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Veronika Decides to Die (Paperback)

by Paulo Coelho (Author), Margaret Jull Costa (Translator)
4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Thorsons; Film tie-in ed edition (4 Sep 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0722540442
  • ISBN-13: 978-0722540442
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (69 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2,809 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #5 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > C > Coelho, Paulo

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
"On 11 November 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself had--at last!--arrived": so begins Paulo Coelho's extraordinary new novel, Veronika Decides to Die. Renowned for the international success of The Alchemist, Coelho has secured his reputation as an outstanding storyteller and a key figure in world literature (his work has been translated into over 40 languages). Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa, Veronika Decides to Die is a compelling story of a woman's struggle with and against life, told with Coelho's wit, subtlety and economy. On the track of whatever it is that makes life worth living, Coelho plots Veronika's fate with infinite care, weaving the mystery of her decision to take her own life into the themes of national identity--Veronika is a citizen of Slovenia, "that strange country that no one seemed quite able to place"--and madness.

Veronika does not die; instead, she wakes up in Villette--the "famous and much-feared lunatic asylum"--only to be told that, having damaged her heart irreparably, she has just a few days to live. What she faces now is a waiting game and the strange world of Villette: the rules and regulations which govern the lives of its inmates and the doctors who treat them. Coelho's question may be a familiar one: crudely, who, or what, is mad? But his fiction is a remarkable, sometimes chilling, response to it. "Everyone has an unusual story to tell" is the starting-point of the new treatment initiated at Villette by the enigmatic Dr Igor; it's also the insight from which this book takes off to explore the impact of a "slow, irreparable death" on a young woman and the mad men and women around her. --Vicky Lebeau

Review
'Coelho's writing is beautifully poetic but his message is what counts... he gives me hope and puts a smile on my face' DAILY EXPRESS 'His books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people' THE TIMES 'One of the few to deserve the term "Publishing Phenomenon"' THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

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Veronika Decides to Die
73% buy the item featured on this page:
Veronika Decides to Die 4.1 out of 5 stars (69)
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By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept
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Customer Reviews

69 Reviews
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4 star:
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3 star:
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2 star:
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (69 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Neither hyperbole for or against., 27 Nov 2005
I am glad that I read this book. I did find it interesting. I won't say it has changed my life- it seems that some people have really excessively latched onto the message of 'daring to dream', the possibility that any person could make your life extraordinary if you want it so. Reading this book is not going to make me go out and live my life with a huge grin on my face, spending money like there's no tomorrow, and doing whatever I selfishly feel like. In the same way that watching good war films won't, but, I do feel more aware of my life, and I think it has given me some positive inspiration about how to tackle any early modern mid-life crisises. And I have questioned how unhappiness might sneak in despite a modern, comparatively comfortable, Westernised lifestyle, so I am glad for reading Coelho's point of view.

Coelho's style is not for everyone. Occasionally his writing runs a little too simple, his characters slightly wooden. At least this is straightforward story telling and straight to the point, and the author can be commended for not fleshing out his novels for the sake of it.

Some might not find Veronika a very sympathetic character, which I believe was an intention of Coelho's anyway- she is young, healthy, educated, etc. But I could at the beginning relate to her feelings of boredom and hopelessness. I did not really view other supporting characters as always very realistic or convincing, but I realised realism is not really the issue regarding the characters. They can be related to, but this is not a soap opera.

The 'mad' people in the institute seemed divided between true cases, and people who had been scarred and trapped by life, and are hiding away, struggling to move on. I suggest that Coelho is not saying that irrational and/or truly insane people are the happy ones. But he is asking us to question what rationality is to you. And, frankly, ask yourself why you won't do what you ultimately wish to do. This is not quite the message of hedonism and self-obsession that it sounds, because Coelho agrees through a character in the book that life will often be hard, or boring, or frustrating, or dark. But that is just what everybody else has to deal with, and that really is just part of what it is to be alive.

Worthwhile reading.

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22 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A poor novel on so many levels, 14 Oct 2008
By Mister Hobgoblin (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
Having run out of books on holiday, I started on other people's leftovers. One of them was Veronika Decides To Die - and in the normal run of things, I wouldn't have lifted it from the shelf. But this was an opportunity to try something a bit different.

And how different.

On the first page, up pops a Brazilian writer called Paulo Coelho. I kid you not, the pompous man has included himself as a character in his own novel. Basically, Veronika has taken an overdose of sleeping pills and whilst waiting to die, she reads a magazine article about Paolo Coelho and some computer game he invented.

