It's when Slovenia was on the sidelines whilst the Balkan Wars were causing carnage; Veronika, who has everything ... decides to die. She takes pills, only to awaken in a mental institution, to be told that she'll still die, but in over a week or so!

Coelho's experience with mental health services influenced his writing of this thought provoking book. The book has numerous challenging the status quo views on mental illness that may be triggering for some... I found them interesting and intriguing.

Veronika's presence in the mental institution possibly impacts on everyone's lives as well as Veronika herself. In the situation she is in, she realise she has to value and uses every second of everyday, as it really could be her last. One of my favourite Coelho reads, bearing in mind my meh reaction to most of his work. A solid Three star, 6 out of 12.

2022 read; 2005 read

"Je glücklicher wir sein könnten, um so unglücklicher sind wir"...

Manchmal wird alles und nichts zuviel und dann ist die Frage,welchen Sinn hat alles. Veronica steht genau vor dieser Entscheidung oder auch nicht....

Ein kleines schmales Büchlein,das ich sehr gern gelesen habe. Coelhos Sprache ist ganz wunderbar und berührend, ich wäre nur gern näher an Veronica heran gekommen und hätte gern noch mehr von den anderen Nebendarstellern erfahren,aber dennoch eine absolute Leseempfehlung

یادمه چند سال پیش که خوندمش، خیلی از جملاتش به دردم خوردن.
اما حالا که دوباره خوندم، به نظرم بسیاری از جمله‌هاش بدیهی و سطحی، و بعضی اتفاقاتش غیرواقعی و گل‌درشت بودن.

n  **3.5 stars**

‘There was nothing a doctor dreaded more than getting complaints from the families of patients who had been in Villete, which was what nearly always happened, for it was rare for a patient to readjust successfully to normal life after a period spent in a mental hospital.
It wasn’t the fault of the hospital, or of any of the hospitals scattered around the world; the problem of readjustment was exactly the same everywhere. Just as prison never corrects the prisoner—it only teaches him to commit more crimes—so hospitals merely got patients used to a completely unreal world, where everything was allowed and where no one had to take responsibility for their actions.’n

This is my third encounter with Paulo Coelho, after Eleven Minutes and The Alchemist, and let’s get it out of the way, this one’s easily the best among them. The story is about a young woman who decides to commit suicide because she couldn’t get anything new out of her life that she hadn’t already, and what she goes through when she accidentally survives the attempt but is then told that she has only around five days to live because her heart has suffered irreparable damage from the overdose of sleeping pills which had induced the coma.

Well, Coelho himself is also in the story, and I wasn’t least surprised by that. From the very start when she woke up in a lunatic asylum, it became quite obvious that it was a very personal story to tell by Coelho, as I had known from his introduction of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. Coelho himself was sent to a mental asylum (thrice) because his parents were worried about his artistic desires. So yeah, naturally he wanted to recount his experience through a novel through a fictional character (though he mentioned in a few places it’s a real story? Ah leave it that’s irrelevant).

Now it definitely has got its positive parts, but also some negatives. First of all, the editing is poor and could’ve been sharper. Yes, it is more or less the length of a lengthy novella, but in terms of subject matters, it could’ve been shorter and hence, concise.

Also, the translation. It’s not too bad, but given the worldwide acclaim Coelho already had before this one was translated, should've been entrusted to someone who wouldn’t have been too literal. For a supposedly heart-touching story about a girl who can’t decide whether to live or not, it’s very lifeless and can even get unsolicited factual in parts.

Now I’m not too sure about that, for I haven’t read Coelho’s original text, but somehow his story matters exuberate a very magical, sublime yet almost poetic feel. But if his writing is so matter-of-fact (and not in a Stanley Kubrick’s deliberately distant way) then the fault isn’t the translator’s, of course. But as I said, I’m not sure of that.

Also, given that it’s an important ‘project’ for Coelho, sometimes it will feel like he didn’t care enough for the characters. Like, he just had to make up the characters for the sake of fictionalizing, because he wanted to tell his own story but couldn’t use real characters for some (obvious) reasons.

