The Devil And Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
HarperCollins (paperback), 2002
224 Pages
www.paulocoelho.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_and_Miss_Prym
BLURB FROM THE COVER
A new novel from Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist.
A stranger arrives in the small mountain village. He carries with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars.
Burying these in the vicinity, the stranger strikes up a curious friendship with a young woman from the village – Miss Prym. His mission is to discover whether human beings are essentially good or evil.
In this stunning new novel, Paulo Coelho’s unusual protagonist sets the town a moral challenge from which they may never recover. A fascinating meditation on the human soul, The Devil and Miss Prym illuminates the reality of good and evil within us all, and our uniquely human capacity to choose between them.
EXTRACT
For almost fifteen years, old Berta had spent every day sitting outside her front door. The people of Viscos knew that was normal behavior amongst old people: they sit dreaming of the past and their youth, they look out at a world in which they no longer play a part and try to find something to talk to the neighbours about.
REVIEW
This was my first time reading The Devil and Miss Prym. I’ve read one other Coelho novel, Veronika Decides To Die and enjoyed it. Years ago I got a set of three Coelho novels for about 75p from an Oxfam shop. I figured it was bargain and if the novel’s turned out to be rubbish the loss was negligible. The third novel, Elven Minutes won’t be read for a few months. It’s far down my list.
I enjoyed The Devil and Miss Prym. Coelho’s novels are quite spiritual and have a lot of moral fiber and aren’t to everyone’s taste. I find them quite refreshing compared to the stuff I usually read. Coelho is good when I need a good cleansing. I liked the concept behind The Devil and Miss Prym. I really liked the setting, a tiny island called Viscos – the perfect setting for what takes place. The stranger wouldn’t get away with such a stunt in a large city. I found the characters endearing and loved old Berta. The Devil and Miss Prym is more complex than would initially appear and has a dark undercurrent. I did enjoy the questions posed by The Devil and Miss Prym and the ending surprised me.
RATING