And then, in a later chapter, Coelho the character is found discussing his family and the need to write this novel - ostensibly following his own incarceration in a mental asylum. This is following a meeting with a different girl called Veronika whose father ran the mental asylum where the first Veronika was taken after the overdose. What a small world, you say.

Anyway, the asylum - in Slovenia - had apparently gained a fearsome reputation since it was founded (apparently in 1991, and the book was published in 1997 so it got a fearsome reputation quite quickly). Nobody had ever escaped - perhaps the asylum hadn't been open long enough... And its patients were either kept in lockdown or could wander in and out freely, depending on which chapter you are reading. And also, it seems that there are four other asylums that are state run and don't charge fees - whereas this one does charge fees so it also operates as a hotel for people who like staying there. It's not obvious how Veronika ended up in the fee paying asylum following her overdose when there doesn't seem to be anyone to pay her bills.

Anyway, it seems that Veronika damaged her heart when she popped her pills, so she will die as her heart weakens further - some time in the next week to ten days. Indeed, she even has heart attacks. Fortunately these are of the variety that she can recover from instantly and get back to her daily life straight away. And fortunately she seems not to suffer from the chronic breathlessness of other heart failure patients. This affords her the opportunity to fall in love with a schizophrenic - a chap who expresses himself by standing mutely whilst Veronika plays the piano or performs sexual acts on herself.

Dr Igor, the Director, meanwhile sets about his nefarious plans - principally around discovering a whole new way of looking at mental illness and treating it using happiness. We see quite a lot of Dr Igor in the first half of the novel, which makes it something of a surprise to be introduced to him much later as (and I paraphrase): the Director of the Institution, a man with brown hair who goes by the name of Dr Igor.

And beyond the silly continuity errors and gaping holes in the plot, we find a complete lack of character development or empathy. We just find fact after fact; deed after deed; cod-philosophizing after cod-philosophizing. If we need Veronika to feel that today was the best day of her life, Coelho will just tell us that it was. There is no attempt made to convey that feeling or to describe it - it is simply announced.

This really is a poor novel on so many levels. It is shallow, implausible, inconsistent, haphazard and pretentious. Please avoid.
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20 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the Alchemist, 23 Feb 2004
By William (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews
I picked up this book not knowing what to expect sometime after reading the Alchemist (which i found rather average compared to what people had told me about it). Much to my supprise, this book was instantly enjoyable and did not hesitate in getting into the "story", we are taken through the last few days of what remains of Veronikas life and we discover what Veronika (and a lot of us) discovers, which is, there are a lot of good things worth living for in this life which we seem to have forgotten about as it is so easy to concentrate on the bad. This book is beautiful, poetic and best of all very easy to read. The book does not fail to inspire the deepest of Sceptics and the hardest of men. A book for all to enjoy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A true joy to read
I took this book with me on holiday and finished it on the first day. It was so good, I read it on the plane coming back again and was just as good the second time round. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. S. M. Mccormack

4.0 out of 5 stars deep and meaningful read
I must admit that I didn't find the alchemist a brilliant read. It was enjoyable but it didn't leave any lasting impressions. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jonathan

5.0 out of 5 stars Another inspirational book by Paulo Coelho.
The first book i read by Paulo Coelho was the Alchemist after being given a copy from a fellow traveller at the time. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Nick

4.0 out of 5 stars Bitesize philosophy
That is a little crude, but it was the first title that popped into my head. This is a captivating, beautifully written (albeit short) story of a young woman who decides to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Femmielala

4.0 out of 5 stars Will tomorrow always be there?
A complicated story of a girl, who decides to die. It is far from corny, and is in reality much more insightful. Read more
Published 12 months ago by E. Exintaris

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting tale
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is the sort of book that makes you think about the subject matter. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Maria Savva

4.0 out of 5 stars Uplifting
Beautifully written and unconventional, despite it's rather gloomy sounding title, 'Veronika Decides to Die', is a truly upbeat and life affirming book. Read more
Published 14 months ago by BookWorm

1.0 out of 5 stars how did it get published
a horribly written self indulgent book. depressingly reccomended to me by someone i respect. lame.
Published 14 months ago by K. Kilshaw

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly Compelling!
Feeling the need one day to read something with a little more substance I was drawn to Veronika wants to die, although a somber title I felt enthralled to buy this book and was... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mr. Andrew Whitelaw

5.0 out of 5 stars thought provoking...
I was recommended The Alchemist by a friend which I read and found very inciteful. I decided I liked Paulos style of writing so I bought Veronika Decides to Die. Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2007 by S. lucas

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