The Discovery of Heaven 412140 211937022 2008-05-12T19:35:56Z PhilipC 326275 rmv review {{Infobox Book | name = The Discovery of Heaven | title_orig = De Ontdekking van de Hemel | translator = [[Paul Vincent]] | image = [[Image:Discovery of heaven.jpg|300px]] | image_caption = | author = [[Harry Mulisch]] | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = Netherlands | language = Dutch | series = | subject = | genre = Magnum Opus | publisher = De Bezige Bij (Dutch) <br> [[Penguin Books]] (English) | release_date = October 1992 | english_release_date = 1996 | media_type = Book | pages = 905 | isbn = ISBN 0-670-85668-1 | preceded_by = The Last Call | followed_by = The Procedure }} '''''The Discovery of Heaven''''' is a [[1992]] [[novel]] by the famous [[Netherlands|Dutch]] author [[Harry Mulisch]]. It describes the intense friendship between two men and the mystical journey of another to return to Heaven the stone tablets containing the [[ten commandments]]. In [[2001]], the novel was made into a film by Dutch director [[Jeroen Krabbé]]. The film features [[Stephen Fry]] as Onno and [[Flora Montgomery]] as Ada. ==Plot summary== '''The Discovery of Heaven''' tells the story of an [[angel]]-like being, who is ordered to return to [[Heaven]] the stone tablets containing the [[ten commandments]], given to [[Moses]] by [[God]], which symbolise in the book the link between [[Heaven]] and [[Earth]]. The divine being, however, cannot himself travel to Earth, and on several occasions in the book resorts to influencing events, being in effect a deliberate personification of [[deus ex machina]]. He affects the personal lives of three people (two men and one woman) in order that a child will be conceived. This child would then have an innate desire to seek out and return the Tablets. The book consists of four parts (dubbed "The Beginning of the Beginning", "The End of the Beginning", "The Beginning of the End", and "The End of the End"). In between these four parts, the angel-like being discusses "The Plan" with his superior, who is supposedly an [[archangel]]. ===The Beginning of the Beginning=== The book begins with the angel reporting to his superior that 'the job is done', and beginning to recount the events. He explains that after seventy years' work and planning, he has created a messenger to return the Tablets, and how, in order for the messenger to be conceived, he first needed to allow the birth of the messenger's parents. He then explains how the [[World War I|First]] and [[Second World War]] were instrumental in this. The messenger's father, Max Delius, was born of a [[judaism|Jewish]] mother and a [[Germany|German]] officer in [[1933]]. The messenger's mother, Ada Brons, is born in 1946 to [[Netherlands|Dutch]] parents, who also meet in WWII. A third man, Onno Quist, is born into a renowned Dutch [[Anti-Revolutionaire Partij|Conservative]] political family, also in the year [[1933]]. The angel arranges for the men, Onno and Max, to meet in [[1967]]. Onno has just left a family gathering and is in need of a ride to [[Amsterdam]]. By apparent chance to the characters, but clearly a [[deus ex machina]]-effect to the reader, Max is the one to give him a ride. They become friends: Onno and Max's personalities are highly [[complementary]]. Onno is an [[introvert]]ed, rather arrogant and highly intelligent professional [[linguistics|linguist]]. While Onno is trying to 'find God' in the [[Phaistos Disc|Diskos of Phaistos]], Max is trying to 'discover Heaven' through [[astronomy]]. A more [[extrovert]]ed, [[erotomanious]] astronomer, Max is haunted by his rather dark family history: Max' mother, a Jewish woman, was purportedly murdered in [[Auschwitz]], on instigation of his father, an Austrian officer in the [[Wehrmacht]]. After the war his father was imprisoned and later executed by the firing squad. Max was consequently raised by foster parents. Onno and Max' friendship reaches a high in the many vibrant conversations they have in [[Leiden]] and [[Amsterdam]], in experiencing the revolution of the sixties. Their conversations are filled with great wit and intellect and range over many facets of life: [[science]], [[history]], [[politics]], but especially [[religion]] and [[philosophy]]. Their friendship, however, absorbs them so much that it forces a break between Onno and his girlfriend, Helga. During a walk in Leiden they come across a small bookshop. Here Max meets Ada, the daughter of the owner and a gifted [[cello|cellist]]. The two become three. Ada and Max fall in love. This is rather new for both of them: Ada, who is only twenty, loses her virginity to Max, who has never had a lasting relationship with a woman. Max, sex-crazy, cannot stay faithful to Ada, and they break up. Max is also haunted by his family history. Moved by [[Roma music]], who too suffered from the [[Shoah]], he goes to [[Auschwitz]], [[Poland]], to seek his parents' history. Ada and Onno, left alone by the sudden departure