Monday 8 August 2011

The winner stands alone written by paulo Coelho



I quite like the writing of Paulo coelho and have read couple of his book like The Alchemist and Like the flowing river a novel of short stories. This time I got chance to read his book “ THE WINNER STANDS ALONE”
The extraordinarily popular Brazilian writer concerns himself in, The Winner Stands Alone, with questions of ethics and ways of living. What better place to set his novel than at Cannes during the film festival.

The Winner Stands Alone is set in the exciting worlds of fashion and cinema. Taking place over the course of twenty-four hours during the Cannes Film Festival, it is the story of Igor, a successful, driven Russian entrepreneur who will go to the darkest lengths to reclaim a lost love—his ex-wife, Ewa. Believing that his life with Ewa was divinely ordained, Igor once told her that he would destroy whole worlds to get her back. The conflict between an individual evil force and society emerges, and as the novel unfolds, morality is derailed.

This book is about a powerful industrialist named Igor owning the biggest telephone company in Russia. His wife leaves him for another big shot in the fashion industry. Reason for divorce: Incompatibility. But actually, she was scared of Igor’s psychotic behaviour.
When she was leaving, Igor had promised her that he would destroy a world in this universe for her till she comes back. His own philosophy, that when you want something you need to sacrifice something, some people for it. Also, that people living a messy life should rather enter their next life than stress more here. So he kills.

Kills 4 different people in Cannes in a really sophisticated way. With a thought… that these sacrifices will help him get his x-wife back. But towards the end he realizes it was of no use and that Ewa, his x-wife did not deserve it. So he kills her and her new husband and reaches back home safely as a Winner!!

Well seriously, I donno how to feel n react. A crazy lover BUT the murderer of ‘so many’ is the winner!! His reasoning could be justified to a really very small extent. Though, I must say… I think he was a clever killer for an industrialist who was ‘yeh fine’ fighting some war in Afghanistan in his early years of life. While the book runs the writer has also mentioned the motivational stories and talks in it which were very interesting and useful for every day life.

Another major thing highlighted in this book is the life of people in this industry: fashion, films, media. The naked truth of it. Far away from the glitz n glamour what we see on TV n read in news. The struggling beginners and the lucky superstars and the hollow life. This is explained with many other characters in the novel some of them who were killed by Igor at some point or the other.

All in all, it was quite insightful with a thriller of the “hoping to be” a fictious character, Igor. :)

THANKS