If I had the option of giving it less than one star, I most definitely would.
Eleven Minutes was recommended it to me by a dear friend of mine, 7 years ago. Ever since, I have been looking for it everywhere, but I have only found it at a local book fair about a month back.
The only reason I continued reading this pathetic excuse for a "novel" is because it took me years to find it.
I'm pretty sure most of the readers loved Eleven Minutes because its by Paulo Coelho, whom they absolutely adore.
Again, over rated.
I wasn't surprised that I didn't like it, I was surprised; though, that I found out that his style of writing was so, you could say, unintelligent, although that's quiet undermining how bad it was.
I get that he was going for the character that becomes wise over time and philosophizes every aspect of her life, trying to understand why things are what they are, or how things work the way they work. But, Coelho only made Maria appear to be stupider and even more empty headed. Maybe even silly. He failed drastically in conveying any type of wisdom, or intellect, or even philosophy, in his narration or Maria's.
On top of that, he manages to go on too much, offering unnecessary details or explanations. Dear Mr. Coehlo, are you familiar with the phrase "less is more"? Apparently not. Whether it's the text between the brackets or the excessive justification in one sentence, Coelho fails to keep the reader engaged without interrupting, which is really annoying and a big turn off.
Although he tried to convey Maria as a strong woman who takes matter of her life in her own hands and creates her own fate, she actually is interpreted to be a submissive person. Giving herself to men for every night, claiming that she hates being a prostitute but has to for the sake of money. She could have found other ways to earn money, clean money, and keep her dignity she talks about, get the first ticket to go home to Brazil and deal with her life there. Maybe marry her boss who was planning to propose to her. I mean, that's all she wanted, right? A rich husband, children and money.
That's all she seemed to care about: money. Such a gold digger. Wanting to stay in Switzerland and hesitating to go back home because she was earning a lot of money; her first thought about Hart was if he was rich or not; talking about her boss in Brazil saying how she doesn't love him but thinking he is rich; even the Swiss guy who picked her up from Rio to take her as an exotic dancer in his night club in Switzerland, she thought of hooking him in and marrying him because he is rich. Its all money to her, not love, as she keeps going on and on about.
All this nonsense about love, losing the chance at it when she was a CHILD, not finding it ever again -until she met Ralf Hart. As a reader, I did not believe all the meaningless thoughts and realizations she had about love, wanting it, losing it, finding it, not even knowing what it is. All her past relationships seemed as though all she wanted out of them all was experience in sex, even that she failed to understand.
It was really sick how the idea of love was so undermined.
I don't think Coelho really knew or understood about what he was writing.
This experience makes me wonder, what should I do with the other 2 novels I bought, next to this one?
