I finished the Paulo Coehlo book about the girl who wanted to die - writte in 1998. There were fascinating discussions about madness and conformity and the idea that it is considered mad to follow your instincts and loves and desires for life instead of being in conformity with what is expected. And the lead character tries to commit suicide, and is saved and brought to an asylum, where she is told that the pills she took to kill herself created an irreversible damage to her heart and she has only a few days to live.
She ends up (after going through some satisfaction with the job about to be done for her) learning to enjoy life as she has never before, and falling in love, and escaping with the so called schizophrenic who it turns out is also more sane than those who put him there, and they appear to be treating each day as a gift and are surprised that she is not dead the next morning.
But then, we find out that the doctor has lied to her about her illness in order to experiment with the concept (that to me does not appear all that new or innovative) that by facing death, a person often is forced to finally confront life and deal with the daily enjoyment of life in a way never possible before
So what else is new? Now isn't this just a pat and old idea? Isn't that the reason that I started spending so much money and runnng off to France? (after confronting that period of time when I had breast cancer, lost bothmy mom and dad - one from cancer and the other an accident, almost lost Brett, got divorced, and saw my law firm break up and formed a new one.)...................the combination, a death of sort - or at least the possibility of death - or endings - or both.
This is such a common part of human nature.
And Coeholo is considered so brilliant and his voice so fresh and new - he has such a large following.
Ok - the writing was good, and the book held me all the way to the end, but then, that rabbit out of a hat or deus ex machina thing at the end "She's really not sick". Give me a break!
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