Paulo Coelho - The Devil And Miss Prym

Once done with The Pilgrimage, I picked another one by Paulo Coelho, The Devil And Miss Prym. I  browsed through the books which I haven’t read yet by him ( I have read The Alchemist, Veronica Decided To Die and Winner Stands Alone earlier ). The synopsis on the cover promised an excited reading. The Devil, and its manifestation of greed, cowardice and fear excited me. It can not be another way, as in The Pilgrimage he demonstrated the power of Devil and how it tries to manipulate our thought. He even explained how we can turn it to our friend, and deal with the difficult situations of life.

This book was the third in his trilogy of books concerned with a week in the life of ordinary people, all of who find themselves suddenly confronted by love, death and power. Of the first two books, By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept and Veronica Decides To Die, I have read the second one and immensely liked it. So this book gathered a lot of expectation.

Viscos is a small village with just 218 inhabitants. Most of them farmers who work hard to earn their daily bread. Where life is the same every day, so predictable, organized and reliable. But cowards when the moment comes to change their life. One day a stranger comes to the village with the Devil by his side. He stays in the only hotel in the village and gives the villagers an offer of 10 gold bars if they kill one among them in the next two days.

The stranger had his own reason to do it. He wants an explanation for the tragedy of his life, which turned his life upside down. It was his plan, manifested by the Devil, to seek the answer. For which he makes the village and the bartender of the village, Miss Prym, his tools. He wanted to know how greed, temptation and cowardice rules human mind.

Paulo has handled the plot only the way he can. The brilliance of his writing is there in every chapter. A spark of wisdom and understanding of life is there. But is it magical.. I will say may not be. This plot is good enough for a post in his blog. But when he made it to a novel, the grip was missing. In Veronica also, the plot was stretched, but when you complete the book, you will find a reason for him to present it that way, which might be missing in this one.

Evil needs to manifest itself, for human to understand the value of good. You will get the message clear. I must add one thing now – it was more appealing to me in second read !