VERONIKA DECIDES TO DIE

This book by Paulo Coelho deals with mental disorder’s that afflict us. It help’s us understand the people who suffer from them. The book revolves around the protagonist Veronika who decides to commit suicide and it just snowballs from there. It is set in Slovenia. A very bleak setting indeed. It conjures up images of snow and isolation and poverty. You keep imagining a place with mountains that are barren and a city without greenery.

In this setting is situated the mental institution Villette. Here we meet people who are mental and those who are not but still would like to keep their company. Veronika arrives here and everyone around her starts getting affected since she is so young and about die. The inmates stories are bought to the surface and the way they start questioning their own lives because of Veronika’s situation is beautifully bought to the fore. In all this death and despair a case for living is made. All of us are afflicted with madness of some kind or another. We learn that life is too short and people need to realize that they can be different. It also deals with how people get caught up in the world with things that do not inspire them. They give up something that they are really passionate about for living a mundane life and in that frustration start living a life of mediocrity and soon suicidal thoughts enter our heads.

I’ve never thought about what might feel like to be mad, to be considered mad, to feel so alone and not have people understand you. Some people come through it stronger like Mari one of the character’s in the book but it’s not a situation I would ever like to be in. This book gave me a ringside view and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a different topic to read on a Sunday afternoon.