Editor's note : Sorry! We have officially sucked this past month! But in our defense, I'm getting married in three weeks and Echo (besides being the world's best bridesmaid) was finishing up the school year; English teachers have it rough. But we're back!

The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation - Paulo Coelho

Coelho writes modern parables in a simple, but profound language that resonates even through the Portuguese to English translation. Neither of his two books that I've read have taken more than a couple of hours to finish, but without fail they have caused me to pause and reflect on the passage of life and human nature.

The Devil and Miss Prym takes place in a remote rural village where nothing ever changes and the only person disgruntled about it is a waitress named Chantal Prym who longs to leave and see the World. But all in all, it's a pleasant place with pleasant people leading a pleasant life, until this idyll is shattered by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who wishes to conduct an experiment on human and divine nature.

Taking Chantal to the woods the stranger shows her where he has buried one gold bar and tells her that there are ten other buried all throughout the forest and explains his twisted plan. Wishing to know if people are inherently good, bad, or a mix of the both he tells Chantal that it is his intention to urge the citizens of the village to commit bad or outright evil deeds, culminating (hopefully) with murder. His explains to Chantal that she can take the one gold brick and run, and prove than men are thieves and cowards, she can tell the village of his proposition that if they kill one member of their community they will receive the ten brick ensuring prosperity for their entire populace, or she can return to the village and say nothing, but that the stranger will tell the people of his plan and they will like choose her to be their victim.

What follows is an interesting examination into human behavior. After struggling with the desire to do the moral thing, the desire to preserve her own safety, the desire to get out of her stagnant life, Chantal tells the villagers her story in order to save her own life. She also tells the stranger that his plan is flawed because only evil can be rewarded in it and "good will earn nothing but praise. You're not trying to find the answer to a question, you're simply trying to confirm something you desperately want to believe: that everyone is evil." Though the stranger is shaken, he continues on his course and watches the drama unfold.

Members of the community each start to question what they are capable of, whether it is best to kill one to save many. Leaders worry about their political future, religious authorities ponder on the nature of such a sacrifice (after all, didn't one like it already take place in Christianity?), individual rivalries and pettiness come to light, humanity is displayed at its brightest and darkest.

Coelho's simple, powerful tale serves to remind us that anyone truly is capable of nearly any deed, fair or foul. Sometimes our morality saves us, sometimes our greed...sometimes they condemn us. Definitely worth the read. If you like it, try another of his justifiably famous works, The Alchemist.