In Paradise

By Peter Matthiessen

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In Paradise tells the story of a group of men and women who come together for a weeklong meditation retreat at the site of a World War II concentration camp, and the grief, rage and upsetting revelations that surface during their time together. Even as it probes the suffering, conflicts, and longings of these diverse characters, In Paradise raises provocative and unanswerable metaphysical questions: what responsibility comes with bearing witness to such cruelty and tragedy; and what insights into the nature of good and evil may be lost in the next decade or two, as the last survivors of – and witnesses to – the death camps pass away. Having participated in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz beginning in the 1990s, Matthiessen had long wished to comment on the ongoing fallout of last century's global catastrophe, but ‘as a non-Jewish American journalist, I felt unqualified to do so, I felt I had no right. But approaching it as fiction – as a novelist, an artist – I eventually decided that I did. Only fiction would allow me to probe from a variety of viewpoints the great strangeness of what I had felt.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Release date: Apr 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780745565

Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen is a three-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and nonfiction writer, as well as an environmental activist. His nonfiction has featured nature and travel, as in The Snow Leopard, or American Indian issues and history, as in his detailed study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. He lives with his wife in Sagaponack, New York.

Reviews for In Paradise

[maryhollis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Based on the journal that Peter Matthiessen kept during a spiritual retreat ( Mattheissen was a Zen Buddhist) in Auuschwitz/Birkenau, IN PARADISE tells the story of Clements Olin, who, in 1996, joins a disparate group of people who gather in a spiritual retreat at a former Nazi death camp in Poland.
I realize that this would not be an easy book to write, either as fiction or non-fiction. Although I read it in its entirety, I kept wanting to send it back to the library, unfinished. There were so many cliches, so many stereotypes that, in the end, the book became a detached piece of writing that somehow trivialized the subject matter.

[margitc_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this book but the audio version seemed to go on forever. When I saw the actual book at the library I was surprised at how short it was and somewhat disappointed at the amount of time I had put into listening to the book when I could have read it so much more quickly. I did not enjoy listening to the reader, Although it was interesting hearing him pronounce names and places I would have mangled, there were times when he was trying to provide an effect for a character that were just irritating. As for the story itself, I had a hard time understanding some of the main characters actions. I don't believe you have to like the characters in a book to like the book but the point is understanding and I'm not. Maybe it will come to me later.

[andrea58_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The only other book by this author which I have read is The Snow Leopard. Hard to tell this was written by the same person, I am glad I had the Audio version since I think I would have struggled with reading this book. The characters are mostly unlikeable. The setting and story are gloomy at best. It doesn't really go anywhere. I did learn a lot about Poland during the war. But mostly you are waiting to find out each persons motivation for attending the retreat and their history. It was disappointing.

[fuzzy_patters · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This isn't my first Matthiessen. I also read Shadow Country. I thought that one was much better than this one. This story about Clement Olin's quest to Auschwitz to learn what happened to his mother and his possible affair with a novice seemed pointless to me. I think Matthiessen was trying to hit on how religion complicates peoples' true feelings, but I didn't connect with the story enough to care.

