‘… It’s really only forty-five minutes, and if you allow time for taking off clothes, making some phony gesture of affection, having a bit of banal conversation and getting dressed again, the amount of time spent actually having sex is about eleven minutes.
Eleven minutes. The world revolved around something that only took eleven minutes.’
-Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
you know what would totally be a close to orgasmic experience is if i can finish this book in eleven minutes. unfortunately, i’m way off the mark. i have started reading this book over a month ago but i haven’t even made it halfway through. currently, i’m also reading h. murakami’s kafka on the shore and i’m so intrigued by its plot and characters that i can’t even spend eleven minutes of my time on coelho’s book.
truth be told, i am not a fan of coelho. of his five books which i own, i have only finished reading 2 so far. a few close friends of mine were raving about the alchemist when i decided to check for myself what the fuss was about. after reading the novel, i thought that it was comparable to antoine de saint-exupery’s the little prince as both books’ main characters were involved in a journey of self-discovery. but the little prince touched me far more than the alchemist in more ways than one. the zahir was the second coelho book that i finished. i couldn’t resist its pink front cover and although it was a drag, i managed to get to the last page which was a feat considering that lula, my friend who is a self-confessed coelho fan only read a few chapters of it before she returned my book and admitting that she didn’t like it. i have begun veronika decides to die and by the river piedra, i sat down and cry but i thought they were too dogmatic for my own liking so i put the books down and looked for other reading materials. i think this is why i am not too fond of coelho. i view his books as tediously didactic in style such that the profundity of his works gives me claustrophobia of some sort. it feels like listening to a self-righteous religious person giving unsolicited advice, or hearing santino talk in may bukas pa. heaven forbid! this is also how i felt with mitch albom’s tuesdays with morrie so i’m not into it as much as i know other people are. of course, people who love coelho (and albom) can argue otherwise. i prefer the style of robert fulghum. he talks about life values and lessons even in the most trivial of experiences but it’s something that we inculcate because they are practicable on a daily basis.
the first few chapters of eleven minutes hooked me until the main character starts seeing an image akin to virgin mary. that’s when i got turned off. still though, i would like to finish eleven minutes if only to see if there is enough love in the book to make the eleven minute-ritual last more than the average. and if i can gather enough love for coelho even for a short span of time.
