The Devil and Miss Prym

Title: The Devil and Miss Prym

Author: Paulo Coelho

Number of Pages: 224

Date started:29 April 2009

Date finished: 1 May 2009

Opening words:

For almost fifteen years, old Berta had spent every day sitting outside her front door. The people of Viscos knew that this was normal behaviour amongst old people: they sit dreaming of the past and of 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.

Berta, however, had a reason for being there. And that morning her waiting came to an end when she saw the stranger climbing the steep hill up to the village, heading for its one hotel. He did not look as she had so often imagined he would: his clothes were shabby, he wore his hair unfashionably long, he was unshaven.

And he was accompanied by the Devil.

You can read the first chapter here

Summary:

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.

What I thought:

I am not really much of a fan of Paulo Coelho. I can’t really see the fascination with him. But, having said that, I did think this was one of his better stories. There was an interesting dilemma presented by the book and also it had a slight fairytale element to it. It was more readable and less pretentious than some of his other books.