Behind the doors of moroseness

She is very beautiful. As matter of fact, her appalling beauty never failed her to grab any non-schizophrenic, be it in a bar she frequented after her work in the library or anywhere else, only to dump him after a few hours of love making in the blanket of the night then stepping into tomorrow to find yet another night of carnal satisfaction.

She is at the tender age of 24 living in Ljubljana, Slovenia and her life was a life anyone would have envied. She was socially confident; she had a stable job; she has her loving parents who gave everything to her when she was young until she lived independently; and as was aforementioned, it is safe to say that she would never have any trouble when it comes to erotic relationship.

She is Veronika: young, beautiful, loved by her parents. She is also a walking irony, a person as good as dead, a madwoman, a pervert and a thesis test subject.

Veronika Decides to Die was written by the renowned author of the international best seller The Alchemist, Paulo Choelo. It entails the madness of a young woman, bored and tired of the way her life recurs everyday, feeling that her existence is merely a repercussion of time, decided to end the relentless cycle by overdosing herself with sleeping pills. Unfortunately for her, she did not find herself neither in heaven nor in hell. Instead, she woke up being barricaded by the walls of Villete, a mental hospital, where her doctors declared that due to her attempted suicide, her heart weakened and she has only five days to live. In Villete, Veronika discovered what madness really meant (at least in a madwoman's point of view); she discovered that she was a pervert; she found out what life truly meant and how to will to live once more; she even found love; and in her last five conscious days, she unknowingly gave proof to her doctor's theory on the causes of madness, leading her existence to be more than just a lump of flesh moping on her morose situation and waiting for death to lay its hands on her.

When Paulo Coehlo was a young man, his parents committed him to mental hospitals just because he wanted to be an artist--a profession unwelcome in Brazil during those times. During these involuntary commitments, he vowed to write about the injustices of his experiences. True to his word, he created the world of Veronika, demonstrating once again his writing prowess through the vivid illustrations of each of the characters thoughts allowing the readers to swim in it and empathize with them. Each story bears indispensable near truth situations that would open the eyes of the readers that everyday is a miracle.

Still clasping in her heart the poignant idea of life as a boring cycle, she roamed Villete with Mari, a former lawyer suffering from panic attacks, or with Zedka, who was there to be treated from depression, or at times during night, with Eduard, an ambassador's son diagnosed as schizophrenic.

Coehlo transformed the usual connotation of asylums as a chaotic place filled with hysterical cries housing aggressive patients into a place of reflection, self-discovery and a place of hope. A haven for the patients, Villete, and never a constricting edifice, Coehlo's vision of a prison in the novel is the person's inner conflicts. The design of each cold bar of this imaginary prison consists of simple roots (the primary reason why each character was in Villete) yet bearing complex fruits (the reason they remain there).

In his elaboration of the causes of madness, Coehlo, in the personality of one of the characters in the story, Dr. Igor, states that Vitriol, an inner poisoning and commonly known as bitterness, drives people insane. Madness in the novel is nothing like what is usually thought of madmen and madwomen. Madness is somewhat a state of mind wherein everybody thinks contrary to what you think. Delving into the thought, does it follow that everyone is mad at some point of thinking? Hmmm...

Veronika Decides to Die takes the readers into a full circle journey between despair and apathy and of self-appreciation. It dwells on understanding those people not considered belonging to the normal society. As the circle encompassing the situations comes to a full rotation, one can find that each day that we face is an opportunity to live our lives right and by right, it means living the way we want our life lived.