[shazjhb · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I disliked this book intensely. The main twist was somewhat obvious. The characters were boring. Do not read this book. There are tons of other books on the subject that are far more interesting and better written.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Professor D. Olin Clements (What does the “D” stand for and what is the ultimate implication of the name?), born in Poland, but raised in America, is doing research for a monograph he is writing. He returns to Poland, a place he left as a child, and spends time at a retreat in a former concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau. He is an outsider, attending with a group of people who have come from many countries, representing many religions, many opinions, many memories, a half century after the war’s end, to bear witness and honor the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Each attendee was affected by the war in different ways, and soon, as they interact and speak about their experiences disharmony develops, and they begin to snipe at, and taunt each other, slinging insults and even questioning the right of some to share their stories, questioning their reasons for attending the retreat, questioning their self-righteousness, even the genuineness of their shame and their guilt for having survived the war. Often it was because they participated, “only following orders”, or were more aggressive as prisoners, or ignored the plight of those who were made to suffer, those who were uprooted, robbed of everything they ever had, not only of their belongings and their heritage, but of every living soul ever known to them, as well. Did they deserve the right to even attend the retreat, holding services in the mess hall and the residences and on the platforms used by the SS? Were they trying to obtain forgiveness for themselves rather than honor the memory of those that they, in their silence and acquiescence, helped lead to the slaughter. Was the escapee justified when his escape resulted in reprisals that caused the death of other innocent victims? Was his life worth the death of so many others?They performed their services to the memories of those who died, in the shadow of the place the barracks once stood, in the shadow of the crematoria where the ghosts of the victims may still loiter, in the shadow of the overcrowded platforms that echo with the sound of the barking dogs and the German soldiers screaming Raus, Raus at the teeming masses of prisoners as they worked to accomplish Hitler’s Final Solution.The novel is extremely blunt and outspoken. The conversations and confessions of the attendees more clearly express the horror than a simple narrative would do. In Poland, even after the war, in the effort to make the country Judenrein, the Poles, who swore they knew nothing, murdered an additional 2000 returning Jews, so that today, there are far less still living there. From 4 million, of which 3 million were murdered, there are approximately 25,000 souls today. Could those who participated, in any way at all, ever be forgiven? Could future generations ever be forgiven? Should anyone ever forget the sadistic monsters that planned, participated in and rejoiced in the prospect of a country that was Judenrein? The age old question is also, should they be forgiven or forgotten at all?The author does not attempt to reconcile or justify any part of the Holocaust, rather he seems to be exploring the possibility of understanding it, from the point of view of the witnesses,, via confession and absolution. The hard, sharp edges that surround the border of hate and distrust, fear and resentment, jealousy and greed, are exposed. Because the information is presented in an uninhibited, raw manner, making it hard to read and absorb, at times, the information that has been presented countless times before, seems almost new again. Clements discovers secrets about his past as he interacts with the other members of the retreat. He is descended from the aristocracy and did not realize that he had more in common with others who bore witness than he could ever have imagined. Do his ancestors bear any guilt, and if they do, does he by proxy? Having recently read “The Storyteller”, by Jodi Picoult, which has at its heart, the same theme concerning the Holocaust, I thought that this story felt more authentic and genuine. Using the same kinds of characters as Picoult did, coming from all walks of life, the Rabbinate, the Church, the atheist, Mattheissen approaches it without the artifice of a sexually charged love story, although there is a theme of self-discovery with thoughts about a forbidden romance. Every aspect of emotion behind the genocide is exposed and worked through by the characters, brutally and vigorously, laying bare the wounds and scars remembered, and yet the novel is not very long. The Shoah can never be justified or excused, it can only be memorialized in the hope that it will never recur. Anti-Semitism still exists. It exists between Jew and Jew, Christian and Jew, Muslim and Jew. It is perpetuated by hateful teaching in homes and in schools and in houses of worship. It is handed down like a legacy from family to family. I felt that the more explanations were offered, the more questions were raised. What do sanctuaries provide for the dead victims? What do memorial services offer to the survivors? The only service the retreat and study of the Holocaust seems to provide, is a possible road to some kind of acceptance of the fact that the horror occurred, that we have to move on, but that we cannot forget, that we must always actively try to prevent this abominable anomaly from ever occurring again, anywhere. Many others suffered besides Jews, the Holocaust does not belong to them, although they have claimed it, but it destroyed the bulk of Jews, fully half their numbers, so systematically, so heartlessly, so sadistically, that it is not easily explained, understood or excused, rather it defies any sane explanation. This is a hard book to absorb, but I found it worthwhile.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

D. Clements Olin, a professor in the United States, goes on a spiritual retreat to Auschwitz in 1996, ostensibly to research the poet Tadeusz Borowski, but also with a personal quest of his own.This quiet, introspective novel speaks of the impossibility of making sense of such a terrible tragedy in which, the characters seem to be telling us, all of us are guilty, culpable, or capable of great harm. Yet in the bleakness there is also hope, beauty and love. Each of the characters has his or her own reason for being on this retreat, and readers will struggle with them as they try to make sense of history and their own lives.

