April is animal month on Big Books and Bold Ideas, so I’m kicking things off with a diabolically challenging animal mystery.
Immersed in a life-threatening ordeal, our lead character finds himself accompanied by this animal who will, in many ways, be his salvation.
The animal is both true to his nature and wise in exceptional ways. He will sustain our central character in the most difficult of times and deepen his sense of awe, resilience and determination.
The novel in which this animal appears is a contemporary one, published to great acclaim in this century.
It is full of magic and allegory and adventurous feats and the tale seems both impossible and true, not unlike the gospels and stories at the center of the world’s great religions.
In fact, this novel explores ideas about faith and extremism and acceptance and the author told a journalist that he wanted to write about ”a very difficult theme of religion without wanting to be, in any way, evangelical.”
He added: “I find that we live in an age that is obsessed with facts and that reduces everything to a kind of objectivity. You can’t just operate on facts. It’s very diminishing of who we are.”
Is any of this giving you a hint as to which novel I’m talking about?
OK, a couple more clues about the animal at the center of our literary mystery.
He is powerful, even threatening at times, but he depends on our character as much as our character depends on him.
And when a movie was made of this novel, the director required a real animal, four of them in all, and hundreds of artists who could give the digitized version human-like movements and expressions.
So, can you name the animal, the novel and the author? If you can, email me: kerri@mpr.org.
— Kerri Miller | MPR News
