The Devil and Miss Prym

Coelho si conferma per me un pessimo autore.
La scrittura è piatta, non ci sono spunti di riflessione perché tutto è spiegato a bella posta, confezionato già digerito.
L'idea di base è carina, sebbbene non originale una brutta copia (dichiarata) de "La visita della vecchia signora" e, in parte di "Melmoth l'errante".
Sapevo già, da precedenti letture, che l'autore non fa al caso mio, tuttavia la trama mi incuriosiva e l'intervento soprannaturale del diavolo è un elemento mi spinge a leggere le storie (mio punto debole: forse sono stata segnata da Bulgakov).
Ad ogni modo, i pensieri spiattellati dall'autore non superano il livello del tema del liceale che scrive ciò che sa essere ben accetto dall'insegnante, senza spingersi troppo show more oltre, non esploriamo nessun terreno nuovo, non scopriamo nulla a cui non avessimo già pensato o sentito miliardi di volte.
Si presenta come un favola con elementi tradizionali (il paesino, la vecchia considerata suonata che è in grado di "vedere"oltre, la ragazza bella et intrepida, l'arrivo dello straniero che sconvolge l'equilibrio del luogo) e questo non è necessariamente un male, speravo di ritrovare quel tipo di atmosfera, ma il tutto è estremamente insulso, moraleggiante (anche se l'autore finge di non esserlo) e banale; svolte della storia prevedibili, personaggi non molto più profondi di una pozzanghera e "spiegoni" di ciò che essi provano o che sta accadendo nel villaggio.
Infine il simbolismo del villaggio come microcosmo dei tipi umani non funziona se si ripete contnuamente "Viscos era come tutti gli altri posti..." e simili e se si seguono veramente solo due personaggi (ma nemmeno).
Obiezione:"chi ti ha detto che Viscos dovesse rappresentare questo?"
Risposta: Bè, se me lo prendi come compione esempio per dimostrare o meno che l'essere umano è fondamentalmente cattivo...etc...etc...
Pieno di frasi fatte e massime semplicistiche del genere "Ci sono due tipi di persone al mondo..."
Genere di storia che comunque, per quanto mal scritta un po' mi attrae e mi fa passare un pomeriggio ed è sempre meglio dell'insopportabile "L'alchimista".
Sempre peggio verso la fine per la banalità e le massime religiose più o meno trite e ritrite. Imbarazzante la questione degli angeli e diavolo custodi, a mio modesto parere.
Il finale è patetico e disgustoso sotto tanti punti di vista che non mi va nemmeno di soffermarmici. show less

“If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid.”

The Devil and Miss Prym is a short novel that explores the themes of good and evil, temptation, and human nature. Set in a small village, the story follows Miss Prym, a young woman who is confronted by a stranger who challenges the villagers to commit an act of evil within a week. As the deadline approaches, she grapples with her own morality and the choices of those around her, leading to a thought-provoking exploration of the nature of sin and redemption.

This one was a mixed bag for me. After being swept away by "The Alchemist," I was eager to explore more of Paulo Coelho’s work. However, after this third one, I am finding that his books don’t show more quite hit the mark for me unless I connect deeply with the message.

One of my main gripes with this one was the heavy Christian overtone. Clearly, I should have known this was going to be the case based on the title! As someone who isn't a Christian or even religious, I found the emphasis on temptation and sin from a Christian perspective pretty unrelatable. It felt like the fable was somewhat one-dimensional and didn't leave much room for other interpretations or perspectives.

Another stumbling block for me was the characters, which I found to be rather flat and hard to connect with. There wasn't much depth or complexity to them, so I never felt invested in any of them. Plus, by design, they weren’t very likable.

All this being said, I did appreciate how the story unfolded within the context of the small town setting. Each character seemed to have their designated role within the community, and the way their actions played out felt realistic given their backgrounds and relationships. It added a layer of authenticity to the story that I could appreciate, even if other aspects fell short for me. show less

This had a good premise and got you thinking about what is Good and what is Evil.

"Good and Evil have the same face, it all depends on when they cross the path of each individual human being."


Whilst the idea was great, the book never got much better than that. The story just did not flow and the characters were not believable.

The town, the stranger and Miss Prym were not likeable at all.

The stranger, what was the point really - absoulte waste of time and resources. He ended up being far less interesting than I was hoping, same goes for the old lady Berta. And then the eventual showdown, the way everyone acted and then dissipated? Is there no one who actually thinks for themselves or talks to each other? That would not go down like that show more in my town - more than five people would convene to talk about it at least.



I don't want to give much away but the ending was a joke, I was left scratching my head thinking 'why' and 'really' and 'is that it?'


