 First edition | |
| Author | Yann Martel |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Knopf Canada |
Publication date | 2016 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 332 |
| ISBN | 978-0812997170 |
| OCLC | 911240030 |
| LC Class | PR9199.3.M3855 H54 |
| Preceded by | Beatrice and Virgil |
The High Mountains of Portugal is a 2016 novel by Canadian author Yann Martel. [1] [2] [3] The novel is split into three sections, each of which concerns a widower.
1904. Tomás Lobo is a widower who lives in Alfama, Lisbon. Working as an assistant in the National Museum of Ancient Art he finds the diary of Father Ulisses, a homesick missionary worker who died in São Tomé in 1635, where slave trade was blooming. The missionary has manufactured a crucifix that was later given to a small church in Trás-os-Montes. Tomás borrows an early Renault from his rich uncle and drives to the North East of Portugal. He commits a hit-and-run after accidentally killing a young, blond boy. In a small church Tuizelo he finds the crucifix, on which Jesus has the face of a chimpanzee.
New Year's Eve, 1938. Eusebio Lozora is a medical examiner in Bragança. He has a conversation with his deceased wife Maria. She compares the novels of Agatha Christie to the New Testament. Then he receives a visit from Maria Castro. She has the corpse of her husband Rafael with her. He was the father of the blond child that was killed in Part 1. During an autopsy Eusebio finds a chimpanzee and a bear cub inside of the corpse.
1981. Peter Tovy is a senator in Ottawa with a heart disease. After the death of his wife he travels to Oklahoma City, where he decides to adopt a chimpanzee named Odo. He takes the animal with him to Tuizelo. By accident he ends up in the house where he was born - before his family emigrated to Canada. In a local church he finds the old crucifix and a photo of the blond boy, who's thought to be an angel by the local population. Peter climbs a rock to follow Odo, and dies.
The comparison between religion and science is a central theme. The crucifix of the Messiah with a chimpanzee face means that Father Ulisses already believed in Darwinism before it was invented.
Some character names refer to the Bible. Tomás and Peter are names of apostles. The mother of the angel-child is named Maria.
Father Ulisses suffers from homesickness. Peter literally returns to the house where he was born, but returning home also has the symbolical meaning of finding the truth.
Recurring motifs are widowhood, the crucifix, the chimpanzee, vomit and tears.
Some events are absurd or surreal, especially in Part 2. It contains a plea for a symbolical interpretation of the Bible.
At the 2016 Governor General's Awards, Christophe Bernard was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English to French translation for the novel's French translation, Les hautes montagnes du Portugal.
A crucifix is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the corpus.
Francis Xavier, SJ, venerated as Saint Francis Xavier, was a Spanish Catholic missionary and saint who co-founded the Society of Jesus and, as a representative of the Portuguese empire, led the first Christian mission to Japan.
Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, India, who explores issues of spirituality and metaphysics from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger which raises questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.
Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, SJ, often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Territory of the Bishopric of Trent, then part of a partially German-speaking area of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. For the last 24 years of his life he worked in the region then known as the Pimería Alta, modern-day Sonora in Mexico and southern Arizona in the United States. He explored the region and worked with the indigenous Native American population, including primarily the Tohono O'Odham, Sobaipuri and other Upper Piman groups. He proved that the Baja California Territory was not an island but a peninsula by leading an overland expedition there. By the time of his death he had established 24 missions and visitas.
The Terminal Experiment is a science fiction novel by Canadian writer Robert J. Sawyer. The book won the 1995 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1996. Sawyer received a writer's reserve grant from the Ontario Arts Council in 1993 in support of his writing the novel.
Odo is a name typically associated with historical figures from the Middle Ages and before. Odo is etymologically related to the names Otho and Otto, and to the French name Odon and modern version Eudes, and to the Italian names Ottone and Udo; all come from the Germanic word ot meaning "possessor of wealth".
Gregório de Matos e Guerra was a famous Colonial Brazilian Baroque poet. Although he wrote many lyrical and religious poems, he was better known for his satirical ones, most of them criticizing the Catholic Church, earning him the nickname "Boca do Inferno".
Juan María de Salvatierra, S.J., was a Catholic missionary to the Americas.
Estêvão Cacella (1585–1630) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a musical with a book by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos, lyrics by Leo Robin, and music by Jule Styne, based on the best-selling 1925 novel of the same name by Loos. The story involves an American woman's voyage to Paris to perform in a nightclub.
Slaughter of the Innocents is a 1993 thriller film directed by James Glickenhaus and starring Scott Glenn and Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus with supporting roles from Kevin Sorbo and Armin Shimerman. A then-unknown Aaron Eckhart has a bit part.
17th-century missionary activity in Asia and the Americas grew strongly, put down roots, and developed its institutions, though it met with strong resistance in Japan in particular. At the same time Christian colonization of some areas outside Europe succeeded, driven by economic as well as religious reasons. Christian traders were heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade, which had the effect of transporting Africans into Christian communities. A land war between Christianity and Islam continued, in the form of the campaigns of the Habsburg Empire and Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, a turning point coming at Vienna in 1683. The Tsardom of Russia, where Orthodox Christianity was the established religion, expanded eastwards into Siberia and Central Asia, regions of Islamic and shamanistic beliefs, and also southwest into Ukraine, where the Uniate Eastern Catholic Churches arose.
Yann Martel, is a Canadian author who wrote the Man Booker Prize–winning novel Life of Pi, an international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the bestseller lists of the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other best-selling lists. Life of Pi was adapted for a movie directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars including Best Director and winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Denis of the Nativity, OCD, sometimes called Dionysius of the Nativity, born as Pierre Berthelot, 12 December 1600, in Honfleur – 27 November 1638, in Sumatra) was a Discalced Carmelite friar in Goa. Prior to his entry he has been a sailor and cartographer in the service of the king of Portugal, and later. He was killed in Sumatra while taking part in a diplomatic mission there on behalf of the Portuguese Empire. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1900.
Redemptus of the Cross, also Redemptorus of the Cross, was a Portuguese lay brother in the Order of the Discalced Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. He was put to death, along with other members of a group sent to Aceh by Portuguese authorities.
Heidi is a 1952 Swiss family drama film directed by Luigi Comencini and starring Elsbeth Sigmund, Heinrich Gretler and Thomas Klameth. It is based on the 1880 novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri. It was followed by a 1955 sequel Heidi and Peter.
Nunca te olvidaré is a Mexican telenovela produced by Juan Osorio and Carlos Moreno Laguillo for Televisa in 1999. It is based on a novel by Caridad Bravo Adams. It aired on Canal de Las Estrellas from January 18, 1999 to May 28, 1999.
Heidi is a 1965 Austrian family film directed by Werner Jacobs and starring Eva Maria Singhammer, Michaela May and Jan Koester. It is an adaptation of Johanna Spyri's 1880 novel of the same title.
João Maria D'Agostini, or Giovanni Maria de Agostini, was a lay monk of Italian origin who travelled widely in South and North America preaching and healing with herbal remedies. He drew large crowds who believed that he was a holy man who could work miracles, although the authorities often viewed him with suspicion.
Christophe Bernard is a Canadian writer from Quebec. He is most noted for his novel La bête creuse, which was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction at the 2018 Governor General's Awards.
 | This article about a 2010s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |