The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch
Irving Malin

Harry Mulisch. The Discovery of Heaven. Trans. Paul Vincent. Viking, 1996. 729 pp. $34.95.

Although I have read this erudite, witty masterpiece only once, I must assert that it is one of the great novels since World War II. The novel—filled with references to The New Atlantis; the Pythagorian theory of numbers; the chromatic scale; the kabbalistic reading of the Old Testament as gematria—does not ever become a dull encyclopedia; it is, indeed, a moving narrative of fathers and sons, of “accidental” deaths, of “the very thing that happens” (Edson’s mysterious, ordinary phrase).

The novel is divided into four parts: “The Beginning of the Beginning”; “The End of the Beginning”; “The Beginning of the End,” and “The End of the End.” The four-part structure introduces the ideas of “origins and ends,” almost symmetrical designs, mystical meanings of number. And to complicate matters, the novel begins and ends with “heavenly conversation and/or creation.” These conversations cast an uncanny, spectral dimension on the material world. Thus we are not surprised that names are odd—the cryptographer “onno”; his “son” “Quinten” referred to as “QuQu”; the mother “Ada”—think of Nabokov who is mentioned often—who “exists” in a coma and somehow gives birth to Quinten. Events which seem arbitrary and meaningless assume great significance when they recur in slightly different ways. The notions of transformation, paradox, and inversion (perversion, subversion) haunt the novel.

If we look at any page, we discover that there is a “discovery” which may be hidden by the revelation of another “discovery.” The novel is filled with secrets, clues to a final solution—yes, there are crucial references to the Holocaust—which is never final. The “solution” is, often, the “mystery.” Here is a representative passage. Onno thinks of Ada: “Perhaps, he thought, true pure love, like all flowers, flourished best, with its roots in muck and mud. Perhaps that was a law of life that held everything together: the day which was day only by the grace of the night. But if the day was defined by the night, then wasn’t there an element of night at the heart of the day? Was the day really the true, pure day? Was there a black cuckoo at the heart of the day?” Consider this passage closely—it plays with the notion of “opposites” (night and day, man and woman, flower and muck); suggests that “opposition” is, perhaps, a matter of perspective. But there is also unity. There is the sense that everything holds together briefly.

We would not expect such linguistic, philosophical, theological passages to move us, but we are hypnotized by the heavenly style. Perhaps only a Dutch writer—a Spinoza?—can create honey in “geometry.” At the novel’s end the angels converse about the meaning of the text. The novel ends with these words spoken by one angel who refuses to accept the final “meaning,” the “last call” (another Mulisch title): “Do you hear me? I’m not leaving it at that! How do they have the nerve? Who do they think they are, the upstarts! Answer me!” The angel is answered by the blankness of the page. And perhaps, the blankness is the very space which preceeds another “Beginning of the Beginning.” [Irving Malin]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch Irving Malin Harry Mulisch. The Discovery of Heaven. Trans. Paul Vincent. Viking, 1996. 729 pp. $34.95. Although I have read this erudite, witty masterpiece only once, I must assert that it is one of the great novels since World War II. The novel—filled with references to The New Atlantis; the Pythagorian theory of numbers; the chromatic scale; the kabbalistic reading of the Old Testament as gematria—does not ever become a dull encyclopedia; it is, indeed, a moving narrative of fathers and sons, of “accidental” deaths, of “the very thing that happens” (Edson’s mysterious, ordinary phrase). The novel is divided into four parts: “The Beginning of the Beginning”; “The End of the Beginning”; “The Beginning of the End,” and “The End of the End.” The four-part structure introduces the ideas of “origins and ends,” almost symmetrical designs, mystical meanings of number. And to complicate matters, the novel begins and ends with “heavenly conversation and/or creation.” These conversations cast an uncanny, spectral dimension on the material world. Thus we are not surprised that names are odd—the cryptographer “onno”; his “son” “Quinten” referred to as “QuQu”; the mother “Ada”—think of Nabokov who is mentioned often—who “exists” in a coma and somehow gives birth to Quinten. Events which seem arbitrary and meaningless assume great significance when they recur in slightly different ways. The notions of transformation, paradox, and inversion (perversion, subversion) haunt the novel. If we look at any page, we discover that there is a “discovery” which may be hidden by the revelation of another “discovery.” The novel is filled with secrets, clues to a final solution—yes, there are crucial references to the Holocaust—which is never final. The “solution” is, often, the “mystery.” Here is a representative passage. Onno thinks of Ada: “Perhaps, he thought, true pure love, like all flowers, flourished best, with its roots in muck and mud. Perhaps that was a law of life that held everything together: the day which was day only by the grace of the night. But if the day was defined by the night, then wasn’t there an element of night at the heart of the day? Was the day really the true, pure day? Was there a black cuckoo at the heart of the day?” Consider this passage closely—it plays with the notion of “opposites” (night and day, man and woman, flower and muck); suggests that “opposition” is, perhaps, a matter of perspective. But there is also unity. There is the sense that everything holds together briefly. We would not expect such linguistic, philosophical, theological passages to move us, but we are hypnotized by the heavenly style. Perhaps only a Dutch writer—a Spinoza?—can create honey in “geometry.” At the novel’s end the angels converse about the meaning of the text. The novel ends with these words spoken by one angel who refuses to accept the final “meaning,” the “last call” (another Mulisch title): “Do you hear me? I’m not leaving it at that! How do they have the nerve? Who do they think they are, the upstarts! Answer me!” The angel is answered by the blankness of the page. And perhaps, the blankness is the very space which preceeds another “Beginning of the Beginning.” [Irving Malin]

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