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The Devil and Miss Prym
by: Paulo Coelho

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780007116058
ISBN: 0007116055
Label: Thorsons
Manufacturer: Thorsons
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: June 05, 2002
Publisher: Thorsons
Studio: Thorsons
Sales Rank: 20088

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
The Devil and Miss Prym is the conclusion to the trilogy And on the Seventh Day which began with By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept and the hugely popular Veronika Decides to Die. Each of the three books focuses on a week in the life of ordinary people faced with a major life-changing force; be it love, death or power, it is Coelho's firm belief that "the profoundest changes take place within a very reduced time frame".

The Devil and Miss Prym sees a stranger arriving in the remote mountain village of Viscos carrying with him a notebook and 11 bars of gold. The first person to strike up conversation with the stranger is the inappropriately named Miss Prym, the hotel barmaid. Unbeknownst to her, Chantal Prym is exactly the subject the man had been hoping to find. The stranger puts a proposition to Chantal and with it gives her the power to prove or disprove a supposition that has tormented him for years--"Given the right set of circumstances every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil". Should Chantal prove him right, all her dreams of escape to a new life would come true, but proving the stranger right would mean casting aside her deeply ingrained beliefs about right and wrong. So ensues a moral dilemma and a spiritual struggle between good and evil that will impact on everyone in the village.

This slim novel has the timeless quality of a parable. The sophisticated plot blends seamlessly with Coelho's uncomplicated language. As "the story of one man is the story of all men" so the reader is invited to think carefully about the struggle that is taking place within their own soul, to consider whether they would have the courage to stand out from the crowd. This is a truly accomplished novel from the pen of a philosopher and a master storyteller. --Sarah Crawford

Synopsis:
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.

About the Author:
Paulo Coelho was born in Brazil and has become one of the most widely read authors in the world today. Renowned for his best-loved work The Alchemist, he has sold over 30 million books worldwide and has been translated into 42 languages. The recipient of numerous prestigious awards, he is a storyteller with the power to inspire nations and change people’s lives.

Excerpted from The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
For almost fifteen years, old Berta had spent every day sitting out-side 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.

'My husband's right,' she said to herself. 'If I hadn't been here, no one would have noticed.'

She was hopeless at telling people's ages and put the man's somewhere between forty and fifty. 'A youngster,' she thought, using a scale of values that only old people understand. She wondered how long he would be staying, but reached no conclusion; it might be only a short time, since all he had with him was a small rucksack. He would probably just stay one night before moving on to a fate about which she knew nothing and cared even less.

Even so, all the years she had spent sitting by her front door waiting for his arrival had not been in vain, because they had taught her the beauty of the mountains, something she had never really noticed before, simply because she had been born in that place and had always tended to take the landscape for granted.

As expected, the stranger went into the hotel. Berta wondered if she should go and warn the priest about this undesirable visitor, but she knew he wouldn't listen to her, dismissing the matter as the kind of thing old people like to worry about.

So now she just had to wait and see what happened. It doesn't take a devil much time to bring about destruction; they are like storms, hurricanes or avalanches, which, in a few short hours, can destroy trees planted two hundred years before. Suddenly, Berta realised that the mere fact that Evil had just arrived in Viscos did not change anything: devils come and go all the time without necessarily affecting anything by their presence. They are constantly abroad in the world, some times simply to find out what's going on, at others to put some soul or other to the test. But they are fickle creatures, and there is no logic in their choice of target, being drawn merely by the pleasure of a battle worth fighting. Berta concluded that there was nothing sufficiently interesting or special about Viscos to attract the attention of anyone for more than a day, let alone someone as important and busy as a messenger from the dark.

She tried to turn her mind to something else, but she couldn't get the image of the stranger out of her head. The sky, which had been clear and bright up until then, suddenly clouded over.

'That's normal, it always happens at this time of year,' she thought. It was simply a coincidence and had nothing to do with the stranger's arrival.

Then, in the distance, she heard a clap of thunder, followed by another three. On the one hand, this simply meant that rain was on the way; on the other, if the old superstitions of the village were to be believed, the sound could be interpreted as the voice of an angry God, protesting that mankind had grown indifferent to His presence.

'Perhaps I should do something. After all, what I was waiting for has finally happened.'

She sat for a few minutes, paying close attention to every-thing going on around her; the clouds had continued to gather above the village, but she heard no other sounds. As a good ex-Catholic, she put no store by traditions and superstitions, especially those of Viscos, which had their roots in the ancient Celtic civilisation that once existed in the place. 'A thunderclap is an entirely natural phenomenon. If God wanted to talk to man, he wouldn't use such roundabout methods.'

She had just thought this when she again heard a peal of thunder accompanied by a flash of lightning - a lot closer this time. Berta got to her feet, picked up her chair and went into her house before the rain started; but this time she felt her heart contract with an indefinable fear.

'What should I do?'

Again she wished that the stranger would simply leave at once; she was too old to help herself or her village, far less assist Almighty God, who, if He needed any help, would surely have chosen someone younger. This was all just some insane dream; her husband clearly had nothing better to do than to invent ways of helping her pass the time.

But of one thing she was sure, she had seen the Devil. In the flesh and dressed as a pilgrim.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- not as good as the rest
While I loved the Alchemist and Veronika Decides to Die, I found this book a little dissapointing. It didn't move me as deeply or profoundly as the former two. While a nice story, it lacks what the others have

Rating:

- Page Turner
Paulo Coelho has written a wonderful book on good versus evil. I bought this book whilst boarding onto my flight and as soon as I started to read this book I had to get to the end of the plot. The book was excellent and when I finished I was just about to arrive to my destination...!

The book was beautifully written and had some wonderful quotes. His books always seem to teach a good lesson.

Rating:

- different....
I read this one after the alchemist and veronika decides to die so it was a very different read. I found it quite long winded in places and it dragged a bit but definately full of shocks and it does make you think alot about how you can react to situations in life. Its worth a read, as with all his books but everyone will have their own favourites. This wouldnt be mine....

Rating:

- Thought provoking, but not the most memorable of Coelho's books
The fourth of Coelho's books that I've read, and nothing so far rates as highly as The Zahir, which completely took my breath away. In his usual style, it's easy to keep reading this book. There rages throughout a battle between the main characters own personal devil and angel; an analogy that I'm sure we can all apply to our lives! Plot is good - not so complicated that it detracts from the overall moral message. However, I was a left a little puzzled by the ending, especially in relation to the main character Miss Prym. I don't think the ending quite matches the overall tone of the rest of the book? An interesting and worthwhile read, but may not set the world alight!

Rating:

- Dull
From the 'blurb' on the back cover, I expected great things. However, I found this book dull, short, and totally un-inspiring. The characters are shallow and very 2-dimentional. I found it hard to place the story in terms of geography and time (present? past? where?) and this didn't really help me feel any empathy with the characters.

Altogether not worth the money.

Books : The Devil and Miss Prym