The Dark Side of the Moon Joma Coronel What is love? Is it a sex inducer?

? A relentless virus we cant help but surrender at? Martyrdom creates love, and so are the evils in our lives. Love is not only a one-sided natural brute force most of us see it. Paolo Coelho does it justice in his novel, Eleven Minutes. It was a book that satiated my three years of not finishing a novel and relishing it after. To quote a very familiar book critique phrase, its a page-turner. Many people have been affected by this Coelho magic so much that his books easily sells out on bookstores; an author that easily wipes out the shelves. But for those who know him, his works and this book, Eleven Minutes is not the most comfortable book for one sitting. For one, the topic unsettles the most Catholic of readers: that of a prostitutes life. On the back of the book is a note towards the creation of the novel, which he was working with the real prostitute who told him about her story and his novels profound influence in her life. Personally, it was just my right fix of a novel. It sparked my latent interest on things realist so much so that I had a lot of questions to reflect and research after. For me, thats the beauty of novels like these, for its reality, not the usual fantasy, youre engaging into. Reading it wont make one much less of an emo, or a love-deprived/despaired soul. For me, its like seeing the dark side of the moon. Much of Literature has covered the light and obvious sides of the world, if not a writers arrogant display of postmodern creation. Id rather delight in things behind the veil of bliss and human triumph. Thats what I initially liked about the book. The narrative is so much arresting that the details of it wont be as repelling as it ought to be. The book also talks about the prostitute Marias search for true love, which she thinks is within the attainment of total pleasure of sex. She didnt only become a prostitute for her destitute living back in Brazil: she also liked it when she touched herself, and having enjoyed it she wanted more. Most of us would attack prostitutes on a moral level, but wouldnt the same search for ecstasy prostitutes do be the same in our search for God, our Eternal Bliss? Maria, though initially in her erotic retreat to Geneva later on opted to search God and encounter heaven, paradise, but still through the flesh. She even encountered the concept of Sacred Sex; but like Eve, she also discovered the dark side of the flesh. Then again, flesh is still a very tricky instrument of ecstasy to play with. Maria encountered a very unusual customer that taught her the pleasure in pain and passivity, subduing to a dominator to experience a passive yet strong pleasure. Maria, like almost all prostitutes, subdued to the whims of this very dominating and sadist client, albeit a special one for he pays well. Frankly, this was the part I almost agreed with and find myself reflecting after. Is pain a pleasurable act for the flesh? Are we all innately sadists or masochists to indulge in a very pessimistic world of pain and dominance? But every ounce of depression merits redemption, as Coelho wants it in all of his novels. Maria, in the novel, has a loyal client that turned to a lover. Ralf Hart was a painter who saw Maria not as a prostitute but as herself, in her own light. After subduing to bondage, Maria was sought out by Ralf to

purify herself on a process he too had undergone, all out of genuine concern. I cannot say that what the painter had for Maria was true love, though Maria enjoyed in him the ecstatic feeling of orgasm than in most of her clients where she just faked coming. If it was true love for her, then a pleasurable orgasm with a man she loves is probably it. Then again, she changes views as the novel reaches the end. From how I see and read it, Eleven Minutes leave more questions than answer or entertain us. In a parallel metaphor, a readers orgasm is achieved if the novel has first come to ask questions, and when the reader answers them. If it were the case, Ive had a lot of time to procreate ideas with this book. Maybe the most important question by this book was what real love is: is it the face of pain? Or the face of genuine trust and concern? A lot of people may be appalled with these kinds of touchy topics, but not for me. They constitute the graver reality than a feigned fantasy of words that doesnt really help anyone grow at all.