THE HIDDEN MOUNTAIN

by Gabrielle Roy ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Pierre Cadoral, a self taught painter, is the central figure and vehicle for a compassionate probe into the loneliness of a dedicated artist's life. Miss Roy's latest novel is set against the vividly described frozen reaches of northern Canada and the softer civilizing airs of France. Driven on by some inner urge which neither he nor the reader fully understands, Pierre works his way north earning an austere living as trapper, hunter and minor, sketching the people, animals and country on his way. Finally, he stumbles dramatically upon a mountain which mysteriously embodies the climax of his search. Struggling to record its perfection in his drawings, he ignores warnings about the oncoming winter and is overtaken by the snows. While recovering in a small coast village he meets Father Le Ronaiec, who arranges for an exhibition of his work in Montreal, and this in turn leads to a government grant on which Pierre travels to Paris. Here he studies the great master paintings and sharpens his technique, but on the threshold of greater work and exhausted by his labors and self-neglect he dies in his Paris studio. Readers who survive the book's humorlessness and philosophical digressions which obstruct the narrative, will be rewarded by a compassionate study of a deeply felt and intimately recorded artistic pilgrimage. The translator does not quite surmount the difficulties of Anglicizing her tortuous prose.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt, Brace & World

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1962

Categories: FICTION