of Max, fall in love. When Max returns he sees his best friend with his former girlfriend, but he accepts this change. Onno, meanwhile, has become deputy mayor for the [[Partij van de Arbeid|Labour party]] in Amsterdam and begins his political career. Although nearly everything has changed, their friendship still seems very strong. The three of them then go to [[Cuba]], (where [[Fidel Castro|Castro]] has recently gained power and is fashionable in the leftist elite), and Ada is asked to play the cello. In Cuba, Max and Onno are mistaken for the Dutch delegation to a revolutionary conference, which they attend more as a joke than anything else. On their last day on the island, Onno is seduced by a Cuban woman. Max is unable to suppress his feelings for Ada and makes love to her. Directly after this event, Onno and Ada meet each other in their hotel room, and sleep with each other. ===The End of the Beginning=== Back in the Netherlands, Ada finds out she is pregnant. The child was conceived in Cuba. She tells this to Onno, who then proposes to marry her, assuming the child is his. Max realizes the child is equally likely to be his and decides to leave Ada and Onno, filled with feelings of guilt. After the marriage, he leaves for [[Westerbork]],(a former [[concentration camp]] in the Netherlands, now hosting one of Europe's biggest [[radio telescope]]s). Onno and Ada still visit Max. On one of their visits to Westerbork, Ada receives a phone call from a Leiden hospital: her father has had a heart attack. The three of them drive back to Leiden and are caught in bad weather. Their car crashes. Max and Onno escape without a scratch. Ada, however, is badly hurt and falls into a coma, but the child she is carrying has survived. Max is sent to Leiden to inform Ada's mother, Mrs. (Sophie) Brons, about the events. He arrives in Leiden in the middle of the night. Mr Brons has died and Ada is in coma. Mrs. Brons convinces Max that he must stay the night. Max and Mrs. Brons sleep together. Max begins to visit Mrs. Brons frequently. During the day the two maintain a formal relationship and are secretly lovers at night. Ada and Onno's child still survives and needs a home. Onno cannot take care of the child alone, and he also has a bright political future. Max suggests to Mrs, Brons that she move to Westerbork. Together they can raise Ada's child in Westenbork and continue their affair. ===The Beginning of the End=== The child is born through [[Caesarean section]]. The child has bright blue eyes. Onno calls the child Quinten. Max and Mrs. Brons move to an apartment near Westenbork in a former castle, now inhabited by artists and [[eccentrics]]. Quinten grows up to be an introverted, peaceful child as intelligent as his father. (The reader has the knowledge that Max is the father) He is obsessed by architecture, ancient keys and obelisks. Onno, who is absorbed by his political career, only infrequently visits his son. As Quinten grows up he is haunted by dreams of a strange, otherworldly place that has no outside but only an inside. This inside is filled with strange bridges, cranes and architecture. This fuels his interest in architecture and causes him to obsessively make drawings of this place. He also takes care of an old cemetery lot in the garden of the castle, where a racing horse is buried. He seems a rather strange child. Meanwhile Onno's political career is destroyed, when his visit to revolutionary Cuba is made public. His position within the Labour Party is unretainable and he is not promoted to minister of Defense. That same day, his new girlfriend (Helga again) is killed. With very little left to live for, Onno decides to disappear. Max, meanwhile, has returned to his old tricks. He leaves Mrs. Brons for another woman but still lives with her and Quinten. Scientifically he is on the verge of making a major astronomical discovery. When he is on the verge of discovering heaven, he is killed by a freak asteroid, sent from heaven by the Angel. (In the movie, Gabriel sends the meteor, even after Angel complains and explains that they still need Max.) ===The End of the End=== When Quinten is 16, he decides to look for his father. Except for his mother and grandmother he has very little that binds him to Westerbork. He goes to [[Italy]]. He visits [[Venice]] and [[Florence]] but through meetings with strange people, he is forced to flee both cities. He eventually arrives in [[Rome]]. In the [[Pantheon, Rome|Pantheon]], he is approached by a strange man with a long beard and a raven on his shoulder. He realizes that it is his father. Onno has fled to Rome and has filled his life with his original quest to decipher the Diskos of Phaistos. Onno takes Quinten on a tour through Rome. Although they haven't seen each other in years, their relationship is close. Onno recognizes a lot of his friend, Max, in Quinten. When they visit the [[Lateran]] (one of Rome's holiest sights), Quinten is convinced that he