“Veronika” changed my life.
To some extent the above line is true. Indeed I feel of having a renewed perception of life after going through the brilliant charisma by Paulo Coelho-‘Veronika decided to die’.
I happened to read this novel when everything was just about normal in my life. And little did I realize that it was the best time (when everything around one is just as expected) to read this novel. I went through the novel at my usual pace taking breaks and reading when the urge was there, until I encountered what I call ‘life pumped in the novel’. That was when I had covered around forty percent of the book. And from then on I finished it at one go. Well! All I can say is that there is a high chance that each one of us would get a better meaning, understanding and rejuvenated attitude towards our lives after we’ve read through this book. And of course the book has to offer qn intense philosophy regarding conformity, madness, sexuality and death. If only every person on the verge of quitting one’s life could manage to read this novel, I wonder how many of them would actually go on to suicide.
Veronika is a twenty-four year old, young, attractive girl who lives in
The first reason is that everything in her life was the same and once her youth would be gone, it would be downhill all the way, with old age beginning to leave irreversible marks, the onset of illness, the departure of friends. She would gain nothing by continuing to live; indeed the likelihood of suffering only increased!
The second reason was more philosophical. Veronika read the newspapers, watched TV and she was aware of what was going on in the world. Everything was wrong (as she saw them) and she had no way of putting things right – that gave her a sense of complete powerlessness.
In short Veronika who is young, pretty, has plenty of attractive boyfriends, goes dancing, has a steady job and a loving family is not happy, something is lacking in her life and so in order to save herself and her life from this trauma, she decides to die on the morning of Nov.11th 1997 and takes an overdose of sleeping pills. However she does not die and wakes up in Vilette, the local hospital. Here she is told that although she is alive now, her heart is damaged and she has only a few days (7 to 8) to live. And then the novel begins.
Villete is an asylum in the purest sense of the world: a place of protection, where one is shielded from danger. In this case, the danger is society. Those who refuse to accept society’s rules have two choices: succumb to the majority perception that they are mad or struggle against that majority and try to find their own way in the world.
The very knowledge of the fact that she is destined to die in a week’s time, changes Veronika’s perception of death and life. During her internment in Villete, she realizes that she has nothing to lose and can therefore do what she wants and be who she wants without having to worry about what others think of her, because as a madwoman she is unlikely to be criticized. Her presence in Villete affects all the mental hospital patients, especially Zedka, who has clinical depression, Mari, who suffers from panic attacks and Eduard, who has schizophrenia and with whom Veronika falls in love. All these three people have their own stories of landing up in Villete and one gets the perception that these three are just normal, while the outside world perceives them simply as mad people. Special among the three is Eduard, the schizophrenic who has visions of paradise and who narrates his story to only one person- Veronika that too just about the time when Veronika has just about completed her days after suicide attempt. Moreover Eduard is the person who spurs the understanding of life in Veronika. Though he doesn’t do anything, Veronika gets her sexual awakening before him, totally surrendering herself before him as she has concealed her hidden desires even from herself till now and now with this newfound freedom she begins to experience all the things she never allowed herself to experience. It is here, when she is just about twenty four hours left for death as per the doctors that she realizes life. She says to the doctor “I want to ask two favours. First that you give me some medication, an injection or whatever, so that I can stay awake and enjoy every moment that remains of my life. I’m very tired but I don’t want to sleep. I’ve got a lot to do, things that I always postponed for some future date, in the days when I thought life would last for ever. Things I’d lost interest in, when I started to believe that life wasn’t worth living.
And her second favour would be “I want to leave here so that I can die outside. I need to visit
This is what life is. Most of us are in such an obvious condition taking up life, each day, every moment that we are kind of fed up with the ‘same old life’. We are somewhat obsessed with our idea, our self conceived expression of ‘life’s monotony’. And by the time we realize what life is, chances are that it would have already been late. And it has been put – Our life shouldn’t be long, it should be large instead.
And with these emotions we come to the end of the days of Veronika. The moral is there but the reader is immensely saddened by the ‘about to’ death of Veronika …but hold on this is where Paulo plays the chemistry. He tells us that the psychiatrist operating on Veronika faked upon her the news of her near death i.e. when he told him that she was about to die in a week. He has been using some drug called Fenotal, with which he manages to stimulate the effects of heart attacks and impress upon Veronika, the diminishing days of her remaining life. There had been absolutely no damage to her heart and no problem with her health, but the psychiatrist stages this story lest Veronika realizes the meaning and lost importance of her life. By convincing that her death is eminent, he has managed to shock Veronika making her want to live, respect it and most importantly enjoy it, something which life is meant for. He considers telling this truth to Veronika in the end (as Veronika has left the asylum by now) but ultimately discards his idea arguing to himself, that unknown of the fact that Veronika has her life at her expense, she would consider each day a miracle, which indeed it is, when we consider the number of unexpected things that can happen in each second of our fragile existences.
So this is what ‘Veronika decides to die’ is all about. Paulo Coelho makes us realize that it is not life that stops offering changes, but it’s actually what we do to our lives ending up in misery. Veronika has some intense days before the realisation bestows upon her that every second of existence is a choice that we all make between living and dying. The book is a moving and uplifting song to life, one that reminds us that every moment in our life is special and precious, something which we have been told so often in the vitriol world of today but which we never realize. If only each one of us could realize the value of life and living before our death bed or before death seems imminent, our world could be so much better and happier place.The book, I feel holds a mild similarity in plot with the 1975 movie which was the first movie to win all five major academy awards (best picture, best male actor in lead role, best female actor in lead role, best director and best screenplay), however the outcomes of the movie and novel are different.
