Veronika Decides to Die...

My son, Rastam, (who lives and works in Tokyo), introduced Paulo Coelho to me a few years ago through the book - 'the Alchemist'. I have probably bought every book written by Coelho since then, although I must admit that I have yet to find time to read them all.

Veronika is a pretty young girl from Slovenia who decided to die because everything in her life was the same and once youth was gone she feared that it would be downhill all the way - getting old, getting sick and friends dying one after another.

She took an overdose of sleeping pills and woke up to find herself in a mental asylum and being told that her heart was so badly damaged by the overdose of the pills that at most she had another week to live!

During the week in the asylum, she made friends with Zedka, a lawyer in her 60's, who sufferred Panic Disorder and Chronic Depression -(and due to her illness lost her job in her law firm and was abandoned by her husband )- and found refuge as a long-stay patient of the asylum. Zedka made an interesting definition of insanity - to Zedka, 'insanity' is a state of being unable to communicate your ideas, it is like you are in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that is going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped because you do not understand the language they speak there.

Veronika also met Eduard, a 24 year old schizophrenic whose parents wanted him to become a diplomat like his father but whose own passion and interest was to be a painter and to paint his 'vision of paradise'. Eduard's dilemma of pursuing his artistic inclinations as against his parents academic ambitions for him probably precipitated his psychotic breakdown.

Veronika was introduced to music and piano as a child and developed a passion for it but her parents did not think music can offer a 'good life' for her. So she was made to go to university for they believe it will secure her future. She ended up becoming a librarian with a regular income, had no difficulty getting boyfriends as she was pretty but still found life was becoming more and more routine and boring. In the asylum she found in Eduard some one who appreciated her talent in piano-playing and brought back to her her passion for music. With death lingering at her door-step she rediscovered her need to live and experience 'life' once again.

Veronika and Eduard decided to escape from the asylum so that she can live the remaining days of her life to the fullest....

But there is a twist to the story as the psychiatrist at the asylum, Dr Igor, had actually used Veronika as a subject in his research to discover the 'toxin' that is responsible for suicide.....to find out about the 'twist', you have to get the book and read it yourself!

Paulo Coelho was himself hospitalised in a psychiatric hospital in Rio de Janiero when he was a teenageer. He was even given ECT (elctroconvulsive treatment) for his illness!

In typical Coelho's style this book is easy to read and understand.It gives another perspective of psychiatry and insanity from the view-point of the patient. A book I would recommend every student of psychiatry and psychology to read.