Yann Martel in Pi’s shadow

motif only appears in the third part, when an unassuming Canadian senator develops a fondness for a chimpanzee called Odo. Mr Martel’s ability to draw pictures – often inconceivable – in the reader’s mind is what sets him apart; imagination remains one of his stellar hallmarks.

In The High Mountains of Portugal, Mr Martel starts off on a similar note, narrating the charming story of Tomas, a kooky young museum curator who is so devastated by the death of his child, wife and father that he starts walking backwards. The second part is the tale of a Dr Eusebio Borosa, a pathologist in Braganca, Portugal, in the late 1930s. Here, instead of wandering around the Portuguese countryside, Mr Martel engrosses the reader with the unusual events of one single night in the doctor’s office. The doctor and his wife end up having a discussion about the relationship between gospels and Agatha Christie novels.

In “Homeless”, the first part, the grief-stricken Tomas takes off on an awfully long road trip in search of a religious relic. The story itself is delightfully bizarre, but much like Tomas’ road trip, its duration is painfully long. At times, “Homeless” is a gut-wrenching tale of despair; on other occasions, it is annoying drivel that you fidget for to get over. The emotional value here, though, is exceptionally high, with Mr Martel whipping up a genuinely heart-breaking story.

Despite Tomas’ arduous journey, Mr Martel lights this narrative up with his trademark mix of humour and poignancy. He artfully writes: “And should one trip, what safer way to do so than backwards, the cushioned buttocks blunting one’s fall?” Throughout “Homeless”, Tomas is an object of intrigue and ridicule; a ludicrous character with whom you reluctantly end up falling in love. He later also borrows his uncle’s car – one of the first automobiles in Europe – which he doesn’t know how to drive. A hilarious trip ensues, one which Tomas endures flat tyres, road blocks and mob attacks.

“Homeward”, the second instalment, is equally whimsical. Borosa conducts an autopsy to find a chimpanzee inside the body of a dead man. His wife, Maria, has an unexplained penchant for novels by Christie, with the couple dissecting the plot of every book after reading it. If not for Mr Martel’s ingenuity, this chain of events would have made for difficult reading. But Mr Martel, somewhat remarkably, keeps you glued.

While Mr Martel’s storytelling is often blurred in the first two parts, the third novella, “Home”, set in 1981, is written with startling clarity. Peter Tovy, a Canadian senator who is mourning the loss of his wife, strikes up an improbable friendship with a chimpanzee while on a visit to a primate research institute in Oklahoma in the United States. Months later, he ends up adopting it and moving back to his native village in Portugal. Even as the plausibility of such an occurrence might seem dubious, the relationship between Tovy and the chimpanzee provides some of the loveliest scenes in the book.

If “Homeless” and “Homeward” are two lively preludes, then “Home” is a felicitous culmination to this book full of tragedy, with Mr Martel’s powers of description at their marvellous best. “The volume of air above them is tremendous. Within it, the sun and white clouds are playing off each other. The abundant light is unspeakably gorgeous,” he writes.

The High Mountains of Portugal forces you to think deeply about love, loss, faith, suffering and pain. With his fusion of philosophy, wit and magical realism, Mr Martel confronts the reader with uncomfortable truths, making shrewd life observations along the way. However, the way Mr Martel establishes a connect between three stories set across a century is uncanny and maybe a little unnecessary. The recurring themes make The High Mountains of Portugal both enchanting and laborious.

While there are no actual mountains here, Mr Martel does take the reader for quite a ride. But the ride is awkward and sometimes even distressing. Here, Mr Martel has created an allegory for grief that is not alluring enough. He may no longer be living in the shadow of Life of Pi, but with The High Mountains of Portugal, he isn’t quite out of it either.

While there are no actual mountains here, Mr Martel does take the reader for quite a ride. But the ride is awkward and sometimes even distressing... Mr Martel has created an allegory for grief that is not alluring enough

Yann Martel Canongate 332 pages; ~599