His most successful novel, a "spiritual quest" called The Alchemist, is said to have sold 27 million and to have pleased a panoply of notables, including President Clinton. It would be of no interest to readers of even the mildest literary inclination - except that the author, according to his publicists, has sold more than 50 million copies of his previous eight books, in 57 languages in 150 countries. This is a thumbnail precis of Eleven Minutes, by Paulo Coelho (HarperCollins, 288 pages, $24.95). Then give the novel a central character straight out of a Horatio Alger saga - except that instead of Dudley Doright chastely scaling a golden staircase of probity and personal industry, the character-in-chief is a 22-year-old from a Brazilian back-country village who makes her fortune - quite cheerfully - doing three tricks a night out of a friendly Swiss family brothel in Geneva. Embroider in swaths of the gurgling infantilism of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Take The Bridges of Madison County and stitch on a Hallmark Card coda.
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