On my 28th birthday celebration, I got the book Veronika Decides to Die from my friend Lea. It had been a while since I received a book as a present. The last time I got one was from my Dad when I was eight. During dinner that Friday evening, I found it funny that Lea had to mention that I was going to like the book. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but as I got home that night and lay in bed I remembered the book. Intrigued, I began reading it.
On November 11, 1997, Veronika decided that the moment to kill herself – at last! – arrived. She carefully cleaned the room that she rented in a convent, turned off the heat, brushed her teeth, and lay down.
And so begins Veronika Decides To Die, written by Paulo Coelho, which was incidentally the first book of his that I have read. The book revolves around a morose but uplifting story of a normal 24-year-old woman named Veronika who creeps along the boundary of life and death, sanity and madness, happiness and despair.
Veronika works in a library in Ljubljana, Slovenia (that strange country that no one seems quite able to place) and rents a room in a convent. She is an attractive woman who has a steady job, friends and a loving family. She has everything she could ever wish for. She is someone you can actually describe as the "perfect woman" yet she is not happy. Feelings of powerlessness and apathy tempt her to find "freedom" in death.
So one morning she decides to take her own life. She takes an overdose of sleeping pills but does not die. Instead, she wakes up in Villette (the famous and much feared lunatic asylum) only to be told that having damaged her heart irreparably, she just has a few days to live.
Veronika is then faced with a waiting game in the strange world of Villette, where all the rules and regulations governing the lives of its patients and doctors who treat them would make you wonder who is mad or what madness is about. In this institution, everyone has an unusual story to tell.
During these intense days, Veronika surprisingly finds herself experiencing feelings she had never really felt before. She begins to fall in love and wants to live again.
This book is about love, life and death. It shows us all why every second of our existence is a matter of making a choice between living and dying. It has comedy, tragedy and real-life characters. The characters in the book come to life in every little mistake they make. They show all of us that life is worth living and that sometimes we need to change things drastically to get on the right path to freedom, power and sanity.
I faced this choice between life and death as well, though not literally. When a two-year relationship with a woman I cared for deeply ended, I did not know what to do with myself. I struggled with feelings of emptiness and hopelessness. I found myself drifting through life without actually participating in it. Finally, I decided I would no longer give her that kind of power or control over me. I chose to take an active role in shaping how my life would turn out. I realized that I had to take charge of my own life and shape my own destiny.
I feel a great kinship with Veronika although it did not take facing my own mortality to make me realize that life is not something to be squandered. Before I read the book I felt as though I was faced with all that was wrong with the world and how powerless I was to change anything. Although I survived each day in the hope that there was hope, I continuously wrestled with the trials that came my way. I honestly believed that there were days that didn’t fit my narrow definition of "normal." I knew that the cycle had to end.
It was those days when I read the book that I was reminded that life was and is meaningful and that there are so many things that I still had to discover, learn and create if only to make life worth living every day. I didn’t want to take my own life but it came to a point when I felt like giving up on my career and plans in life. In my struggle I fortunately triumphed as I chose to let go of those thoughts and feelings.
What struck me most was the way Paulo Coelho artfully developed his theme. Follow your vision, he says, live in the moment, make the most of your fleeting time. Do not waste your life trying to meet the expectations of others. Instead do what you have always dreamed of doing. Be true to yourself, see and accept the beauty of your own life. Life is precious. I guess in the chaotic day-to-day events of city life, that can be all too easy to forget.
We must wake up to the fact that there is more to life than work and toil. All we have to do is look out of our windows and see the world turning to understand how important life is. This is indeed a deeply personal lesson worth learning and living.
Coelho’s writing is poetic and deep, probably not the light relief someone might want on a holiday, but this book, I believe, is important and the message it sends across page after page is a powerful, inspiring and an incredibly simple one. Here is a book with a story that does not leave you. The story and the message will be with you every day, and I think it will make each day alive and more fulfilling.