I admit it - I don't like surprises. When I go to a restaurant, I always order the same thing. After all, if I know one thing is good, why try something else? Surprise parties? I hate them - they scare the crap out of me. Plot twists in movies? I think they're so rarely done well, they only annoy me.
So when I saw Paulo Coehlo's new book, Eleven Minutes, on the bookshelf, I knew I had to get it. After all, I adored the other book I had read by him, The Alchemist. I reveled in the idea of curling up on my couch with an old friend - how I equate reading books by authors I like.
Eleven Minutes is a book about sex. You can cut it other ways, but that's what it comes down to. The title itself refers to the length of time it takes to commit the act. The world we live in revolves around sex, no matter how much people try to disguise or argue that fact. Rather than dispute it or make sex ugly, Coehlo presents sex as a beautiful lesson to be mastered as one gains experience.
Maria is a prostitute from a small town in Brazil who gets convinced to move to Geneva, Switzerland, to become a stage sensation. Doing Brazilian dances at a sleazy bar does not bring the fame Maria wishes so she gets out of her contract and tries to fend for herself in Geneva. With no money and little knowledge of the language though, she ends up working as a prostitute.
While Maria's entrance into prostitution is probably pretty typical, she is not who one imagines when they think of a sex worker. She visits the library religiously and during downtimes at her workplace, she reads and takes notes on matters of psychiatry, love, sex and farm management. She learns to provide for her clients physical and mental needs. She saves her money and she has adventures while she bides her time until her return home to Brazil.
Coehlo makes an astute choice in having the main character in his book, which honors sex, be a prostitute. Through Maria we are able to see some of the ugliest sides of sex. But it is through her development as a character that we are able to appreciate the beauty of the act of sex.
In his celebration of sex and love, Coehlo is a success. Sadly though, in Eleven Minutes, Coehlo is a victim of his own style. In The Alchemist, a book worth anyone's time, he tells a good story that has a tendency at points to become preachy, but the story itself wins out and the novel is excellent. In Eleven Minutes, Coehlo seems unable to resist his tendency to preach and much of the book becomes his opinion - his take on how things are and should be.
I read the book Eleven Minutes quickly - I ate it up and when I had to take a break, I couldn't wait to start reading again. All said and done, though, I would rather curl up on my couch with The Alchemist, as it's a much more loyal friend.
See Paulo Coelho's 
