The Winner Stands Alone

This book came as a surprise for me rather. It stands out from the rest of the books he has written. Paulo Coelho, one of my very favourite authors! His books usually had a strong message, and the writing style was surreal. This instead was so deep rooted to reality and dealt with our dark angels. An Un-put-Downable one though.

This book leaves me confused and angry. Igor, the protagonist (I don’t know if he was good or bad) went to Canne’s film festival to win his wife back. She had left him two years back and was with another. He was man with principles and morals. He considered himself extremely capable of taking risks and tough decisions. Strangely, he also believed that god had vested in him the power and the responsibility to do any thing to get what he wants.

He wanted to send a message to Ewa, his wife. For that, he started killing innocent people. Each was a sacrifice in her name to make her realize how much he loved her. How serial killer psychology has been portrayed in this book, I found rather interesting. But, Ewa doesn’t want to come back.

Half way through, his mission changes. I don’t follow totally after this. The book ends with him killing her and her husband. What was the purpose of this mission of his? May be by killing so many, he understood himself better. But was the sacrifice worth it? I cannot digest that this man, who thinks he has the authority to take lives for what he believes is the greater good, can be sane or a good person.

May be, he wasn’t intended to be good, bad or ugly. May be he is just a character and thus, has a right to exist without conforming to any stereo-typed ideal. I don’t think I have an issue with the fact that the usual "good over evil" didn’t take place.

But, one person’s instability destroyed so many lives. Among the others who get killed are hard-working people with dreams and aspirations. They have worked night and day and taken enormous risks to reach where they were. May be they were on the brink of achieving everything they wanted to but did not. They lives ended without fulfillment. And there were many whose future depended in the hands of the people who just departed. And all the victims were related in some way or the other.

Is it really justifiable, what Igor propagates in that book?

Only one character apart from Igor realizes her destiny. But another innocent girl was left thinking that she has finally achieved it all, at the last page of the book. I can’t help thinking as if she was real, and in for a rude shock when her whole universe shall crash around her the next day.

The book also showed the trials and tribulations in the glamour world but that we have gotten to know through other books also. The superegos of the superclass have been well characterized too. Still, the way he weaves the plot interspersed with his characters, transports you inside the book, breathing with them.

An interesting thing I noted was that victims who died where equal in the sex ratio. I am sure it means something. The book was filled with booby traps of this world that entail to swallow us. On a philosophical plane, may be it did show us what life could be. Whatever I read in that book can be applied to many situations, many characters could all teach us about some of those traps on a surreal plane. As is a constant with Paulo Coelho’s books, it has many points through which we can enter the book and run away with our understanding and imagination. I like that. Each one gets his own picture, message.

But, how does the winner not stand alone? If Igor is the intended winner… are we getting a new understanding of the word alone? Is not the dark angel just a figment of Igor’s imagination so that he may remain guilt free? These doubts have not been cleared in the book. I don’t hate the book for it. I rather love the fact that these loose ends have remained.

I shall be thinking further on these lines and may be my understanding shall improve. The book has left me slightly angry. But my brain is active trying to understand something new. This hasn’t happened in a long time and I am more than pleased for the mental stimuli.