Paperback, 736 pages
English language
Published July 11, 1997 by Penguin Books.
Harry Mulisch's magnum opus, is a rich mosaic of twentieth-century trauma in which many themes—friendship, loyalty, family, art, technology, religion, fate, good, and evil—suffuse a suspenseful and resplendent narrative.
The Discovery of Heaven begins with the meeting of Onno and Max, two complicated individuals whom fate has mysteriously and magically brought together. They share responsibility for the birth of a remarkable and radiant boy who embarks on a mandated quest that takes the reader all over Europe and to the land where all such quests begin and end. Abounding in philosophical, psychological, and theological, inquiries - yet laced with humor that is as infectious as it is willful - The Discovery of Heaven convinces us that it just might be possible to bring order into the chaos of the world through a story.
--back cover
This is quite different from what I usually read but I liked it a lot. It's just very funny in the beginning, later on it gets a little more dramatic. The only criticism that I have is that the book is ~700 pages of buildup for ~100 pages of payoff, but that seems to be by design.
