paulo coehlo's - the spy

BOOK - THE SPY

How does one define a woman’s virtue? By her willingness to obey the social norms imposed on her under the discretion of Law . Or on her ability to clearly differentiate the right from the wrong and behold to it, even if the world looks at her as a victim of delusional thinking. This has been a pertinent question that still remains unanswered in even the modern times.

Every book one reads, tries to push the limits of one’s conventional style of thinking beyond one’s imagination. A book’s success quotient is largely determined on how many curious minds it was successfully able to pique. This book does it explicitly and in the most respectable manner.

The most fascinating feature of this book is its unconventional format of writing. It is not the third person perspective of storytelling-Instead a series of conversations between a lawyer and his client(the woman) that takes places through letters addressed to each other, where the corresponding persons narrates her feelings about the world. The essence of storytelling remains intact and indeed more nourished by the story teller’s choice of words.

The story line carefully contours all the essential hardships that a woman – a famous woman is bound to face in the reality of life. From the sudden surge of media hype of her beauty as an artist to demeaning her character to raise abhorrence and false accusation, there had always been altercations throughout her life, either external or often internal.

Mata Hari- the procrastinator in the story, had dreams like any other woman but chose to fulfill it by relinquishing the chains of social barriers and stigma that prevailed. Many of us,shall see her as wanton woman, but during those times when dignity for women was virtually nonexistent, her only weapon of choice –was her dissolute Womanhood which had been forcefully disrupted once.

To every women out there, I urge you to fearlessly stand for yourself from the recluse place you tend to occupy in your own mind, stand up to own your voice ,stand up to behold you.

I faithfully re-quote Mata Hari’s famous verse:

“I am a woman who was born at the wrong time and nothing can be done to fix it. I do not know if the future will remember me, but if it does , it may never see me as a victim ,but as someone who moved forward with courage, fearlessly paying the price she had to pay”