In the end it had some good ideas but didn't explore them and became rather repetitive. show less

Once again, Coelho deftly uses his gifts as a storyteller to delve into the meat of the human condition. This “novel of temptation” is in the same vein as Coelho’s The Alchemist, wherein he uses a simple narrative technique to approach some very difficult questions.
Although one might think it would be impossible to explore good vs. evil without a certain amount of rhetoric, Coelho’s approach is fresh and does not resort to the usual cliches. The heroine does not shine and the villain is a victim of circumstance. In the two characters we see both sides of ourselves.
The book reads like a morality play in that the town of Viscos is Everytown and the Stranger is Everyman. Coelho has brought on the renaissance of the parable as an show more art form and should be commended on his ability to explore truth without grandstanding. This is a book that should humble even the most saintly of readers. show less

Paulo Coelho's novel The Devil and Miss Prym has one of the more fascinating high-concept premises in recent memory, and while the book manages to explore its issues with the clarity and profundity you'd expect from Coelho, I for one couldn't help being left with the feeling that this was a good book that could have, and should have, been great.

The novel concerns the temptation of Chantal Prym, a young, attractive barmaid living in a remote mountain village. She is confronted by an enigmatic stranger who makes her a strange offer: he shows her 11 bars of gold and promises that if anyone in her village kills one person, she will receive one bar and the rest of the village will split the remaining 10. Though the deal is slightly show more complicated as the novel progresses, the offer is primarily a means of gaining access to the mind of Miss Prym, who is essentially being tasked to answer whether human nature is inherently good or evil.

Characterization is the novel's strongest suit. Though Chantal is a relatively simple character, she has feelings and desires that are often in conflict--her boredom with the sleepy village, for instance, drives her to bed most every man that comes through. Her layered personality makes her, appropriately, the ideal choice for the stranger's wager. The eeriness of his pick adds to the stranger's mysterious character: we learn very little about him until later in the novel, and we believe for much of the text, because of the rantings of the old woman Berta, that he is a physical incarnation of the Devil himself.

Unfortunately, Coelho teases these supernatural underpinnings but doesn't see them out to their natural conclusions. Berta's announcement that the Devil has come to town opens the story, and there are moments when the narrator addresses the angel and demon of individual characters fighting it out for supremacy, but the ghostly tone is never fully realized by the end. Granted, the story is ultimately about humanity, but that makes it sadly predictable. Despite all this, the novel is at its strongest when it's closely examining the relationship between the stranger and Chantal, and this suspense does, to a certain degree, make up for what is otherwise lacking.

The Devil and Miss Prym poses a grand answer, and though it's unreasonable to expect that a 200-page novel will provide an unequivocal solution, it nevertheless produces much food for thought. There are few surprises on this journey, but it's a brisk, easy read that is nonetheless worth the investment. show less

One day a stranger arrives in the very tiny, very remote, very poor village of Viscos. His purpose in coming there is to find the answer to a question that’s been haunting him for years: Are people essentially good or essentially evil? He uses temptation, a young woman named Chantal, and the whole village to find an answer to his question, and both he and Chantal learn a great deal about themselves, God, their own personal angels and devils, and humanity in the process.

The answer, of course, is that humans are both good and evil. After reading the first thirty pages of the book, I was hooked. I loved the concept and all the subtleties that Coelho left under the surface of the words and was already adding this to my list of favorites. show more By the time I finished it, I still loved it, but I’m just a tiny bit disappointed that he didn’t take it in the direction I would have taken it in. Reflecting back on it, Coelho’s story is better than mine would have been. This is a book that can and needs to be read multiple times in order to really get everything because there was just so much packed into it. show less

I enjoyed this one more than The Alchemist which peeved me with the repetitious dull message (follow your dream ad nauseam, I get it already). This one at least had a bit more of an interesting idea about good and evil, but somewhere along the way I suddenly realised that this was not a book that was going to let evil triumph. There was no way that Satan was going to win, and then there went all the tension (and the interest) for me.

I also found the assumption that there is a Christian god rubbed me up the wrong way, as a practicing atheist. (Not that we have anything to practice, but it's a position I've thought about and am happy with it. But you know what I mean, I hope!) If one is going to have Christian themes, give me Crowley and show more Azraphael from Good Omens any day. I love Crowley's mass tarnishing of people's souls through such infernal devices as the M-25 motorway around London, Ansaphones, and computer warranties. Compared to such inventiveness, a devil who wants to turn a small rural village to evil just seemed rather amusingly archaic.

Having said that, I did love the priest's justification of his support of the plan of murder. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and crazy men of the cloth, and in this case, both. show less