Eleven Minutes

In fact, what I want to do is- make a fortune! No, that’s certainly not true. Maybe because I’ve never had much shortage of money before- I’ve had just the ordinary- I don’t value money that much. I guess importance of money comes later on, when I should earn money I use. So then, what’s really important? It’s my pride.

You see, as I am going through the book of Paulo Coelho’s <Eleven Minutes>, I was quite fascinated by how the main character thinks. Well, she is basically a prostitute, and the part where I’m reading is when Maria just became a prostitute, and as the law of prostitution- according to ‘Guylia(?)’- beginners get valued the most, unlike any other industries. What really surprised me is the way she thinks: ‘I have got nothing to lose, and it’s merely spreading legs to unknown man for just eleven minutes. I haven’t got pride, dignity, anything.'

It’s not that Maria is immoral; it's that she has the courage to make such a despised decision. She almost feels proud of herself for not running away from the reality. When she decides, she thinks through every single decision she makes and considers thoroughly. From the word prostitute, and the fact that she chose that road, it’s easy to think she is a stupid woman, but no. She’s pretty smart and knows all the costs it takes, and she is simply choosing from the options. She says really wise things in her diary, too. I guess these great quotations are what make Paulo Coelho’s books really fascinating.

“I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure.  It’s all a question of how I view my life.”in Maria’s diary, when she chooses to follow the Swiss man who tells her that he is going to make a Brazilian star in Switzerland.

“But if I don't think about love, I will be nothing.” In Maria’s diary, when six months passed since she got in a club, when she has sixty thousand franc in her bank account and great prostitution tactics that brought her that fortune.

I really wonder what the ending would be like; Paulo Coelho started the story with the sentence ‘Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.’ And then goes back to her childhood. But the ending will not be the same sentence, will it? She will not end up just as a prostitute. Well, maybe she will, but not like this, as an ordinary prostitute who never loved somebody truly. Yes, I think that’s exactly how this story would end: finding her true love, no matter the situation it gets her.