The winner stands alone by Paulo Coelho

I have read several of Paulo Coelho's books and the title of this book really fascinated me so I chose this book for reading during these summer holidays. 

Most of the Paulo Coelho's books with different themes talk about the same stuff and try to convey same messages like exploring the absolute energy and power of love, following your dreams, searching for truth, living for obsession alone and many such ideas. This novel too talked about some of these same ideas but the theme of the book was very unusual and captivating this time. In this book, Paulo Coelho has revealed the hidden feelings of actors, directors, models, producers, and the super class. The book revolves around the international Cannes film festival which takes place at Paris each year where different artists from all over the world come. He gives a wonderful description of the back stage situation at the festival and the hardships these artists face only to achieve fame and glory. He has very nicely explained the destructive power of fame and glamor which has trapped even the most scrupulous of the persons and made him act the way he never wished to. He describes the extent to which people can go in order to gain just a bit of power, money, fame and the right contacts. He has also mentioned the importance of having the right contacts in this competitive world. For all these descriptions, I found this book very close to reality. All of us, in our small worlds, indeed find people fighting and struggling very hard only to fulfill their innate and the most intense desire of being recognized and achieving fame for the tiniest bit of deed done. 

One of the interesting description was of the red carpet experience. Ordinary audience and fans always view walks on the red carpet with great amazement. There are also people who dream of walking on the red carpet. The writer explains the hidden feelings of the stars walking down the red carpet and how they so strongly desire to make the most of these little moments and, how they learn to conceal what's going inside their hearts and come up with the best of the expressions for photos taken. 

Despite these amazing descriptions, there were few things I could not understand and comprehend. I am still trying to make sense of few things in the book. The character of Igor ( the man who goes to the extent of killing innocent people in order to get his wife back) was the most controversial to me. On one hand, he is a man of principles who has struggled and work hard to achieve success, who is in no way interested to achieve fame and glamor, who behaves elegantly. On the other hand, he turns into a complete devil taking innocent lives and then continuously justifies his criminal acts. I was never able to understand his character. He used to take turns in mysterious ways and was the most unpredictable. 

Also, I found the end a bit unacceptable; a serial killer being able to escape very easily. But then maybe, this explained the notion that super class can easily escape from everything they wanted to. 

To conclude, it was a nice read overall even though few things were unclear to me.