[icolford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In Peter Matthiessen’s final novel, In Paradise, it is 1996 and a dour middle-aged American academic named D. Clements Olin has journeyed to Oświęcim, Poland to the site of the former Auschwitz death camp where between 1941 and 1944 more than a million prisoners—90% of them Jewish—were exterminated. His stated purpose is to conduct research into the life and work of Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski, who was imprisoned there. But he is also traveling for reasons that are much more personal, because this region of Poland is his family’s ancestral homeland, and his convoluted individual history is riddled with gaps that he hopes this visit will fill in. A spiritual retreat is taking place at the camp, which is now a museum, and Olin has inserted himself into the midst of the participants—a group that includes people from all walks of life and many nationalities, Germans, Jews, Poles, nuns, priests, teachers and Zen masters among them—as an observer. As the week progresses he goes from keeping a sardonic distance from what is going on around him to partaking in prayer and discussions and finally getting up on stage to bear witness. Olin’s back-story emerges slowly, the details being revealed to the reader only when Olin begins to face up to them to himself, and with some local help his search provides some revelations. Novels that address the tragic horrors of European history in the middle years of the previous century can fall prey to sentimentality, or resort to pummeling the reader with one horrific scene after another to get the point across. That is not the case here. Matthiessen is more concerned with the shadow of guilt that Nazi crimes have left behind and which stretches vividly and painfully into the present day, and with the enormous upheaval inflicted on the lives of those who managed to survive. Olin’s discoveries are shattering, but there is a certain bloodlessness to the narrative that prevents the reader from sharing in the emotional turmoil that Olin undergoes. A lot of the action is cerebral, people talk and agree and disagree, occasionally heatedly. The drama is muted and there is little suspense generated. Olin the man—interesting though he may be—remains a distant and somewhat forbidding presence. In Paradise may be exquisitely written, but it is not a novel for the casual reader. Without a doubt Peter Matthiessen is one of the most versatile and ambitious American writers to emerge in the second half of the twentieth century (see The Snow Leopard, Far Tortuga and At Play in the Fields of the Lord) but In Paradise is not likely to rise to the front ranks of his works.

[dpappas_25 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The point of life is to help others through it— who said that? We must help the living while we can, since the dead have no more need of us.This took me longer to read than I thought it would and when I finished it I was relieved to have finally finished it. I spent the time I was reading it having a like/hate relationship with it. I didn't like the way this was written as at times it was confusing as to what was going on and sometimes I couldn't tell if someone was speaking or if it was just Olin's thoughts. Most of the characters were not all that likeable, especially Olin. I enjoyed when Olin discussed his family as those parts were the most interesting to me. I could have done without the parts between Olin and Sister Catherine and hated what happened with them at the end. This wasn't what I thought it would be and I am too impatient these days to have to wade through this and interpret the symbolism just to enjoy the book.

[lsutiger_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a hard book to read for a variety of reasons. One reason is simply the description of events that occurred in the Holocaust at Auschwitz; the author describes these events in graphic detail on occasion as the main character, Clements Olin, and others are taking a tour of the concentration camp in order to "bear witness" to the atrocities that happened there. It's also hard to read because the author shows us by telling these characters stories that the world has not really learned anything from the Holocaust. There are still extreme prejudices present, an "us versus them" mentality, even considering who has the right to grieve for the dead.And yet, there are moments of beauty. There is a magical chapter in which many participants find themselves spontaneously dancing together in the camp. It is a brief coming together of humanity, but it is followed by people questioning how and why the dancing happened. As well as some guilt about how they could participate in an act of joy in a death camp.I think the late Mr. Matthiessen was a very good writer, and he allows us to truly care and empathize with the stories held throughout the book and why participants react the way they do. Unfortunately, the one aspect of the book that I really didn't care for was a bizarre love story that was thrown in the plot. We learn that Clements has been a womanizer all his life, unable to truly connect with just one woman, and yet then he wrestles romantic feelings to a Catholic novice awaiting her acceptance in the Holy Orders. It seemed out of place in the story, but then so is dancing in a death camp. It just seems odd that the book should end in that fashion.I should also note that this review is based on the audiobook presentation of this novel. To that end, I have to say that the reader, Mark Bramhill, did an amazing job with the narration. He did the various voices and accents exceedingly well.

