Veronika Decides To Die

“Two very simple reasons lay behind her decision to die, and she was sure that, were she to leave a note explaining, many people would agree. The first reason: Everything in her life was the same and, once her youth was gone, it would be downhill all the way.”

Veronika views life as a downward spiral from her current height, which isn’t all that great. Veronika’s severely pessimistic worldview is a testament to the lack of authenticity in her current life situation: Dying is more feasible than changing how she lives and what she does day to day. Paulo Coelho uses the close third-person point of view to give the reader a glimpse into Veronika’s head.

“I’ll go back to my rental room in the convent. I’ll try to read a book, turn on the TV to see the same old programs, set the alarm clock to wake up at exactly the same time I woke up the day before, and mechanically repeat my tasks at the library. I’ll eat a sandwich in the park opposite the theater, sitting on the same bench, along with other people who also choose the same benches on which to sit and have their lunch, people who all have the same vacant look but pretend to be pondering extremely important matters.”

Coelho repeats the word “same” to stress the soulless and rote routine of Veronika’s life. The repetition illustrates Veronika’s weariness with her current life and inability to imagine her existence outside of this dreary routine.

“It was precisely because she had found everything so stupid that she had ended up accepting what life had naturally imposed on her. In adolescence she thought it was too early to choose; now, in young adulthood, she was convinced it was too late to change. And what had she spent all her energies on until then? On trying to ensure that her life continued exactly as it always had.”

Veronika’s commitment to maintaining the status quo is an inherent absurdity; Veronika has never enjoyed her life yet has spent all her energy on ensuring her life continued in such a manner. “Stupid” here is synonymous with absurdity: It equates with meaningless, incoherence, and an uncanny representation of life. 

“Once in a mental hospital, a person grows used to the freedom that exists in the world of insanity and becomes addicted to it. You no longer have to take on responsibilities, to struggle to earn your daily bread, to be bothered with repetitive, mundane tasks. You could spend hours looking at a picture or making absurd doodles.”

Villete offers a reprieve from the socioeconomic conditions and expectations of the outside world, which are presented as absurd and “insane” in themselves. Labor politics appear sporadically throughout the novel, suggesting that the current state of economic affairs may press some into seeking refuge inside institutions. 

“[Insanity] is the inability to communicate your ideas. It’s as if you were in a foreign country, unable to see and understand everything that’s 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.”

Zedka’s explanation of “insanity” opens Veronika’s eyes to the possibility that “sanity” is a baseless social construct. Zedka uses an analogy, equating “sanity” to speaking the right language. The corollary of Zedka’s story is that everybody is “sane”; it is only a matter of speaking a recognized language to the majority.

“[Canada has] a bigger market [for mental health hospitals] than we have, he thought. The happier people can be, the unhappier they are.”

The novel’s ideas on normalcy throw the very idea of “normative happiness” into question. Igor’s anecdote about the Canadian statistics on mental health suggest that an attempt to produce a metric for happiness only breeds discontent.

“But does that sense of relief justify the existence of ties? No. Nevertheless, if I were to ask a madman and a normal person what this is, the sane person would say: ‘A tie.’ It doesn’t matter who’s correct, what matters is who’s right.”

Igor’s story about the tie embodies the novel’s views on normalcy. Ties are objectively worthless and serve no purpose, yet normalcy dictates one must wear them. The novel views normalcy as a completely baseless and often harmful social construct that provides prefabricated ways to navigate life. The story of the tie illustrates the one-to-one connection between sanity and normalcy. The analogy between sanity and normalcy is one of the novel’s chief concerns.

“Veronika had known since childhood that her true vocation was to be a pianist. This was something she had felt ever since her first lesson, at twelve. Her teacher had recognized her talent too and had encouraged her to become a professional. But, whenever she had felt pleased about a competition she had just won and said to her mother that she intended to give up everything and dedicate herself to the piano, her mother would look at her fondly and say: ‘No one makes a living playing the piano, my love.’”

All the named residents in Villete are united by their unorthodox desires in life. Coelho reveals their backstories over the course of the novel, shifting to the characters’ individual perspectives when it comes time to contemplate their life. The unorthodox desires of the characters contribute to their residency in Villete, often directly. Veronika and Eduard are tied through their love of the arts and their family’s subsequent quashing of their artistic dreams. Art is presented as directly at odds with an orthodox, conventionally respectable life.

“Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don’t know they’re crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to.”

Veronika’s revelation about who is labeled “crazy” marks the turning point in her journey, where she begins regretting her decision to die. Veronika’s desire to live is tied to her ability to accept herself as a “crazy” person, one with unorthodox desires and goals in life. Through the causal link between her self-acceptance and will to live, the novel explores Sanity as Conformity to Normalcy.

“I want to give myself to one man, to the city, to life, and, finally, to death.”

Veronika suggests that she has never truly given herself to anything or anyone. Her new desire to “give herself” emphasizes her lack of involvement in life before Villete. Veronika’s commitment to giving herself to death is ironic, given her previous fear of dying. Veronika’s willingness to die authentically signals a catharsis from her previous shallow and vacuous life.

“The person who’s right is just the person who’s strongest. In this, paradoxically, it’s the cowards who are the brave ones, and they manage to impose their ideas on everyone else.”

Igor presents reality through a “Might Makes Right” doctrine. Igor’s approach to reality is nihilistic, where there is nothing concrete or objective about shared reality. Coelho presents an antithesis to “Might Makes Right” by turning the mightiest, usually presumed to be just, into cowards. This antithesis reinforces the idea that the status quo is not admirable for being the status quo and is in fact harmful.

“There was no point saying that everyone has a different sexual profile, as individual as their fingerprints; no one wanted to believe that. It was very dangerous being uninhibited in bed; there was always the fear that the other person might still be a slave to their preconceived ideas.”

Igor believes that every person is a potential Veronika; Veronika is not special for being unique but is special for owning her uniqueness. Igor presents society as a group of repressed people. The likening of the status quo to slavery emphasizes Coelho’s views of its harmfulness. Sex in the novel is a symbolic battleground between individual authenticity and societal expectations. As an act, sex should liberate one’s self-expression and desires for pleasure. In Igor and Veronika’s experiences, it is often used to repress one’s true desires.

“What was God? What was salvation if, that is, the world needed saving? Nothing. If everyone there—and outside Villete too—just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there one moment and gone the next. God was there, and yet people believed they still had to go on looking, because it seemed too simple to accept that life was an act of faith.”

Eduard’s musings on the nature of God presents God as an allegory for authentic living. If God is salvation and bliss, then Eduard believes that bliss is obtainable right on Earth. Obtaining God and divinity is an allegory for obtaining authentic living within the cosmology of the novel. 

“If, moments before, he had experienced the stirrings of a new emotions in his heart, if he had begun to understand that love was something other than what his parents gave him, the electric shock treatment […] would certainly restore him to normality.”

Coelho’s mention of electric shock therapy, which was historically used to brutalize people with mental health struggles, exemplifies the novel’s use of absurdity. Eduard prefers torture over his creeping desire to return to life outside of Villete, suggesting that such thoughts are worse than electroshock. The absurdity of the situation illustrates the difficulty in breaking ties with the status quo.

“We all live in our own world. But if you look up at the starry sky, you’ll see that all the different worlds up there combine to form constellations, solar systems, galaxies.”

Zedka offers this final piece of advice before leaving Villete for good. The novel has repeatedly championed living one’s own truth and ignoring the consequence. So far, the view of authenticity offered has been hyper-individualistic, ignoring the glue of society that holds people together. The allegory of the universe and its constellations lends a communal aspect to the novel’s depiction of authenticity: Like celestial bodies, the individual’s authenticity contributes to a larger shared reality.

“When I came [to Villete], I was deeply depressed. Now I’m proud to say I’m insane. Outside I’ll behave exactly like everyone else. I’ll go shopping at the supermarket, I’ll exchange trivialities with my friends, I’ll waste precious time watching television. But I know that my soul is free and that I can dream and talk with other worlds that, before I came here, I didn’t even imagine existed.”

By the latter half of the novel, many characters are proud to claim that they are “insane” or “crazy.” As they grapple with their desires and the missed opportunities of their pasts, “insanity” becomes a badge of honor for authentic living. Zedka’s experience with insulin shock and astral projection has enlarged her views on life, an unintended consequence of the controversial “therapy.” This exemplifies her ability to find something worthwhile in an otherwise terrible experience.

“A lot of doctors before me have done similar studies and reached the conclusion that normality is merely a matter of consensus; that is, a lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right.”