remembers the place from his dreams and that the stone tablets are stored there. He becomes obsessed with the place and with the role of the stone tablets in Christianity and Judaism. After weeks of study, Quinten convinces his father to steal the stone tablet. One night they stay for too long in the Lateran and are locked in. With Quinten's study of ancient architecture and locksmithing and Onno's encyclopedic knowledge, they open the chapel of the Lateran and in a safe they find two stone tablets, grey slabs. Later they learn that the slabs are made of a bright blue gem. They take the first flight from Rome to [[Tel Aviv]], [[Israel]]. Onno and Quinten stay in [[Jerusalem]] and visit the city's sights, including the [[Dome of the Rock]], where the stone tablets were stored for ages when the Jews inhabited the city, before the Romans sacked the temple. After meeting an elderly woman who speaks Dutch, with very blue eyes and [[Holocaust|numbers tattooed]] on her arm, Onno realizes that she might be Max' mother and Quinten's grandmother. He goes to tell Quinten. But he cannot find him. In a state of distress he calls Mrs. Brons. He learns that Ada has died; Mrs. Brons, a former nurse has performed [[euthanasia]]. While speaking with her on the phone, Onno suffers a stroke. Quinten has gone into a hallucinative state. In a sort of dream world, filled with references to Judaic mysticism, he returns to the Dome of the Rock with the stone tablets. He meets his father's raven and the race horse, whose burial place he kept. In the Dome of the Rock he ascends to heaven with the tablets. Back in heaven, the Angel is commended for his deeds by the Archangel. The Angel, however, feels remorse for breaking the link between heaven and earth. But the situation is no longer in his control. ==Interpretation== {{Unreferenced|date=May 2007}} [[Harry Mulisch]] said that this book is his magnum opus. It is his best-known and best-selling work. It is his fourth work to be made into a film. It includes all the major themes form his earlier work: the [[Second World War]], the [[Shoah]], the [[Students' revolt]] of the sixties, [[Judaism]], [[Philosophy]] and [[Jewish Mysticism|Jewish]] and [[Classical Mysticism]]. The War is given purpose through the actions of the Angels, and the Shoah remains a haunting dream for Mulisch. The students' revolt, in which Mulisch was an active participant, is described with much insight. Judaism, philosophy and mysticism are all blended with great complexity. The book is also a homage to a friendship. Onno Quist is based on [[Jan Hein Donner|Hein Donner]], a famous Dutch chessplayer and a close friend of Mulisch's who died some years before the '''Discovery of Heaven''' was published. He too came from a conservative political family and was a respected sight in Amsterdam's leftist elite. The book is also partially biographical. The first part of the book in particular, where the intense friendship between the two men is described, can be seen as a memorial by Mulisch to a friend. Max Delius resembles Mulisch. Both are partially Jewish, haunted by the war and obsessed with women. Mulisch also visited Cuba during the sixties, and he too was part of the students revolt. The book has been criticized for being a vehicle to Mulisch's ego and for flaunting his knowledge. The book is full of quotes from [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[German language|German]], [[Egyptian language|Egyptian]], [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Latin]]. Most are left untranslated. The book is filled with facts which relate to such diverse things as the film ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]'', complex [[astrophysics]], and [[Renaissance philosophy]]. One of the chapters is called 'Italienische Reise', a clear reference to [[Goethe]], whom Mulisch aspires to surpass. ==Film, TV or theatrical adaptations== In 2001 the book was made a movie by [[Jeroen Krabbé]]. Mulisch allowed the film on one condition: the English comedian [[Stephen Fry]] should play Onno Quist.{{Fact|date=May 2007}} Physically the resemblance between Fry and [[Hein Donner]] is striking. The humour of both men also is rather similar. The rest was left up to Krabbé. Krabbé kept very close to the book, but removed some of the longer pieces (especially on the friendship between Max and Onno and the youth of Quinten) and changed some events for dramatic reasons. ==External links== *[http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/mulischh/heaven.htm ''The Discovery of Heaven''] A collection of book reviews at The Complete Review *{{imdb title|id=0251052|title=The Discovery of Heaven}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Discovery of Heaven, The}} [[Category:1992 novels]] [[Category:Dutch films]] [[Category:Dutch novels]] [[bs:Otkriće neba (roman)]] [[de:Die Entdeckung des Himmels]] [[fr:La Découverte du ciel]] [[hr:Otkriće neba]] [[nl:De ontdekking van de hemel]]