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From Amazon
Dutch novelist Harry Mulisch has created an epic tale of love, friendship, and divine intervention in this cerebral story of heavenly influence. On earth, the novel revolves around the friendship of a brilliant, charismatic astronomer and a talented linguist born on the same day. The two men also happen to share a lover, a woman of simple beauty who is a gifted cellist. These relationships, both intellectual and intimate, produce several intriguing conversations about science, art, and theology, and a child of uncertain paternity. The child's birth is closely followed by a number of mysterious accidents, spirited affairs, untimely deaths, and other acts that reveal the influence of higher powers. Quinten, the star-fated child, has a mission from on high to return the covenant God made with man before he was led astray by science and the dark influence of the devil. An engrossing, and at times comic, story of theology and science, angels, and earthly desires, is cleverly told in this hugely ambitious novel.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In a new novel bulging with metaphysical speculation, Dutch author Mulisch masterfully intersperses mathematics, biology, linguistics, numerology, philosophy and theology. When two strangers meet on a cold night in The Hague, Onno Quist, a linguist and politician from a well-to-do family, and Max Delius, an astronomer, have no idea that their relationship will change the course of human existence. Their meeting, however, like many of the momentous events that occur in the novel, is no accident of chance. It is the product of the careful manipulations by two angels acting at the request of God, who, upset that people are on the verge of mapping the genetic code and thus deciphering the secret of creation, desires to wash His hands of His creation. Disgusted with human behavior, the two angels plot to retrieve the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments, thus breaking God's covenant with humanity. The two angels surmise that the 17th-century philosopher of science Francis Bacon made a pact with the devil for which all of mankind must atone?because scientific knowledge quickly superseded humanity's belief in God. The angels contrive a series of complex events involving Onno, Max and Ada Brons, a bright and beautiful cellist, in order to create Quinten, the boy who will be their unwitting instrument for fulfilling God's doomsday plan. As Onno, Max and Quinten think and work through their lives, they arrive, ultimately, at the impossible and forbidden?the discovery of heaven by means of science rather than faith. God has never been so unforgiving. Hope remains, however, that the next fallen angel might be more benevolent than the last. Mulisch, author of the critically hailed Last Call and The Assault, has created a masterpiece that not only brings his characters closer to discovering heaven but also prods them nearer to knowing themselves. Remarkably, he escalates his plot to ever more complex levels of thought without diminishing the strong, suspenseful (and, in Vincent's fluid translation, often funny) narrative thrust. This is novel-writing on a gloriously grand, hubristic scale.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
At the stroke of midnight I contrived a short-circuit. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
At the stroke of midnight I contrived a short-circuit. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extraordinary fiction from the Netherlands,
By Alekos (Cancun, Quintana Roo Mexico) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Discovery of Heaven (Paperback)
DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN. Full appreciation of this novel may require a firm grasp of the difference between what is ambiguous and what is absurd. The book is about the interplay between the two and how they are mediated to the consciousness by meaning. That is, the novel asks us whether we want to stress the reality of madness or the madness of reality. Onno and Max are bosom friends and Onno takes up with Ada after Max destroys his own relationship with her by some words of amazing crudeness. Ada's pregnancy is clothed in doubt as to which of the two men is the father of the extraordinarily beautiful child born while she is in a coma following an auto accident. Max is the scientist-astronomer while Onno is the linguist paleographer. They and their conversations are brilliant if never quite serious. Quinten, Ada's child, is brought up by Max and Ada's mother, Sophia. These two have a sexual liaison lacking in several of the features that would make it an affair. After failing in politics and in linguistics, Onno drops out of life and ordinary reality and disappears, while Max finds something like an answer to the question of the origin of the universe and then gets zapped into eternity by a meteorite. Quinten goes on the archetypal quest for his father, (is Onno really his father?) which is the symbolic quest for God or the idea of God. His mother, in a coma seventeen years and a living sign of death, is nearly unknown to him. Symbolically he turns his back on "mother nature," on the corruption of nature from which new life springs in never ending cycles, and he undertakes the search for meaning.Those of us who think our prime obligation in life is to grow progressively out of the ignorance into which we were born sometimes ask ourselves if the seemingly endless task is really worth it. Our ignorant associates and rellies seem to be no less "happy" than we whose main thrust is the acquisition of culture. But every now and then we receive a surprise reward for our efforts, like when we read a novel grounded solidly in ideas, culture, science, art, spirituality, one whose plot contains a wealth of examples of ambiguity or absurdity.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By
This review is from: The Discovery of Heaven (Paperback)
I won't spend a lot of time here because there are many in-depth reviews. Overall though this is an excellent book, very well written (even in translation), very clever, with two great protagonists and some incredibly deep ideas scattered throughout (e.g., the historioscope). It does start to drag halfway through when the pace slows way down - but then, can anyone think of a 700+ page novel where that isn't the case? It gradually picks up again and becomes once more inspiring, thought-provoking and hilarious. I give four stars only because, as another reviewer mentioned, the ending just... well, fails. Again, as with so many long and wonderful works, it is difficult to build up to a satisfying climax. A very original voice, though. A book well worth reading.
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Favorite, Ever.,
By Merinda (Ohio) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Discovery of Heaven (Paperback)
This book is fantastic because it never, not once, talks down to the reader. Sometimes, yes, it talks above you. But, not in a baddish way. It's more with a wink and a nod to let you know that they know that you know....everyone is let in on the joke. Brilliant and quick and witty and fun and seriously meaningful. My favorite book of all time, without a doubt.
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