And Coelho’s major stories always have that fable-ish quality, that sets him apart, but sometimes the way it is used isn’t too intelligent. Especially the way his stories end. A bit too obvious, played a bit too safe, desperately trying to make the readers feel good (and succeeding most of the time) but leaving people like me unconvinced.

But that’s enough with the not-too-good sides. Coelho is one of those popular writers of the genre who can write a woman character without sounding pretentious. It’s known to everyone who has read Eleven Minutes, which was riskier than this one in terms of writing a non-cliché character. Basically, sexual exploration is a very difficult topic to handle, especially in opposite genders, countless male authors have proved that but Coelho isn’t one of them. There’s a particular instance in this story where Veronika does something that can be viewed as very questionable, almost pervert-like. It would’ve been if the author had been, say, Murakami. But that doesn’t happen here.

And the thought process that goes into the characters’ internal monologues is equally captivating. I won’t recount any of them here because they will hamper the reading experiences for anyone new to it, but let’s say that they are the most melancholic yet somehow entertaining, ponder-worthy parts of the story.

There are several highly relevant sections on how the society deems it fit to suppress the artistic or creative tendencies of an individual and considers him or her social only when he or she lives by the set of laws created by the society, without questioning anything. And most important of all, they shouldn’t grow tired of that lifestyle, and embrace monotonicity discarding the dreams of doing something different.

n   ‘Collective madness is called sanity.’n

Though in matters of philosophy, the frequent mentions of Freud do sound a bit textbook-like. But Coelho has definitely tried to do something different here, and despite its flaws, it’s readable and not at all pretentious.

Who knows, if I give it a second chance someday in the distant future, it may appeal more to me.

n  “People will say: ‘She’s just been released from Villete and now she’s making her husband crazy too.’ And he will realize they’re right, and he’ll thank God because our marriage is starting all over again and because we’re both crazy, like those who first invented love.”n

Μπορει να ακουστει κλισε αλλα αυτο το βιβλιο σταθηκε η αφορμη για να αλλαξω πορεια στη ζωη μου. Περασα μια μεγαλη περιοδο που δεν ειχα αντιληφθει οτι απλως κοιμονουν, δεν βιωνα τη ζωη μου, ημουν σε πληρη απραξια, απλως την αφηνα να περναει κοιτωντας την σαν κινηματογραφικη ταινια. Χρειαζομουν κατι, κατι το οποιο βρηκα στις σελιδες αυτου του βιβλιου, στη ζωη της Βερονικα και των υπολοιπων τροφιμων, στις διηγησεις του ιατρου. Καθε μια ηταν ενα χαστουκι, ενα ταρακουνημα, παγωμενο νερο στο προσωπο. Κ τοτε ξυπνησα και αρχισα παλι να ζω, να αισθανομαι. Πολυ δεν το βιωσαν τοσο εντονα, μερικοι δεν το κατανοησαν καθολου ��ουτο βιβλιο. Φυσικα κ συμβαινει. Αλλωστε το καθε βιβλιο δεν ειναι για ολες τις ωρες, σημαντικο ρολο εχει η διαθεση μας και ο χρονος που εχουμε για να αφιερωσουμε στο καθε αναγνωσμα. Εγω ημουν τυχερη, ηταν αυτο που χρειαζομουν τη καταλληλη στιγμη. Παντα το προτεινω... Απο τα καλυτερα του Coelho.

Veronika, een jonge vrouw uit Slovenië, wil zelfmoord plegen. Omdat ze vind dat ze niets meer te verwachten heeft van het leven. Maar ze wordt op tijd gevonden en naar een psychiatrisch centrum gebracht. Ze ontwaakt na een tijdje uit haar coma, en de dokter zegt dat ze nu wel ok is, maar dat door de overdosis pillen haar hart beschadigd is, en ze nog hoogstens een week te leven heeft. Veronika blijft dus in de instelling en leert andere patiënten kennen. Deze hebben allemaal hun eigen verhaal. Stilaan begint Veronika te beseffen dat er eigenlijk nog zoveel is dat ze nog niet gedaan heeft, en dat ze haar toekomst toch op een voor haar zinvolle manier zou kunnen invullen. Maar ze heeft nog maar een paar dagen te leven...
Naamate het boek vorderde, werd ik meer en meer gegrepen door de verhalen en gedachten van de personages, het is een boek dat tot nadenken stemt. In dit opzicht is Coelho zeker in zijn opzet geslaagd. De moeite waard!

