When Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) was a young man, his parents had him committed to mental hospitals three times because he wanted to be an artist--an unacceptable profession in Brazil at the time. During his numerous forced incarcerations he vowed to write some day about his experiences and the injustices of involuntary commitment. In this fable-like novel, Coelho makes good on his promise, with the creation of a fictional character named Veronika who decides to kill herself when faced with all that is wrong with the world and how powerless she feels to change anything. Although she survives her initial suicide attempt, she is committed to a mental hospital where she begins to wrestle with the meaning of mental illness and whether forced drugging should be inflicted on patients who don't fit into the narrow definition of "normal." The strength and tragedy of Veronika's fictional story was instrumental in passing new government regulations in Brazil that have made it more difficult to have a person involuntarily committed. Like any great storyteller, Coelho has used the realm of fiction to magically infiltrate and alter the realm of reality. --Gail Hudson


From Publishers Weekly
The bestselling Brazilian author of The Alchemist delicately etches this morose but ultimately uplifting story of the suicidal Veronika, who creeps along the boundary between life and death, sanity and madness, happiness and despair. Veronika, 24, works in a library in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and rents a room in a convent; she is an attractive woman with friends and family, but feelings of powerlessness and apathy tempt her to find "freedom" in an overdose of sleeping pills. When Veronika awakens in the purgatory of Villete, the country's famous lunatic asylum, she is told her suicide attempt weakened her heart and she has only days to live. At this point, Coelho takes a role in the novel; he describes the circumstances under which he discovered Veronika's story and then recounts his own youthful incarceration in a Brazilian sanatorium, consigned there by parents who couldn't understand his "unusual behavior." As quickly as he drops in, however, he drops out again, relying on interior monologues to set scenes. In a sedative-induced haze, Veronika finds companionship in white-haired Mari, who suffers from panic attacks, and Eduard, an ambassador's son who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and she begins to question the definition of insanity. It is her supposed death sentence from the devious Dr. Igor, who is trying to shock her back into reality, that allows Veronika to reacquire the will to live and love. Employing his trademark blend of religious and philosophical overtones, Coelho focuses on his central question: why do people go on when life seems unfair and fate indifferent? The simple, often banal prose contrasts Veronika's bleak inner landscape with the beautiful contours of Slovenia, gradually culminating in an upbeat ending with the message that each day of life is a miracle. Coelho's latest will appeal to readers who enjoy animated homilies about the worth of human existence. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
After an overdose, Veronika goes on living--and looking for life's meaning. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Boston Globe
"Told with sincerity approaching urgency, Coelho's novel is surprisingly effective."


From Kirkus Reviews
A touching, if overexplicit, fable about learning to live in the face of death. As he confides in an early chapter, Coelho himself (The Fifth Mountain, 1998, etc.) was apparently institutionalized simply because his adolescent behavior baffled his parents. Here, he returns to the world of mental hospitals indirectly via Veronika, a Ljubljana librarian whotired of the fact that, at 24, she already finds every day like every other and cant imagine any future but increasing boredom, decay, and deathtakes an overdose of sleeping pills. She awakens in Villette, Slovenias notorious lunatic asylum, to learn that shes damaged her heart irreparably and has only a week to live. Initially rebelling against her keepers solicitous rules and regulations (``I'm not here to preserve my life, but to lose it, she reminds a nurse), she finds first her curiosity and then, gradually, her passions aroused by her fellow patients. Serbian Zedka Mendel, lacking a necessary brain chemical, endures megadoses of insulin that send her into comas. Mari, a lawyer who committed herself because she was suffering from panic attacks, has been asymptomatic for years but, divorced and forced into retirement, has nothing left to return to. Eduard, a schizophrenic whose case seems most like Coelhos, is an ambassadors son who ended up in Villette after rejecting a diplomatic career to paint. Regrettably, however, Coelho, preaching the need to live your own life in the face of death and social regimentation, cant resist capping these often poignant stories with sanity-is-the-true-madness insights out of R.D. Laing and prosy homiletics (Its what you are, not what others make of you) that seem to have been cribbed from a high- school health textbook. Imagine peering into the very heart of the mystical rose in Dantes Paradise and finding the neon injunction: TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.



"Girl Interrupted meets The Catcher in the Rye...you'll appreciate Veronika's sensual nihilism."

ANNOTATION

"Another of Coelho's spiritual journeys, this time by the 24-year-old protagonist who, after a failed suicide attempt, rediscovers in an insane asylum in Slovenia the preciousness and precariousness of life. Costa's translation is competent, but cannot save Coelho's novel from its by now familiar and conventionally inspirational tone and message"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Twenty-three-year-old Veronika seems to have everything she could wish for. She goes to popular night spots, dates attractive men, and has a caring family. Yet something is lacking in her life. So on the morning of November 11, 1997, Veronika decides to die.

After she awakens from an overdose, Veronika finds she has only days to live. The story follows Veronika through those intense days as, to her own surprise, she finds herself drawn into the enclosed world of the local hospital she is staying in. In this heightened state she experiences things she has never allowed herself to feel: hatred, fear, curiosity, love, and sexual awakening. Gradually she discovers that every second of her existence is a choice between living and dying. Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, based on his own moving personal experience, is about people who do not fit into patterns society considers to be normal. It is about madness and the need to find an alternative way of living for people who face prejudices because they think in a different way. In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho invites the reader to discover the world that lies outside the routine and addresses the fundamental question asked by millions: what am I doing here today?" and "why do I go on living?"

FROM THE CRITICS

Barnes & Noble Guide to New Fiction

From the celebrated author of the best-seller The Alchemist, comes a "very interesting, thought-provoking, and gripping" work about one woman's search for meaning in a world ruled by apathy and indifference. "Dazzlingly complex," "full of lyrical whisperings, and confessional asides," it deals with the most fundamental questions of life. "The ending took me by surprise." "So true in so many ways." "Get this book to Oprah."

Library Journal

After an overdose, Veronika goes on living--and looking for life's meaning. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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