Book Review: The High Mountains of Portugal

Most books involving chimpanzees are factual, non-fiction reference books. With a few exceptions (Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves comes to mind), these reference books present the chimpanzee as a matter of study for the reader. Oftentimes this acts as a type of mirror, and we learn about ourselves - a fellow great ape - in the process.

The High Mountains of Portugal, the latest work of Life of Pi author Yann Martel, takes a similar approach and adds in a heavy dose of mysticism. Its three sections – titled Homeless, Homeward and Home – follow characters in varying states of loneliness, all of whom encounter a chimpanzee in their personal searches for grounding. Parts of the stories are highly surreal, and other parts seem shockingly realistic even when you know, or hope, they cannot be.

Chimpanzees play a dual role in our society: We adore them and we use them, we consider and treat them as an “other”, all while we continue to recognize more of ourselves within them. Yann Martel acknowledges this strange dichotomy, and as if to settle the matter, proclaims, “We are random animals… We are risen apes, not fallen angels.”

The chimpanzee is used to convey a number of messages:

• The author compares chimpanzees to the elusive Iberian rhinoceros, an animal who also makes continued appearances throughout the book. “Human advancement spelled its end,” he writes, “It was hunted and hounded to extinction and vanished, as ridiculous as an old idea – only to be mourned and missed the moment it was gone. Now it is fodder for fado, a stock character in that peculiar form of Portuguese melancholy, saudade”

• Martel compares chimpanzees to Jesus – quite literally and with rather shocking imagery

• He describes their living conditions in an early 1980’s research center, “the very image of incarceration.”

The author’s account of a human living with a chimpanzee in an apartment, as one might live with a poodle, sounds lovely and is one of the more captivating moments in the book. However, this reviewer wishes it were more realistic. We see none of the violent emotions or destructive tendencies inherent in chimpanzees – only the peace. Although this is ethically irresponsible, we must assume Martel did this intentionally. The story retains a dreamlike quality, and the chimpanzee remains an enigma even to the human living in close quarters with him. The mystery is beautiful. “There’s a reward in the mystery, an enduring amazement,” he writes.

The High Mountains of Portugal examines the emotions that chimpanzees bring out in humankind, as it is in the high mountains of Portugal that his characters face their truths.