Yann Martel

The author of the bestselling Life of Pi returns to the storytelling power and luminous wisdom of his master novel. The High Mountains of Portugal is a story about love, loss, and faith that take us on a mesmerizing journey through the last century. Told in three intersecting narratives--part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary realism--the novel begins in the early 1900s, when a young man named Tomás discovers in the archives of Lisbon an ancient journal describing an extraordinary artifact that he believes will challenge the church's understanding of religion forever and sets out for the High Mountains of Portugal in search of it. Thirty-five years later, a pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie is drawn into the consequences of Tomás's quest as he finds himself at the center of a murder story. And fifty years after that, Senator Peter Tovy of Ottawa, grieving the death of his beloved wife, rescues a chimpanzee from an Oklahoma research facility and takes it to live with him in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, where the strands of all three stories come together. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, Yann Martel's new novel offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss, asking questions about faith and the lack of faith that are at the heart of all his novels. From the Hardcover edition.

The High Mountains of Portugal

cedar winslow

He is of the opinion that architectural modesty best suits the religious sentiment.

I’LL FEED YOU TO A DOG AND THEN EAT THAT DOG!

He stared at the crucifix, balancing between utter belief and utter disbelief.

first book i have read on my phone and i couldn’t have gotten through it if this book weren’t so damn good! super engaging, interesting plot, perfect mix of reality and magical realism, perfect book to read in portugal

Bergen Anders Nelson Eickhoff

The High Mountains of Portugal, like many of Yann Martel's novels, is quite polarizing on the principle of whether you're willing to accept that an entire story can be one giant allegory. If you cannot accept this, his writing is tedious, pretentious and pointless; if you can, then he is a poet-philosopher who slowly unravels the beauty of life through carefully chosen words and irregular lives. Martel does not truly write novels, and has very little concept of plot. But he is a creative and curious teller of intriguing narratives, whether he reports on the retirement of a Canadian MP, the odd journeys of a turn-of-the-(20th) century hipster, or describing the horrific visions of a grief-stricken, sleep-deprived mortician. And if nothing else, he knows how to craft a gorgeous sentence.

This novel, in particular, has no clear connection between the beginning and the end and refrains from even depicting a consistent journey. Instead, he paints a triptych of three loosely-connected, possibly connected stories connected by symbols and shared emotions, and in doing so, creates a mural of the destruction and reconstruction that is found in extreme grief. It's not realistic, it's not immediately accessible, and it's not even that great of a novel by conventional standards. But it is a marvelous exploration of three bizarre yet relatable reactions to loss strung together with a fascinating reinterpretation of the Christian Gospel told with beautiful language, elegant phrasings, and some of the most evocative scenes in any work of fiction that I've read in the past few years. 

The High Mountains of Portugal is a marvelously curious novels, raising an equal number of insights and questions. And at its core is the theme of reconstruction from loss that only seems possible with the guidance of chimpanzee Christ-figures. "We are fallen apes, not risen angels" repeats the refrain to each of the main characters in the novel, reminding us that for all of our attempts at kindness, sympathy and goodness, we are inevitably flawed creatures undeserving of the pleasures we take for granted. What little comforts we do receive in life are a gift by whatever force runs the universe, and instead of trying to reclaim what is lost, perhaps all we can do is reconcile ourselves to that which we love while we can. It's a simple theme at risk of becoming a truism, but as life convolutes this point, so does Martel tangle and then progressively untangle the interconnection of love and loss through each of his tortured, fragile characters. So despite its unrealistic, unbelievable atmosphere, the novel depicts incredibly realistic reactions to grief—that is, so long as you accept that everything is allegorical. 

This book is an exercise in empathy, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to use the tragically misused word "empathy" in conversation. For in each of the both ponderous and heartbreaking parts of the novel, Martel makes no attempt to show us how to understand a character, and instead uses his bizarre storytelling and poetic vocabulary to reveal how impossible it is to truly realize each other's unique experiences of loss that will forever prevent us from a pure understanding of one another. And yet, underneath the divisive tragedy, he uses carefully chosen symbols to arrive at the salvation through paradox found in most religions (and even atheistic philosophy): we are connected through our disconnection, united by our loss, and human because of our inhumanity. The connection of the three stories is dependent on this interplay between impossible scenarios and consistent themes, and may very well lead others to a different interpretation than my own, since the novel uses this ambiguity to play upon our own experiences of loss and grief. Even here, the book shows how empathy is not the search for universal truth, but the exploration of what makes us different. Each story is carefully told, and each symbol made both ambiguous and grounded enough to provide each reader with a unique journey. I look forward to reading it in a year to see how my perspective changes the story of the book.

All of this review and brief pseudo-interpretation is to say that this is a beautiful and life-enriching book that will bless/curse your mind with thoughts to consider for months after finishing. It can be a confusing and tiresome read at times, but if you accept the ambiguous allegories essential to Martel's writing style, you will be rewarded with a fluid journey into three, and hopefully four, average and astounding broken souls. So whether you read for utility or beauty, Martel offers a delightful and challenging verbal mural that is definitely worth at least one read, but probably many more.

The High Mountains of Portugal

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