Mount Piquinho, also known as Mount Pico, is the tallest mountain in Portugal with an elevation of 7,713 feet above sea level. It is found in the mid-Atlantic archipelago of Azores on Pico Island. It is a stratovolcano made up of several layers of hardened lava, pumice, volcanic ash, and tephra. Historical records show that the mountain has a history of violent eruptions. In 1562, an eruption produced lava that reached the sea in while in 1718, an eruption produced enough lava to reach the coast. The region around the mountain is considered seismically active and is monitored by the seismic and volcanic monitoring centers. Torre (Estrela Range) Mountain Written with nuanced beauty; not for nothing has Martel established himself as our premier writer of animal-based fiction. Toronto Star Tomas undertakes this personal pilgrimage to recover his father’s artifact, wanting to retain something of meaning from his father. One of Tomas’s relatives gives him an old car to help him along his journey. At first, very emotional and overwhelmed by what he is about to do, Tomas is concerned about his driving skills and ability to maintain the vehicle.

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel – digested read The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel – digested read

In the first part, set in 1904, Tomas, a museum curator, crosses Portugal in an early motor car, in search of a mysterious crucifix carved by a missionary in Africa. Horrified by slavery, the missionary seems to have abandoned religion in favour of more radical ideas, and Tomas eventually follows suit. But despite the nominally dramatic events of his journey, the writing strains to evoke feeling. Even when Tomas kills a small child, his response feels muted and flat: “He churns with horror. Then a hand seizes that horror and stuffs it in a box and closes the lid.” The High Mountains of Portugal, in Yann Martel’s novel of that name, turn out to be grassy uplands rather than high mountains; and the book turns out to be three stories rather than a novel. The stories, connected ingeniously, vary greatly in tone and quality. The first two display so little of the author’s narrative skill that they may offer more temptation to stop reading than to go on. Liking the last part of the book much better, I could wish that it stood alone.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. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel | Goodreads

His depiction of loss is raw and deeply affecting but it s the way in which he contextualises it within formal religion that gives this book an extra dimension. Martel s writing is enriched and amplified by the abundance and intricacy of his symbology (touching on Job, St. Peter, Doubting Thomas and the parables of Jesus) and his probing of religion s consolations. Martel is not in the business of providing us with answers, but through its odd, fabulous, deliberately oblique stories, his new novel does ask some big questions. "The Telegraph "(four stars) YM: The High Mountains of Portugal have no mountains, as various characters in the novel discover. And yet these characters have aspirations; they wish to climb mountains. And they do. Tomás wants to climb a mountain to conquer it, out of pride, hurt, mournful madness. Peter quite contentedly lives on a mountain, in a state of blessed detachment. Dr. Lozora has faith that there are mountains. The High Mountains in my novel are a place of heightened being; they are mountains in the mind. A very long sentence, anchored in solid nouns, with countless subordinate clauses, scores of adjectives and adverbs, and bold conjunctions that launched the sentence in a new direction--besides unexpected interludes--has finally, with a surprisingly quiet full stop, come to an end.” And so the explanation for why Agatha Christie is the most popular author in the history of the world. Her appeal is as wide and her dissemination as great as the Bible's, because she is a modern apostle, a female one--about time, after two thousand years of men blathering on. And this new apostle answers the same questions Jesus answered: What are we to do with death? Because murder mysteries are always resolved in the end, the mystery neatly dispelled. We must do the same with death in our lives: resolve it, give it meaning, put it into context however hard that might be.”How much of this, other than the street names, is the reader to accept as plausible? While I’m reading a story, I want to be able to suspend disbelief; the more questions of authorial reliability force themselves on me, the weaker the hold of the narrative. This is a naive approach to fiction, granted, but a tough one, since intellect, cleverness, charm, wit, tact, even fact cannot conceal incredibility. The importance of plausibility to realistic fiction is obvious, but it may be even more important to fantasy, where its failure dumps the reader out of the book on to the cold hill’s side where no birds sing. That's the great, enduring challenge of our modern times, is it not, to marry faith and reason? So hard--so unreasonable--to root our lives upon a distant wisp of holiness. Faith is grand but impractical: How does one live an eternal idea in a daily way? It's so much easier to be reasonable. Reason is practical, its rewards are immediate, its workings are clear. But alas, reason is blind. Reason, on its own, leads us nowhere, especially in the face of adversity. How do we balance the two, how do we live with both faith and reason?”

The High Mountains of Portugal Quotes by Yann Martel - Goodreads The High Mountains of Portugal Quotes by Yann Martel - Goodreads

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. This searching, this improving, is built into the book's prose, reminding us of how subtle and elegant a craftsman Martel is. (Writers of such capacious imagination rarely get enough credit for their sheer abilities as makers and manipulators of sentences; it's always easier to notice the clever new shape of something than the construction of it.) In the novel's first section, the writing carries the undeniable energy of youth, marked by an almost overzealous sense of hurrying and hurtling along. It has no peace. There s no denying the simple pleasures to be had in "The High Mountains of Portugal." "Chicago Tribune" A rich and rewarding experience . . . [Martel] spins his magic thread of hope and despair, comedy and pathos. USA Today Some events are absurd or surreal, especially in Part 2. It contains a plea for a symbolical interpretation of the Bible.

Historically, during most of the 20th century, the Mount Tatamailau, in the former Portuguese Timor, with 2,986 metres (9,797ft), was the highest Portuguese mountain. [1] Mount Pico (2351 m) at Pico Island, the highest mountain of Portugal. Torre (1993 m) at Serra da Estrela, the highest point in Mainland Portugal. Pico Ruivo (1861 m), the highest peak of Madeira Island and the third highest of Portugal. List of mountains in Portugal Name Indeed we can, Maria. For have we not often said that the detective novels of Agatha Christie are written in the very image of the New Testament. And is not Hercule Poirot the true messiah?” Refreshing, surprising and filled with sparkling moments of humor and insight. The Dallas Morning News Mount Torre (Estrela Range) is the tallest mountain in mainland Portugal and the second highest in the whole republic with an elevation of 6,539 feet above sea level. It is found in Seia, Guarda District, Portugal. A unique feature of the peak is that it is accessible by paved roads. Ruivo de Santana