Eleven Minutes

Reading the first third of Eleven Minutes from the beginning would cause a reader to assume that Coelho is writing from the third person point of view (POV), which focuses completely on his main character, Maria. Though most of the narrative is written from this viewpoint, the author does break away periodically to write from the perspective of other characters, most notably Terence the English music executive in Chapter 23 and Heidi the widowed librarian in Chapter 31. His intention in shifting his POV is to explore topics that exceed the interest or expertise of the main characters and do not directly advance the progression of the story. It is as if the author is saying Maria would not be able to understand this, but Terence would. For instance, Coelho wants to unpack the subject of BDSM from an objective perspective. In achieving this, he has to resort to writing from Terence’s viewpoint because Maria has just been immersed in the experience and, in her relative ignorance, she is struggling to understand this new world. Neither can he objectively write it from Ralf’s viewpoint since, in the following two chapters, Ralf will seek to undermine the legitimacy of the BDSM lifestyle. Coelho must adopt a shifting POV if he is to unpack these aspects of sexuality.

As a part of his third person POV, Coelho is also able to gossip with his readers. This technique is also used by some well-known English language writers like T. B. White in his epic The Once and Future King, or C. S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia. This technique is characterized by an author who, in the midst of telling a story, suddenly writes an editorial comment as an aside intended for readers. For instance, in Chapter 12, Coelho comments about Maria’s first full night of sex work: “She was doing it because she needed to. This wasn’t quite true—everyone needs to earn money, but not everyone chooses to live on the margins of society” (75). In this passage, Coelho is standing apart from the character he is creating to speculate along with his readers about Maria’s decision—why she made it and what it means going forward. Such gossiping creates a layer of intimacy between the author and reader and allows the author to depart from the strict storyline to editorialize about the characters.