”اگر هرکسی فقط زندگی خودش را می کرد و می گذاشت دیگران هم زندگی کنند، خدا در هر لحظه ای حاضر می بود، در هر دانه ی خردل، در قطعات ابری که لحظه ای هستند و لحظه ای دیگر می روند.خدا همان جا بود و اما مردم اعتقاد داشتند باید همچنان بگردند، چون پذیرفتن اینکه زندگی فقط یک ایمان است، بسیار ساده بنظر می رسید....“


هنوزم همونقد این کتابو دوس دارم که شیش هفت سال پیش داشتم.خوشحالم که دوباره خوندمش...

I had heard so many things about Paul Coelho that I had to find out for myself what he was like. The reviewers all seemed to hate him, but a couple of our au pairs said he was great.

Well, I read Veronika Decides to Die, and in fact I quite enjoyed it! But I also thought it would be wise to quit while I was ahead.

Pretty, single, 24-year-old Veronika decides to die for two reasons, both of them phony: one, because she realizes she will one day be old; and two, because a lot of things are wrong in this world. She then takes a lot of sleeping pills. While waiting to die, as if she's waiting for her cat to finish drinking its milk, Veronika decides to read a magazine and then write to the editor of that magazine. Which made the scene cartoonish.

This rare combination of phoniness and cartoonishness gelled and gave birth to this masterpiece. A masterpiece of nothingness, like a gigantic void proud of its vast emptiness. Paolo Coelho is like a god, not only to those who worship him, for he has created something out of nothing using the time-tested way of hoodwinking morons who read books like this: sprinkling lots of amphibologies and gobbledygooks to a plotless tale of nonsense. Gripping their highlighters, these morons would then make passages like this shine in neon, marvel at how deep they are, and then give the book a 5-star rating at goodreads.com--

"We all live in our own world. But if you look up at the starry sky, you'll see that all the different worlds up there combine to form constellations, solar systems, galaxies." (p.162).

He could have added: If you feel all alone in this big, wide world as if you carry the weight of all the sadness there is, then look up at the starry, starry sky during a starry, starry night and realize that there are aliens living in all those other planets who, in their solitude, likewise pine for the worlds they cannot see.

Damn, I sure do sound better than Coelho!

"اگر خدایی وجود داشته باشد قطعا می داند که فهم انسان محدود است. او کسی است که این اغتشاش را ایجاد کرده که در آن فقر، بی عدالتی، حرص و تنهایی وجود دارد. او قطعا مصمم به انجام دادن بهترین ها بود ولی نتیجه فاجعه آمیز از کار درآمد. اگر خدا وجود داشته باشد، در مورد موجوداتی كه زمين را پیش از موقع ترک کرده اند، بخشنده خواهد بود و حتا ممکن است بخاطر اینکه مارا مجبور کرده زمانی را در اینجا بگذرانیم، از ما عذر خواهی كند."


رمان جالبی بود ولی دوس داشتم آخرش ورونیکا واقعا بمیره! اینطوری اون احساسی که ورونیکا بهم القا کرده بود، برا همیشه باهام می موند! ولی زنده موندنش به معنای فرصت دوباره بود که خب تو دنیای واقعی کمتر پیش میاد! در کل از پایان خوش ، خوشم نمیاد :)

کاش میمرد.

Giving this book 3 stars simply because I like Eduard.
I've read three books by Paulo Coehlo so far-Veronika Decides to Die,The Devil and Miss Prym and The Alchemist.And even though I gave three stars to all three of them,I keep going back to Coehlo.I love his characters,I guess that's what I like the most about his books.And his endings are the best.