The protagonist Linda is a successful journalist living with her loving wealthy husband and their two children in Geneva,Switzerland.She has everything in life but she is depressed.In her search for some kind of meaning and purpose to life she connects with childhood sweetheart Jacob Konig,a politician and seduces him thinking that this will add some kind of excitement in her life.She meets him often for rough sex.She imagines she is in love with him and comes up with a scheme to purchase illegal drugs and plant them in the drawer of his professor wife in a view to destroy her,thus ending their marriage.Lindas husband though unaware of his wife cheating,does understand that she has a problem.In a view to re-examine her life she meets Psychiatrists and Cuban Shamans but only after revisiting their honeymoon location in the Swiss mountains and paragliding with her husband does she have a revelation.
My Views:I just didnt get this book.I finished reading it only because I was curious about how it ends.I could not empathize with Linda and I just did not understand what her existential crisis was all about.It just got weirder when Linda randomly walks up to her childhood sweetheart Jacob Konig and gave him oral sex.Jacob to me seemed like he was not even interested.Also how he made her feel complete after treating her with zero respect and leaving her stripped of her dignity was beyond me.The sex portrayed was of a very graphic nature.
Her husband,on the other hand behaves as if nothing is wrong and is clueless even though at some point he does acknowledge that she has a problem.This seemed too far-fetched to me.Also the way depression is dealt with and the view on psychiatrists in general made me question why we even have them,which I am sure was not the motive in the first place.I could not relate to any of the characters and they seemed very unreal.I don't know if this is because I'm Indian because for some reason Paulo Coelho kept speaking about Geneva as if the location was very important.There was a chapter on the New Testament on theology which was very heavy handed.The book did not prompt me to analyze my thoughts about life,if anything it left me utterly confused.Also the ending which I was curious about was very disappointing.Linda finally attaining some kind of spiritual awakening when she goes paragliding was baffling.
However these are just my views on it.I know there will be many people out there who have found a lot of meaning in the book.Clearly I didn't.
I rate it a 1 out of 5.
I was little more generous with this book. Gave it 2/5 :P I see a lot of books that I am interested here...Hope to read more of them later.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to my corner,Elizabeth! :) I hopped over to your blog to read your views on 'Adultery' and I'm so glad to have found a kindred spirit :))Feels good to connect with someone who shares a similar taste in books.
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