Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Maria , Ralph Hart. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about Eleven Minutes , please sign up. Maria came in Geneva like me, she was looking for a job as I did and we both loved this city. Oms what else do you have in common with Maria? Amy Good question. The conclusion seems to be Or young beautiful women learn best about sex from rich men who all want them? At one point Maria "saw God" after an orgasm See all 17 questions about Eleven Minutes….
Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Eleven Minutes. Jul 03, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: novels , brazil , literature , adult , drama , fiction , 21th-century , romance. Maria, a young girl from a remote village of Brazil, whose first encounters with love leave her heartbroken, goes to seek her fortune in Switzerland.
She works for a time in a nightclub but soon becomes dissatisfied and after a heated discussion with her manager one night, she quits her job. She tries to become a model but is unsuccessful. Because she is running out of money, she accepts francs from an Arab man to spend the night with him. She then decides to become a prostitute and ends up in a brothel on Rue de Berne, the heart of Geneva's red-light district. There she befriends Nyah who gives her advice on her "new profession" and after learning the tricks of the trade from Milan, the brothel owner, she enters the job with her body and mind shutting all doors for love and keeps her heart open only for her diary.
Quickly she becomes quite successful and famous and her colleagues begin to envy her. Months pass and Maria grows into a professionally groomed prostitute who not only relaxes her clients' minds, but also calms their souls by talking to them about their problems. Her world turns upside down when she meets Ralf, a young Swiss painter, who sees her "inner light". Maria is now split between her sexual fantasies and true love for Ralf.
Eventually she decides that it is time for her to leave Geneva with her memory of Ralf, because she realizes that they are worlds apart. But before leaving, she decides to rekindle the dead sexual fire in Ralf and learns from him about the nature of Sacred Sex, sex which is mingled with true love and which involves the giving up of one's soul for the loved one. View all 4 comments. Nov 05, Leajk rated it did not like it Recommends it for: no one ever ever, especially not an acquaintance of the opposite sex.
Recommended to Leajk by: an acquaintance I no longer have any contact with. Shelves: rubbish. So while living in Switzerland, I had this book recommended, nay practically forced upon me by a male acquaintance the book was put into my hands at a party and he told me that I should borrow it. Not having read anything by Coelho previously, though with a vague remembrance of my high school teacher violently hating the guy, I set about politely reading it.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that the book was about an immigrant sex worker in Switzerland. It made me more than a little uncomf So while living in Switzerland, I had this book recommended, nay practically forced upon me by a male acquaintance the book was put into my hands at a party and he told me that I should borrow it. It made me more than a little uncomfortable, not because I have anything against sex workers, but because I was also an immigrant living in Switzerland and I was in fact looking for a new job at the moment, and this guy knew that, and well, it wasn't really what I had in mind.
I'm guessing or hoping that my friend's intrigue was with Coelho's general pseudo-philosophy and that's why he recommended it. I'm hoping that he wasn't really fascinated and wanting to discuss the plot. The lovely plot of how Maria, the sex worker, has to choose between two of her millionaire clients; one who's a sadistic bad boy and one who is more into delayed sexual gratification or even abstinence if I remember correctly but kind of complicated and hard to get close.
The reason for posting this review now, besides being reminded of it while I was reviewing a streak of horrible books, is that I suddenly realised that there was actually already a BDSM-story from a very popular author way before Fifty Shades of Grey. Or rather, from what I've read about Fifty Shades, it's about BDSM only while suggesting that anyone who's into it is really a depraved lunatic.
In the end of this book spoiler! Maria denounces her previous wicked BDSM-ways and chooses the right man! I'm actually thinking about writing an analysis on the whole phenomenon of writing detailed descriptions about BDSM, while at the same time denouncing it. It is really about trying to have the cake and eating it at the same time. I might include Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo in that analysis as well after reading a bit about it and seeing the following quote from that book : "My mood shifts and bends.
But when I'm alive and heightened, I'm super-acute. Do you know what I see when I look at you? I see a woman who wants to live shamelessly in her body. Tell me this is not the truth. You want to follow your body into idleness and fleshiness. That's why you have to run, to escape the drift of your basic nature. What do I see? Something lazy, sexy and insatiable. But also: what is it with these people Coelho, James and DeLillo and writing about young millionaires with a 'depraved' badly written sex lives?
Seriously, why are people buying into this? Is this the ultimate wish fullfillment for both genders: the men can imagine they are rich young millionaires having sex with willing sex dolls and the women that they get the bad boy with an unlimited credit card? I really think better of people in general, but of course with the way mainstream media looks, these types of fantasies are only the logical conclusion of more subtle versions on the same theme.
One last thing. View all 33 comments. Apr 02, Felicia rated it it was ok. I didn't find this nearly as good as The Alchemist. I do not know if Coelho was trying to really get in the mindset of a woman by over-analyzing sex, but I felt a real woman would be less philosophical and more emotional about her experiences.
It seemed to me that she was detached from herself and no matter what shocking things would come her way, she would still never be phased by it and I just felt it was too dehumanized. Philosophical rampages on love and being the mother and friend to her cl I didn't find this nearly as good as The Alchemist. Philosophical rampages on love and being the mother and friend to her clients turned me off entirely to this book.
Don't get me wrong, Coelho is an eloquent and gifted writer, I just did not find this book as enjoyable as his other works. View all 8 comments. Oct 29, Lisa rated it did not like it Shelves: so-bad-it-hurts , subterranean , don-t-read-it. I only remembered having read it because I was trying to find something on my top shelf the one with the "Let's forget I own them"-books , and it fell into my hands.