[lilac_lily01 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book provides a new perspective of the holocaust death camps. So much has been written about the horrendous crimes that took place in Auschwitz and similar concentration camps that I wasn't sure if the author could add anything. But he did.I enjoyed listening to the story as much as one can "enjoy" such a sad topic. The only thing that I didn't like was the narrators pronunciation of German words, as well as his version of a "German" Accent. You could tell that he obviously isn't familiar with the language and at times it was difficult to understand what he was saying when he mispronounced the German words. But other than that it's an interesting read and I would recommend it!

[jpporter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of David Clements Olin (nee Olinski), the bastard son of a Polish nobleman who fled Poland at the outset of WWII with his parents, finding and bringing David (who would later go by the name Clements) to the U.S. The boy never knew what happened to his mother.Clements, a distinguished professor and poet, attends a retreat being held at Auschwitz (Oswiecim, in Polish) ostensibly to participate in "being witness" to the events that took place there. However, the poet has another mission in mind. Moreover, during the retreat he encounters a Catholic novitiate - Catherine - who is on probation. Clements - who has a history of being unable to connect emotionally with people - seems attracted to Catherine, who, in turn, seems to be unable to articulate her feelings.This is Matthiessen's last book (he died before it went into print), and it maintains the standards that have characterized his other works. It is a worthy capstone to an excellent body of work. The book is rich with ruminations on the holocaust as we reach a period in history where the number of witnesses to its horrors are nearing zero, and later generations begin asking why we continue to dwell on such a sordid event.A definite must-read.

[sschaller-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I cannot count how many books I have read about Nazi Germany for I am drawn to these sad novels where people die and somehow there is still hope. I find that the best of these books set in this time period are character driven. It is the story that makes the ultimate connection with the reader and not just the events. The events are known and have been well documented to the point off almost numbness and maybe this is what this book is trying to get at- the numbness of atrocity. This book was difficult to be engaged with. I did not care for the characters and I thought the orator sounded dull and lifeless. Personally, I found the book boring and could not get through the second half.

[markhufstetler · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've long been a fan of Peter Matthiessen's nature writings, and intrigued by the author's personal story, and so was very pleased to receive a audiobook copy of In Paradise through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I was expecting a somewhat difficult and thought-provoking volume, and in that I was not disappointed ... but I left the book with a curiously unsatisfied feeling, and that did disappoint me.There are a couple of different ways to look at this book -- an observation on the hypocrisy and mental peril of "disaster tourism," and broader thoughts on the conflicted coexistence of tragedy and joy. This book highlights both of these thoughts very powerfully, but does so in a way that largely failed to draw me in. The flaws and secrets of the characters don't engage the reader, but keep one at a suspicious distance that doesn't allow the book to get some of the nuance of message across. I grew weary of the characters fairly quickly.For me, at least, as both an historian and a humanist, the true message of the book is this: it's time for all of us to leave our memories of war, and move on.

[sandsing7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've started this review several times, and am still at a loss of where to begin. In Paradise is a heavy read, and I mean that in the loveliest of ways. Words and phrases matter so much here that, although the audiobook was well done, I would have to recommend reading this book in a hard copy format, as there were times when the audiobook went by just a bit too fast (as audiobooks are want to do, of course) and I couldn't savor the language or the moment in the way it was meant to be savored. As a teacher of the Holocaust, there is much here to reflect upon, and I enjoyed the way it challenged me.