Igor states the central thrust of the novel. Despite Igor’s presence as an antagonist in Veronika’s life, he acts as the novel’s ideological center. Many of Igor’s aphorisms are stated shortly before or after their truth is demonstrated in Veronika’s life. For example, shortly before this passage, Veronika calls herself a “pervert” due to her implied desires for other women and masochistic fantasies (141). A “pervert” is considered the antithesis of what is considered sexually normal; a lot of people think it is unusual for Veronika to be bisexual or masochistic, ergo she uses derogatory language to describe her own needs. Igor’s aphorisms are succinct summaries of the ideas explored in the novel.

“[The] girl was playing the music with such soul because she knew she was going to die. And am I not going to die? Where is my soul that I might play the music of my own life with such enthusiasm?”

Mari uses circular reasoning to win her freedom from Igor. It is patently obvious that Mari will die, yet impending death inspires Veronika to make soulful music while Mari spends her life withering away in Villete. Mari does not know where her soul is, yet suggests that anybody who is going to die ought to be soulful; this exploits the break with her own logic. Mari’s un-soulful living is illogical since those dying should be in possession of their authenticity. Inauthenticity is heavily implied to be illogical by Mari; Igor rewarding her freedom for this display of reasoning suggests that Mari is correct in her assessment of death’s relationship to authenticity.

“Ever since you were born, we’ve built up such dreams of how our lives would be. You’re everything to us, our future and our past. Your grandfathers were civil servants, and I had to fight like a lion to enter the diplomatic service and make my way up the ladder. And I did all this just to create a space for you, to make things easier for you. I’ve still got the pen with which I signed my first document as an ambassador, and I lovingly saved it to pass on to you the day you did the same.”

Eduard’s parents exemplify the respectability of upper-middle-class life. Eduard’s parents occupy a highly envious position in society and shape their lives around passing down this respectable station to their child. As Veronika, Mari, and Zedka’s stories have shown, this life of comfort and privilege under the status quo is a trap. Eduard’s rejection is, in his parents’ eyes, a rejection of their love.

Eduard’s story intentionally parallels Zedka’s about the king and the wizard who poisoned all of his subjects. Eduard does not see life like his parents, who have had “water” from the metaphorical poisoned wells; they cannot see eye-to-eye on the matter, and what looks like love to one party is greatly hurtful for the other. Coelho uses Eduard’s story to illustrate Zedka’s allegory and the difficulties of reconciling different views on reality.

“Life inside [Villete] is exactly the same as life outside. Both there and here, people gather together in groups; they build their walls and allow nothing strange to trouble their mediocre existences. They do things because they’re used to doing them, they study useless subjects, they have fun because they’re supposed to have fun, and the rest of the world can go hang—let them sort themselves out.”

Conformity is prevalent, even among the “insane.” This suggests a human need to create parameters, to establish a lifestyle that minimizes risk. Coelho uses repetition—“they”—to create a sense of lyricism. 

“Love is above wisdom, just as the Virgin is above the snake. For her everything is inspiration. She doesn’t bother judging what is good and what evil.”

Eduard views love as a chaotic force that is not bidden to dualistic views of the world. Many of the novel’s chief concerns are dualistic: Sanity/Insanity, Normal/Strange, Good/Evil. Coelho finds the expression of his ideas in either turning these binaries on their heads or muddying the distinction between their poles. 

“I came into this world in order to go through everything I’ve gone through: attempted suicide, ruining my heart, meeting you [Eduard], coming up to this castle, letting you engrave my face on your soul. That is the only reason I came into this world, to make you go back to the path you strayed from.”

Veronika is conscious of her role as Eduard’s muse. She believes she is about to die soon and declares her own purpose in life. Living to be a muse is in direct contradiction to the way she lived her life pre-Villete, where she inspired no strong feelings in herself or others.

“In a while he would make the necessary notes, describing the only known cure for Vitriol: an awareness of life. And describing the medication he had used in his first major test on patients: an awareness of death.”

Coelho uses medical terminology to deliver the core aphorism of the story: Death makes life worth living to its fullest. The medical language suggests that strict adherence to normalcy is something that requires a “cure.” Dr. Igor’s conclusions highlight the unscientific portrayal of mental health within the novel, while borrowing heavily from the ambiguous past of psychiatric care.