her to leave Geneva with her memory of Ralf, because she realizes that they are worlds apart. But before leaving, she decides to rekindle the dead sexual fire in Ralf and learns from him about the nature of Sacred Sex, sex which is mingled with true love and which involves the giving up of one's soul for the loved one.

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