The High Mountains of Portugal

The High Mountains of Portugal

Language: English

Pages: 352

ISBN: 0812987039

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER Fifteen years after "The Life of Pi, " Yann Martel is taking us on another long journey. Fans of his Man Booker Prize winning novel will recognize familiar themes from that seafaring phenomenon, but the itinerary in this imaginative new book is entirely fresh. . . . Martel s writing has never been more charming. Ron Charles, "The Washington Post
"
In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomas discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that if he can find it would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe s earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.
Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomas s quest.
Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.
"The High Mountains of Portugal" part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century and through the human soul.
Praise for "The High Mountains of Portugal"
Just as ambitious, just as clever, just as existential and spiritual [as "Life of Pi"] . . . a book that rewards your attention . . . an excellent book club choice. "San Francisco Chronicle"
There s no denying the simple pleasures to be had in "The High Mountains of Portugal." "Chicago Tribune"
Charming . . . Most Martellian is the boundless capacity for parable. . . . Martel knows his strengths: passages about the chimpanzee and his owner brim irresistibly with affection and attentiveness. "The New Yorker"
A rich and rewarding experience . . . [Martel] spins his magic thread of hope and despair, comedy and pathos. "USA Today
"
I took away indelible images from "High Mountains, "enchanting and disturbing at the same time. . . . As whimsical as Martel s magic realism can be, grief informs every step of the book s three journeys. In the course of the novel we burrow ever further into the heart of an ape, pure and threatening at once, our precursor, ourselves. NPR
Refreshing, surprising and filled with sparkling moments of humor and insight. "The Dallas Morning News"
We re fortunate to have brilliant writers using their fiction to meditate on a paradox we need urgently to consider the unbridgeable gap and the unbreakable bond between human and animal, our impossible self-alienation from our world. . . . [Martel s] semi-surreal, semi-absurdist mode is well suited to exploring the paradox. The moral and spiritual implications of his tale have, in the end, a quality of haunting tenderness. Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Guardian"
[Martel packs] his inventive novel with beguiling ideas. What connects an inept curator to a haunted pathologist to a smitten politician across more than seventy-five years is the author s ability to conjure up something uncanny at the end. "The Boston Globe"
A fine home, and story, in which to find oneself. Minneapolis "Star Tribune"

"From the Hardcover edition.""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

telling the truth. Nor is there a clinical report. That report is like the jacket copy of a book, announcing what is to come. But just as jacket copy can stray from the actual content of a book, so can a clinical report. With no knowledge of the case at all, he will nonetheless find out what racked Rafael Castro, what pushed his body to give up. He steps off the chair. He looks at the shelf of bottles along the wall near the table. He picks out the bottle of carbolic oil. Since he’s not going

talk to—he didn’t say—” “He’s busy.” Peter starts off again. He likes the idea of irking the almighty Dr. Lemnon. Bob hops along, making noises of hesitation. “All right, I guess,” he finally decides, when he sees that Peter isn’t going to change his mind. “We’ll make it quick. This way.” They turn a corner and come to a door. They enter a small room with a desk and lockers. There is another metal door. Bob pulls out a key. He unlocks the door and opens it. They go through. If the island in

relations with Ben. He isn’t going to spend the rest of his life waiting around Ottawa for his son to find more time for him. His younger sister, Teresa, has her own life in Toronto. They talk on the phone regularly, so no reason why that should stop. As for Rachel, his granddaughter, for all he now sees of her or hears from her, he might as well live on Mars. She might be tempted to visit him one day, lured by the appeal of Europe. That’s a valid hope. He takes a deep breath. It all has to go.

monstrosity. “It is…magnificent,” he replies. Despite its ungraceful appearance, he has always lamented the fate of the animal that once roamed the rural corners of his country. Was the Iberian rhinoceros’s last bastion not, in fact, the High Mountains of Portugal? Curious, the hold the animal has had on the Portuguese imagination. Human advancement spelled its end. It was, in a sense, run over by modernity. It was hunted and hounded to extinction and vanished, as ridiculous as an old idea—only

conclude matters with the villagers. Peter introduces himself to their leader. Her name is Amélia Duarte; he should call her Dona Amélia, she tells him. He makes her understand that he would be happy to live in the house. (Whose house? he wonders. What happened to those who lived in it?) In butchered Portuguese he inquires about the windows and the plumbing and about the place being cleaned. To all these, Dona Amélia nods vigorously. All will be taken care of, she makes clear. She turns her hand

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