Veronika Decides To Die

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Sarah Michelle Gellar portraits with emotion the Veronika I had always imagined. -- Paulo Coelho One day, ironically after meeting Paulo Coelho, Veronika decides to die. She takes sleeping tablets one by one, slips into unconsciousness, then wakes in Villete, a much feared mental asylum in Slovenia, to be told her heart has suffered irreparable damage and she will die in five days time. To while away the time whilst she is waiting for the pills to kick in, Veronika reads an article in a magazine, where the writer, obviously thinking it is a smart thing to say, asks where is Slovenia? The last act of Veronika as she slips into unconsciousness is to pen a letter to the magazine. Like many of us, Veronika lives a mediocre, meaningless life, a life with no meaning, no purpose. That is why she decides to die. In Villete, she learns what it is to be mad, and how madness can liberate one to be oneself. It was not depression that made Veronika decide to die. She is attractive and enjoys life, but she sees the endless years of monotony stretching before her. She was twenty-four, she had enjoyed life, but her youth was now passing her by. What more had life to offer her? On a more philosophical level, she did not like the ways of the world, she felt powerless to do anything about it. Many of the people in Villete are there of their own volition. Yes, they are mad, but in Villete, their madness is acceptable, they can do as they please because they are mad. Reading works by Paulo Coelho, it is often difficult to know, is one reading a novel, a personal memoir, or a mix of both. In Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho is referred to in the third person. Is this Paulo Coelho the writer, author of Veronika Decides to Die, or a different Paulo Coelho? Paulo Coelho was three times committed to a mental institution where he was subjected to electro convulsive

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