Veronica decides to die

It was my plan to read Veronica decides to die, exactly after I finished The Alchemist, but I can't understand what is going on with time, slipping away.

The book dives thoroughly in the souls of the human beings; floating with their inner feelings.
Paulo Coelho presents mainly four characters in his novel; exposing the life of each one of them, and the factors that lead him treated as a "mad".

- Zedka, a woman whose life got disturbed suddenly because she remembered a man whom she loved in her past and she wanted to live the old days again.

- Veronica, the heroine of the novel, she committed suicide by taking pills which made her heart go too weak to live. She'd been told by the doctor that she'll die in around 7 days. Through her remaining days, she discovered a lot of pleasures in the life that she enjoys and wants to enjoy yet. Suddenly, she found that she wants to feel the rain on her face, to walk on the snow, to kiss her mum and weep in her lap, go to the church, visit castles and to love and be loved..etc..
She regretted not thinking about all those pleasures before she committed suicide, and she just tried to live her remaining days mainly playing piano and enjoying nature.

- Mari, the wise lady; she had panic attacks from time to time. It all started when she wanted to do something for others after realizing she had almost everything. She thought about participating in the Red Cross, but some mysterious panic attacks began to affect her life.
The most moments I felt so pity for her are, when her boss asked her to retire from her work, and just two days later, she received an application for divorce. Ooh, in two days she lost her successful work and her lovely husband ... not lovely anymore.

- Eduard, a young man who was treated as a schizophrenic. He became so because he wanted to continue his life painting instead of being an ambassador as his parents wanted. Just because he wanted to make his life as he wants, he was accused of being "Weird"!


Paulo showed his golden talent by describing in great details what every one of them felt, towards himself, towards others, towards the hospital they are living in and towards the outside world.
I believe it is hard to describe the feelings of a person who has unstable mentality .. but in my own opinion, I did not find any madness symptoms on any of them. On the contrary, Zedka & Mari are wiser than anyone.
Great novel, I even liked it more than 'The Alchemist'.

Here are the most impressive quotes from the novel:

- Madness is the inability to communicate your ideas. It is as if you were 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 don't understand the language they speak there.

- She turned to the moon and played a sonata in homage to it, knowing that the moon was listening and would feel proud, and that this would provoke the jealousy of the stars.

- People only go mad when they try to escape from routine.

- If people don't like it, they can complain. And if they don't have the courage to complain, that's their problem

- We're allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroys us.