The story, even though it has primary and secondary characters, is not about any one specific character, but more about the people of the village of Viscos, an imaginary small town with only one young person and no children. The story opens with Berta watching a stranger come into town. Berta is an old widow who is deemed a witch by the townspeople but is probably a psychic sage. Encouraged by the devil, the stranger is a wealthy man who suffered a tragedy and is out to find out the answer to the pessimistic philosophical questions that torment him. Miss Chantal Prym, a barmaid and a dreamer for better things, is the only young person in town whom the stranger wants to use in inciting the villagers to commit a murder so their town could take possession of the gold bars he has hidden in the woods.

Miss Prym, almost an angelic figure, believes in the good inside people although she herself is not immune to not give in to the devil. After a town meeting is held and the villagers plan to sacrifice Berta for the gold, the story wraps up for the better, salvaging the integrity of being human.

realizing what a good writer can do. Unlike what most creative writing courses teach (that the writer should not openly deliver a philosophical discourse but just tell the story), some very successful authors do both of those things at the same time, and with passion and expertise. The Devil and Miss Prym is such a story.

the struggles of the characters to adhere to integrity, the time-old questions we ask ourselves about good and evil, and the exact definition of those terms take first consideration.

buy The Zahir, Coelho's latest book.

Paolo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947. He worked as a theatre director, actor, lyricist, and a journalist. After traveling the world and finding out about secret societies and other religions, Coelho dedicated himself to his writing and published his first book in 1982. 1n 1987 The Alchemist was published to become an eventual international best-seller. Coelho has received many awards too numerous to list, among them The Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum and "Knight of Arts and Letters of France." His books are: Brida, The Valkyries, By the river Piedra I sat Down and Wept, Maktub, The Fifth Mountain, Manual of a Warrior of Light, Veronika Decides to Die, The Devil and Miss Prym, Eleven Minutes, The Zahir.

It offers so many ideas and sides of humanity to think about and from so many different angles. Also, the writer has drawn very strong characters; although some of the secondary characters are presented as metaphoric or maybe even cliche beings as to their vocations, they are human nevertheless.

The book is in hardcover with 205 pages and is very easy to read.
The story can easily be called a moralistic fable or a parable on good and evil. It has such pearls of wisdom in it that I wanted to stop and write them down to read them later as one reads any scripture. For example: "Playing the part of a charitable soul was only for those who were afraid of taking a stand in life. It is always far easier to hear an insult and not retaliate than have the courage to fight back against someone stronger than yourself…"

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation   from Amazon.Com!

Created Jan 29, 2007 at 12:42pm • Submit your own review...