[elleayess-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received the audio book version of this book for review. In the beginning of the book, I found the narrator's voice very pleasing and the actual words most entertaining. I loved the writing style of the author. The story carried me through about half of the CD's (half the story), but then it just started getting aggravating "hearing" the narration of the arguing between the characters in the book. I never really did connect with any of the characters, but did find the boisterous, annoying one entertaining after a while. To be able to listen to the book while I did other tasks is what helped me to get through the book. If I actually had to read it, I would have probably given up half way through and picked up a new book. I wouldn't have had the patience to get through reading it. If the center of the story was omitted, I really doubt it would have had much bearing on the end of the story, just my opinion. I am giving the book four stars because, as stated before, I enjoyed the author's writing style.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Peter Matthiessen, who is one of my favorite non-fiction writers, died this year on April 5th four days after the publication of his final novel. In Paradise is a peculiar story. It has the intensity of a work by an investigative journalist, with the compelling beauty of a wonderfully written novel. Clements Olin is an American scholar of Polish descent. He travels to Poland to attempt to discover the identity of his mother. He arrives to participate in a week-long retreat at Auschwitz. Along with about 100 others, they pray, meditate, and eat and live in the quarters occupied by the German military officers in charge of the camp. One of the most interesting aspects of the story is the eclectic group of people on this retreat. There are devout Jews and Christians, Catholic nuns and monks, a defrocked priest, atheists and believers, Germans, Poles, American, English, and French citizens. As the week progresses, emotions bubble to the surface, and things collapse into near chaos.Even Olin questions his right to be there, as well as his purpose as a participant. He is not Jewish, and has no apparent connection to the Holocaust. He has a faded picture of a woman waving out a window, whom he believes to be his mother. The woman lived in the town near the camp. He tries to locate the house in the picture, but the townspeople are suspicious, and Olin fears violence. In his inimitable style, Matthiessen describes the landscape, “The road follows the Vistula upriver westward across the frozen landscape; blue-gray hills of the Tatra Mountains and Slovakia rise in the south. Here and there along the way stand stone houses with steep roofs to shed the snows, most of them guarded by spiked iron fences (wolves and brigands?). These dwellings crowd the road in seeming dread of those dark ranks of evergreens that march down the white faces of the hills beyond like Prussian regiments (or Austro-Hungarian or Russian) crossing some hinterland of Bloody Poland, which has no natural boundaries against invaders” (14).Like the landscape, In Paradise has no natural boundaries. People are pulled in from all over the world, and most are repulsed by the physical remnants of that unspeakable horror. I found the narrative somewhat disturbing. Despite the negative aspects of the story, it was profoundly absorbing. The characters, who spoke up during the retreat, revealed individual reasons for coming to Auschwitz. Matthiessen held my attention to the last word. I had already seen and heard these stories many times, but Matthiessen put a new face on the evil. He showed how the experience changed the characters – most prominently, Clements Olin himself. If you have never read any literature of the holocaust, In Paradise represents a new look at a story that cannot, must not ever be forgotten. 5 stars.--Chiron, 7/29/14

[jennysbookbag.com · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Well, I gave it my 50-page test and lost interest. Moving on.

[jcambridge_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While i am a fan of Peter Matthiessen, I found this to be a very difficult read -- it was a struggle to finish it. The Holocaust is a difficult topic for most any reader or writer. Having visited Auschwitz and Birkenau more than 40 years ago and having traveled extensively in Europe since that time (including Poland and Germany), I found the characters and the views very believable which is perhaps what made the book all the more challenging.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A rather strange thing happened to me while reading this novel. I went to bed last night, leaving forty pages unread and all set to give this book a three star rating. Not because this is not well written, at 86 Matthiessen has definitely perfected his craft, but because I felt so distant from the characters. Anyway I went to bed and dreamt this novel, that I was one of the participants at the retreat trying to come to terms with the horrible things that have happened there. I woke up realizing that the camp itself, Auschwitz, was the main character and that the characters were only a device used to tell the story.A week long retreat at Auschwitz, attended by 100 people of diverse nationalities, religions and sex. Headed by a Zen teacher (of which the author is a practioner himself) they are there for remembrance, meditation, hoping to gain an understanding and come to terms with the past. Also a man named Clements Olin, who is said to be a researcher trying to figure out why the Polish author Tadeiz Borowski, who wrote stories and poems of his experiences while sentenced to camp, committed suicide at the age of 28. He is mentioned extensively In the first part of the novel. The pervasive atmosphere effects each of these people in different ways.The second part of the novel, unravels the personal lives of many of them, why they are really there, what they hoped to find, feel.This is also when the story of Olin is revealed and he must come to terms with a past, of which has only shortly been made aware.This is a novel told in a very unemotional matter, the place itself provides the emotion, the awareness of what when on there, what the characters see and feel. Many leave with a new understanding, Olin among them. Some find their lives changed and more secrets are revealed. So I had to give this a four, it was amazingly constructed, and the reader gets a chance to read about the many different people that have a need to remember. Plus this is the first book I have ever dreamed in which I was a character. Still shaking my head.ARC from publisher.

