The Devil and Miss Prym

Synopsis
A parable of good and evil. The stranger is haunted by a tragic past and arrives in the little village carrying a fortune in gold and accompanied by the devil. He confronts the youngest person of the village, the Chantal Prym of the title with his proposition.

A test - the villagers must commit an evil act, a murder, to receive the reward - the gold. The test is to prove or unprove his thesis that "given the right set of circumstances every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil".

Chantal must decide to tell the village of the awful test, and fight her own temptation to simply take the gold and escape the stifling village. The tension builds as she and the villagers decide their actions and Coelho skillfully keeps the final outcome totally hidden until the end.

My Thoughts
The Devil and Miss Prym is a tense, clever novel, which debates the grander moral questions of life. Like a fable or parable in its style. This is closer to the magic realist tradition and reflects the Latin American background of the author. Characters have visions; speak to the dead and devils and angels bicker at their shoulders. But the plot is simple and gripping. The single question - "will they or won't they?" - holds you right to the end.

From Coelho I learned that no matter what, life is worth to being lived and because of his books now I'm seeing the deeper features of the persons I get into contact with and the deeper meaning of the situations and things that I deal with. Coelho's books have brought me so deep inside myself. I could see my fears, my guilts, my doubts, my pain and above all my love.

I read once that the literature "must be as new as foam and as old as the rock" and I think that Coelho's books are like this. I can only say that Coelho is a master storyteller and handles the underlying moral subject matter with ease, yet the question remains complex, and there are no simplistic answers.

So till my next post ya, its bye from Ganz.

---