Review

Paulo Coelho, Brazilian lyricist and novelist, was born on August 24, 1947.  His novel Veronika Decides to Die is highlighted as the Literary Birthday Book Review for August.  This sounds like a grim story based on the title alone, but it is actually a story of redemption.  What begins with a depressing start, ends with a joyful ending. 

Once I became attached to the character, Veronika, I had hope with every page that her situation would improve.  At 24 years of age, Veronika should be enjoying her youth, but instead she feels she has already done everything important in life and what will happen from then on presents a bleak outlook.  She methodically takes an overdose of pills in order to kill herself, but is instead rescued and put in a mental hospital for depression. When she wakes up and realizes that she isn’t dead, she is told that the pills have damaged her heart and she will die within weeks. She tries not to become too involved with other patients. She doesn’t want to experience feelings and look for reasons to live again. She has decided to die and now it will just take longer than she thought it would. 

BUT as quoted in the book: "An awareness of death encourages us to live more intensely." She experiences a revelation and makes a connection with one patient, Eduard, which reverses her death wish. The irony is that her death is eminent, and now living has more meaning for her than ever.  *SPOILER ALERT* There is a twist in the tale that allows her to live. Her psychiatrist is researching new treatments and her case comes just in time to prove his hypothesis. 

In Coelho’s notes on what inspired him to write this novel, I learned that his past experiences as a mental patient played a significant role in understanding depressions and treatments. In fact many of the scenes describing Eduard seem based off Coelho’s own life. 

One part of the story, which I thought provoking, was when Eduard mentioned that his parents put him in the institution to fix his mental state and fit their mold. They didn’t want him to be different (an individual). They thought the treatment would make him more rational and accepted by society. But the fact is that history of his hospitalization is exactly what made him stick out and become different from others. For some faulty reason, in his parents' eyes, being different was terrible. 

Veronika Decides to Die deals with the subject of madness, and readers will see this in various degrees as other characters living in the mental institution are introduced.  This book allows the reader to reevaluate the importance of life, and reflect on Coelho's words “collective madness is called sanity.”  I think this reality illustrates that madness can incite a person to extreme joy or anger.  But when connecting with others, these emotions can be shared, and somehow that connection validates our reason for living.  When you get to a point in life where you wonder “what is the point?” you have to know that things will change with time.  This reminds me of a lyric from a favorite song of mine by Townes Van Zandt, “to live is to fly, both low and high, so shake the dust off of your wings and the sleep out of your eyes.” 

My book club friends visited to watch a film based on this book, and despite minor differences in location, the film closely follows the story.   Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, as Veronika, the movie is available on Amazon Prime.   When looking for a dish to complement this book’s discussion, we found no food mentioned in the novel.  We did notice that in the film Veronika longs to once more visit her favorite taco stand and have a Guinness beer from an Irish pub.  Everyday things like this we might take for granted.  This book reminds us that it is important to have an awareness of life and treat every day as a miracle.