A quick scan of its content reminded me that even quick scans are a waste of time when it comes to Coelho. Note to self: until I find the company of sheep more educating than reading, his "novels" are a no-go-area.
Too harsh? Am in a bad mood, as I can't find the book I really want to read! Eleven minutes review over. View all 27 comments. Aug 25, Lesley rated it it was amazing Shelves: love-sex-obsession. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm giving this book five stars because I definitely thought it was amazing.
How can he articulate so many nuggets of wisdom, often through characters the writing of which expresses the irony and profundity of their insights, and yet packaged in stories with such cliche outcomes?!?!
So many of his books explore the ephermerality of love, the moment, the permanence of change, the fleetingness of forever Maria--a prostitute--is exposed to an evening of sado-masochistic role play with a "special client" and finds freedom from herself and her desires during orgasm, tied up and whipped.
Then another lover another "special client" convinces her to not to go down that path, that freedom can be found testing the limits of desire, not the limits of pain. They have their own little role play--their relationship is based as much on fantasy as the other. After a night of bliss, she leaves him to go back to Brazil, cherishing the memory that can be spoiled by "real life.
So, to sum up as E just pointed out : The dirty parts I liked. The ending, not so much. That's my review. Happy reading. I was burnt by his book titled "Veronica decides to die". When I flipped through his bestseller, "The Alchemist", I was not too impressed either. I thought he was too "Celestine Prophecy". When I asked people what "The Alchemist' was all about, they always said it was about searching for something.
But they could never be able to explain what that something was and they quickly moved on to rave about how inspirational the book was. How you can say searching for something you don't even know insp I was burnt by his book titled "Veronica decides to die".
How you can say searching for something you don't even know inspirational is beyond me. I'm too dumb for stuffs like that. Anyway, I picked up this book in Freiburg's train station while waiting for our train to Titisee. I remembered wrongly that this was the book that Cindy raved about.
Having read her review, I wanted to give Paulo Coelho a second chance. The book is about Maria, a young Brazilian girl who comes from a poor family, dreams of fairy tales and ends up as a prostitute in Geneva.
Apparently, this is based on a true story. That's the first mistake. The idea is not unique but I suppose variations can be spun into interesting stories. However, he fails to marry his philosophical style with this true story with a fixed ending, which, to do it successfully, I'm sure must be extremely difficult. The first few chapters outlining the life of little Maria are engaging enough.
I couldn't put the book down at this stage. Once she gets to Switzerland, the lecturing, dreamy, philosophical style that I dislike starts. Maria is no ordinary prostitute. She is beautiful as well as smart Yawn. She first attempts to justify her reasons or anybody's reasons to be a prostitute. Before that is concluded, she moves on to find a rich and young and handsome painter who worships her Snore. At the same time, she is tempted into masochism by a rich again and famous music producer who is disappointed by his wife's infidelity.
She must choose between these two! That is essentially the story. In between the story about Maria, the author inserts graphic descriptions of various sexual acts, sex education, which sometimes read like a newspaper's sex column ejaculation is not the same as sex, please!
I also note a few exaggerations in this book. One I cannot stand is this. He describes that the loneliest people are the top executives, commanding lots of money and respect and having great families, when asked to change jobs by head hunters. The reasons? Because this executive cannot talk to his colleagues as they wouldn't let them go This is misleading. It highly depends on situation and he can't talk to his family because the wife, who knows nothing about taking risk, wouldn't let him.
Despite his attempt to be sophisticated and deep, this is very shallow indeed. Toward the end, her struggle between staying in Geneva or going back to Brazil is slow and painfully dotted with unnecessary pretentious and meaningless analysis of love, sex, women, men, the universe, and the rubbish. After reading the ending, I was further disappointed and decided to downgrade the rating by one more star.
The story can be interesting but it has to be done strictly as a biography, as a story-telling. This book sorts of seals my dislike of his writings. I dislike the content, I dislike the style. I dislike his empty philosophies. I don't know what to learn from his books.
Maybe that's because I don't care to interpret. But shouldn't good writings do not require people to interpret their messages but ponder on the contents? Having said that, try and read it especially if you are a fan. You may beg to differ. View 2 comments. Shelves: booksthatmademeblush. In comparison to my experiences with his other pieces. I can confidently say that this Paulo Cohelo work tests the reader in a unique and dangerous way.
Each of his novels teach valuable lessons for adults through the interesting happenings of his protagonists. This story does the same. However the lesson taught borders on relationship counseling and sexual education. It was just as compelling and effective as it was uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in the sense that the information being learned as In comparison to my experiences with his other pieces.
Uncomfortable in the sense that the information being learned as one reads each chapter is not theirs to have. He accomplishes this through the less than innovative approach of journal or diary entries, but envertheless, it is striking how moving it is to read the sexual and romantic discoveries of a conventional young lady. A book that is difficult to put down. A must-read for many, but especially those who have not yet discoveredy what makes them tick, oo and ahhh.
Again, an inspiration! View 1 comment. The eleven minutes is a novel about a Brazilian girl whose dreams take him to a life of prostitution. Then she became a prostitute by spending a night with a rich Arab and onward she move to the bog of prostitution in Geneva. The turning point in her life approaches when she came across a painter, Ralf who made her see her inside. She falls in love with him, as both the worlds are different, prostitution and Love.
The Eleven minutes novel is actually about the nature of sex and self-exploration. The novel is given Free Books Mania and the download link is given below:. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Great book, Eleven Minutes pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone.
Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Adultery by Paulo Coelho. Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho. Aleph by Paulo Coelho.
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