This new novel from the multi-million selling author of The
Alchemist is the third part of a trilogy which began with By The
River I Sat Down And Wept (1994) and Veronika Decides To Die
(1998). In his author's note Piedra Coelho writes that all three
are concerned with one week in the lives of ordinary people who are
confronted with profound challenges involving love, power and
death. The village of Viscos is the last outpost of a rural way of
life in a world of multinationals and agribusiness. A stranger
arrives in this contemporary version of paradise and makes a wager
with the villagers. If they murder one of their number by the end
of the week, he will give them eleven gold bars. Because of a
tragedy in his own life, the stranger wants to demonstrate that
humanity is essentially evil. But Chantal Prym, the local barmaid
he persuades to be his accomplice, proves to have a mind of her
own. At the climax of the novel, Chantal confronts both the
villagers and the stranger as a firing squad prepares to execute a
pathetic victim. Coelho's novel is a meditation on good and evil
told in the form of a contemporary parable. He draws on myth,
history, folk tales, the Bible, philosophy, and European literature
to produce a story with many levels. Although he is often presented
as a New Age writer, Coelho's book most resembles a Brechtian
investigation of the trade-off between money and morality in the
modern world. In true Brechtian fashion too, Chantal, the
working-class character who knows herself enough to see that she
can be both good and evil, wins through. This book will please
Coelho's millions of readers and will attract many more. (Kirkus
UK)
A community devoured by greed, cowardice and fear. A man persecuted by the ghosts of his painful past. A young woman searching for happiness. In one eventful week, each of them will face questions of life, death and power, and each of them will have to choose their own path. Will they choose good or evil?
The remote village of Viscos is the setting for this extraordinary struggle. A stranger arrives, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.
In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho dramatizes the struggle within every soul between light and darkness, and its relevance to our everyday struggles: to dare to follow our dreams, to have the courage to be different and to master the fear that prevents us from truly living. 'The Devil and Miss Prym' is a story charged with emotion, in which the integrity of being human meets a terrifying test.
"His books have had a life-enhancing impact on millions of people".
THE TIMES
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Review This Product
Fri, 25 Nov 2011 | Review
by: Judy Croome | @judy_croome
Down-to-earth and easy read
A thought provoking book on the concept of Good vs Evil in the human soul. Coehlo writes a simple but powerful message in an easily accessible style and provides the readers with a glimpse of the human paradox that is the capacity to contain both dark & light in the same soul. Coehlo extends this exploration into the similarities between the collective & individual soul, and the need for the individual to rise above the evil of the collective.
The story is translated so one is never sure what has been “lost in translation,” but there are sufficient pearls of wisdom scattered throughout the story to keep one thinking while enjoying an easy, quick read. My favourite comes when the sweet Miss Prym has to make her critical choice: “There are only two things which prevent us from achieving our dreams: Believing them to be impossible, and seeing these dreams made possible by some unexpected turn of Fate. For at that precise moment all our fears surface: the fear of setting off along an unknown road; the fear of a life full of new challenges and the fear of losing everything that is familiar.” (Pg 34)
The morality of the story is perhaps too explicit, but can be excused because it’s presented so simply that one can take it or leave, depending on one’s personal response to the issue being examined.
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