Veronika decides to die is about a young girl Veronika, who decides to die since she is tired of the monotony in her life. She had studied law but had taken up a librarian's job due to the job security it offered. Her life was a routine of going to the library, then with her latest boyfriend and then back to her hostel, the typical reason being the timelines at the convent. She is so tired of the routine that she decides to end her life with an overdose of sleeping pills as any other mode would be too painful and would also embarrass her parents. While waiting for her death after consuming an entire bottle of sleeping pills, she was reading a newspaper where a journalist did not know Slovenia, the place where she stayed. She was so upset that she left a suicide note in the name of the newspaper and the journalist. Unfortunately she did not die from such an overdose as she was young enough to take the blow. However, she landed up in Vilette, the mental hospital because of the suicide note she left behind.. Who would kill herself for a journalist who did not know Slovenia, except a mad woman? She met Zedka who suffered from depression and wanted to have a happy life with her husband and children, one of her first friends at Vilette. Mari, a guide, who was suffering from panic attacks, wanted to spend the rest of her days doing social service. Eduard, the great love of her life, who was a schizophrenic, wanted to become a painter to paint the Visions of Paradise and for whom she played the piano with all that she had. Dr. Igor who was the doctor in charge of the hospital and was writing a thesis on effects of Vitriol, had told her that her heart was weak and would only last for at best a week. Veronika is terrified of the wait for death and decides to live the remainder of her life each moment at a time. It is because of this dying girl that all the inmates of the mental hospital understood how to live their life to the fullest, taking risks they always wanted to, doing things they always wanted to. She had taught them how to live again. Veronika and Eduard fell in love with her playing the beautiful sonnets and sonatas and decided to escape Vilette and go to the castle. They hugged each other when there was a clutching pain in her heart again and she wished for death in his arms. Lo and behold! The next morning she is still alive and they have one more day to go. Little did they know that the pains in her heart were artificial and caused by medication administered by Dr Igor who wanted to try this experiment to know what is it that made the essence of life. The fear of death only made people live their life fuly. Even if Veronika went to any other doctor she would know that the story about her heart was untrue but the way she lived her life thinking it would be no more was something that would never be repeated.
One of Paulo Coelho's very well written books. A wonderful lesson on how to live. At some point, heart in heart, all of us know that we have forgotten how to live, this is a book that makes you want to live all over again. And people who really know how to live are often called mad! All that you would want to do is t be done and today is something that we miss out since we assume life will be today, tomorrow and a year hence also. We forget that if life were to go the next momenht, we would have those desires left unfulfilled, that part of life woul dhave never been consumed.
Rating: 4 star
