Books Between Covers

Eleven Minutes is story of a girl named Maria from a small Brazilian village. She is an innocent girl who is shy and had world of girlish dreams. She dreams of love. The dreams of the prince charming that will come in her life one day. She goes through heart breaks as she grows up but the quest for love of the innocent girl is still on.

She decides to go to Geneva to earn fortune for her family. She gets into the profession of prostitution but the innocent girl inside her is still looking for her prince charming. The novel tells Maria’s story as she grows and till she finds the love of her life.

The end of novel is pretty simple and obvious but that is the beauty of the Eleven Minutes.

In this book Paulo has tried to deal with some least talked aspect of our life. Talking about it is still a taboo in many part of world.

“This Eleven Minutes has explicit content and is recommended only for adults.”

The Alchemist is story of a boy, Santiago who has a dream and has the courage to follow it. He follows the signs of light. During his search he comes across several adventure and road blocks but finally he finds his treasure. The two lines which make a lot of sense to me are:

"Treasure lies where your heart belongs"

This is very true. We all dream for something but abandon it due to some reason or the other. But what that reason is? Is this the society or our responsibility or something else? Nothing stops us from pursuing our dreams but our own vices. It is the sense of insecurity. We feel comfortable doing what we are doing right now. It doesn’t matter what we want to do. But as the time passes we feel caged by the mundane work. Unsatisfied with the work and life, we start blaming on others.

I do believe in my dream and work to fulfill it. But I came across another question. If everyone starts following his dream will this world not become chaotic? Who will take the responsibility?

"When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true"

I have observed it personally. When you have a strong desire for something the things fall into place automatically. It might take some time to happen but if we keep calm and keep working for it the desire comes true.

Paulo Coelho’s message is something that counts the most and this book is all about it. While flipping the pages of this book I felt like surfing the diary of an erudite. The pages reflected the flowing thoughts of a person. Some pages of this book took me to my childhood days when I was crazy about the grand mom’s stories. He not only reminds me of those stories but also their significance in our life.