The Winner Stands Alone

Title : The Winner Stands Alone

Writer : Paulo Coelho

Year : 2008 (Indonesian edition first published in 2009 by Gramedia Pustaka Utama)

Language : English (translated into Indonesian by Rosemary Kesauly)

After a month of delaying, I finally finished this book. It’s the thickest Coelho’s book I’ve ever read. And the most boring too, if I may say. Seriously, reading this book is merely like watching a Hollywood movie with unpredicted ending. I expected it to be more meaningful than killing people for the sake of love or hatred.

So this is about Igor, a successful Russian telecomunication businessman who lost his wife in the middle of their ‘happy’ marriage, which is considered not happy at all by the wife, Ewa. She is so afraid of her ‘beasty’ husband who seems to be not himself anymore after the success of his huge business. So she leave him, they divorce, and Ewa marry another success man.

So, Igor goes to Cannes Film Festival in France to catch his ex-wife, to remind her that he will, and can, destroy other people’s world just to show that he still loves her, to get her back. He has killed four people with four different ways and patterns, and after the murder he always send a message to Ewa to tell her about his ‘destroying other world’. Unfortunately, Ewa doesn’t catch the ‘message’.

In this story, Coelho does a mingled plot with many different characters, though the main character is still Igor, the mysterious businessman. Here, while doing and reaching his mission, Igor meets many people (beside his victims) who have their own problems in life and their own personalities.

Generally, it is quite a nice novel to read. But I couldn’t still stop yawning even when the murdering scenes happen. Seriously, this is not really interesting for me.

Rating: 2.5