How much is the theme of your novel “Devil and Miss Prym” inspired by the modern problem of terrorism in the world?
The novel was written before 9-11 attacks. I was in Munich, in a signing session, when these events happened. For my surprise, not only the theme was in the book, under a metaphoric guideline, but also the answer to the attack was the same as in the book: instead of seeking for justice, it seems that the Western world decided for revenge – that, as we all know, leads to nowhere. The “Devil and Miss Prym” concludes the trilogy “And on the Seventh Day”. The first two books were: “By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept” (1994) and “Veronika Decides to Die” (1998). Each of the three books is concerned with a week in the life of ordinary people, all of whom find themselves suddenly confronted by love, death and power. I have always believed that in the lives of individuals, just as in society at large, the profoundest changes take place within a very reduced time frame. When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready.
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Which means throw away our fears and keep the life far from stereotype…
Reading your answer, I thought about prophecies. You talked and wrote about World’Soul. I believe in this.
Prophecies don’t exist so much nowadays, and yet it is like communicating with World’s Soul. Maybe when “linked” people write, they don’t even think they are talking about a future event. But they do.
Etimology of the word “prophet” is “the one who tells by advance”. So the world could still mother some, although in muslim religion, the last prophet is told to be dead about 1400 years ago.
On the contrary, we can also consider that we create our world, and that the whole imagined and written is about to bear out.
Maybe that’s why some persons are afraid from creating.
But I don’t know for sure. There are always two roads…
Thank you Paulo.
“When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change…”
yes… but.. why?
love
Agnieszka
Absolutely, 9-11 happened because warnings were not heeded, it came like a tornado and rocked the very foundations of capitalism. But worst of all, is that the lesson to be learned was lost, sadly due to the typically childish and immature “tit for tat” reaction of the victim country’s leader. Congratulations GB you missed the opportunity once again…
Dear Agnieszka, life is brutal sometimes, why? because if we are aware and willing to learn the embedded lesson within these challenges, it’s like a turbo-charger towards enlightenment….change is so necessary, and it is always a chance, Love, Paul
Dear Paul,
You’re right I know so, but anyway sometimes we feel like we have only one wing to fly.
Thank you.
love
Agnieszka
Paul from Austria,
There were many lessons to be learned from the vents of 9-11 and not all of them were lost. I lived through the horrors of this day. From my classroom windows I saw the two towers fell.
My husband’s fate was decided many times that day. He worked right next to the towers in one of the buildings that also suffered extensive damage. If he would have been in his office that day, he may have died. He also went up the escalator at the bottom of one of the towers everyday at about the same time this tower fell, but on that day he wasn’t there. He was flying out to Taiwan that day. I still have the e-mail confirmation for United flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. A week before he was to take this flight his boss changed it, and his life was spared once again. My personal lessons were many, I can tell you our lives were transformed and reshaped by these events, but that’s only on the personal level.
There were many other lessons we learned as a people. Not many were as “lucky” as my husband, we lost over 3,000 people that day, some of them we knew, but all of them became family. In the face of one of the most inhuman acts in history, our humanity rose to a higher level. No matter where we came from at this time and in the weeks that followed, we were all Americans. American flags were hung all over. There were candle light vigils for the victims and their families going on everywhere. It was a beautiful sight to see and to experience. People were nice to one another, yes even in New York City! People were polite, and gentle. That was the main lesson we learned that day, a lesson in “compassion”.
I understand that you have a very powerful intuition.I love your book,I recommend it to everybody.I experienced more than one time the encountering with destiny, It is true that we must learn to see through appeareances.Life gives us signes, we have to trust our hearts, because we may lose opportunities,or worse, we can destroy destynies.
Maria-M,
The blessings for your husband is extraordinary.
As for the compassion you write in your second paragraph: Have it been lasting since?
With love.
Wanbliska,
I think my story just the demonstrates the point Paulo is trying to make when he writes, “I have always believed that in the lives of individuals, just as in society at large, the profoundest changes take place within a very reduced time frame. When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready.”
The events of 9-11 were definitively unexpected, it presented a challenge, it tested our courage, and changed the lives of many in a very profound way. Is compassion ever a lasting feeling?
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to forget, like they forgot that Neville Chamberlain the British prime minister at that time signed a peace treaty with Hitler and the next day Hitler invaded Poland.
We want to believe that we can change the world by peaceful means, and that’s not always possible, not when you’re dealing with pure evil. Wars are evil, but evil knows only evil. You can’t be so naive as to believe that you can have peaceful negotiations with terrorists.
Compassion may be fleeting, but our collective conscience as a people was definitively changed that fateful day.
Maria-M,
“Is compassion ever a lasting feeling?”
Yes it is. Or it’s just a fear that gather, or worse nationalism.
I’m sorry for the following example I choose. Indeed, it has nothing to do with the painful 9.11. This is the opposite, but I never saw it before.
In 1998, my country won the world cup of football. I was in valence, in the south of France. I never saw that joy in the streets, where not only one car could have drive. Even racism had disappeared that day. People had the right to bloke the circulation, dance on tables and bars, because of a medal. Music was allowed until it stopped.
Maybe I was the only one not to enjoy, among them. On the contrary, I was stunned and very upset. After all these years, I tell to myself, it was quite stupid. But I assure you, that dramatically, the day after, all had bacame as the day before the footballers win.
And three years after, on 2002, the nationalist party, people fear here, as having ideas quite similar to Hitler, accessed on the second turn of presidential vote…
In 1998, I guess people accepted to have a day off of joy, as teenagers.
But when you have compassion, I believe you keep it. Unless it is just something that show you could be in. But in your country, as in mine, people can feel it only “at the feet of the wall”, as we say in France.
Have a pretty day.