[lizzied_11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Do not pick up In Paradise lightly. It is a heavy work in a slim volume. I will need to read and reread it before being able to review it if indeed writing a review ever becomes possible. Matthiessen immediately exposes the lies we tell to mask our hatred for each other and for what the other has suffered and inflicted on somebody else. There is no answer. The answer transcends our ability to receive it.Dr. Clements Olin has joined a group of "witnesses" who spend a week living in the guards' barracks at Auschwitz and meditating and talking about what happened there. His connection to the place is his academic focus on Tadeusz Borowski and Primo Levi, but he is not a detached observer. Auschwitz itself reaches deeply into him and demands his very self in response. He remarks that a very early Eastern reading of Jesus' reply to the thief crucified with him is not "Today you will be with me in paradise," but "Today you are with me in paradise." So the mystery is how paradise can exist in Auschwitz.The reader is not left in despair. Like Clements, he is left wholly broken and being broken, is invited to live.

[oh_carolyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this novel in a matter of hours, and it felt like being punched in the gut the whole time -- but I couldn't put it down. It's searing, breathtaking, difficult. In Paradise reads like first-person memoir, partially, I suspect, because the author did attend a retreat at Auschwitz in the late 1990s. It resists easy answers, platitudes, and conventions about the Shoah. I was surprised at the depths of animosity between cultures and backgrounds that the novel reveals, although perhaps I shouldn't have been. It's a deeply affecting book, one that I think I'm still processing, and will be for some time. Highly recommended.

[porch_reader · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A weeklong retreat in Poland at the site of a former concentration camp brings together a variety of individuals who have all come to pray and bear witness to the horrors that occurred there. At the center of the story is Clements Olin, an American scholar whose background is tied to the concentration camp. The interactions between the attendees, whose nationalities and religious backgrounds give them a different perspective on the events that occurred there, become heated, and we come to see how complex it is to bear witness to an event of this magnitude. This was the first of Matthiessen's books that I read, and I enjoyed his spare, precise language. The book will be released on April 8, just three days after his death on April 5.

[michaelbartley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This Peter Matthiessen best work. It a novel where each character needs and wants to face their grief, they may want to face it but the sorrow is so huge they still run. There is no happy ending there is no closing they are no answers to the evil. nothing changes and everything changes.

[robschultz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is not an easy book. Books that deal with the Holocaust are never supposed to be easy, even one that takes place more than fifty years later like this one. This book asks questions that are unusual and very confrontational. It calls into question why we would ever read a book on the Holocaust. It questions what purpose it serves. What are we witnessing at this point really?The question that remains is whether or not this is a good book. I think the answer is definitely yes, but not a resounding yes. It makes you wrestle with important questions, and to challenge your assumptions and also has moments of profound beauty juxtaposed with outright human ugliness. But, the characters are not always engaging, and what plot there is seems plodding and forced at times. An personal essay, rather than a novel, may have been more effective. Still Peter Matthiessen is always worth the time. (Please read any and all of his other books.) He will be missed.

[lorimarie_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a particulary difficult book to read but so well worth the effort. I read it nearly a month ago, and only now feel I can talk about it. Beautiful writing, I don't even feel qualified to write about it. There are almost no words to describe how profoundly this book affected me. A must read for anyone interested in the Holocaust. Mr. Matthiessen is a rare talent and he will be sorely missed.

[labfs39 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In Paradise is a book about loss, memory, and whether it is possible for non-survivors to interpret the Holocaust. The main character Clements Olin, an American academic, joins a week-long spiritual retreat at Auschwitz, ostensibly to research his book on Tadeusz Browski, a Holocaust survivor and novelist who committed suicide at the age of twenty-five. But there is a more personal reason behind his trip, and as the other retreat participants share their stories, the reader is asked to consider questions of identity and modern anti-Semitism. I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. For me, the author too frequently used his characters to expound history, which felt pedantic and unnatural. I was also uncomfortable with some of the national stereotypes which he used. That said, I thought Matthiessen raises some interesting questions, including whether non-survivors can legitimately add anything to the discourse about the experience of the Holocaust and whether words are the proper medium for that discourse.

[alpin_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Peter Matthiessen was a masterful writer of both fiction and nonfiction who said that he had long wanted to write about Auschwitz but felt that -- as a non-survivor and a non-Jew – he was unqualified to approach it as a journalist, that only through fiction would he have the freedom to explore the complexities of the subject. “In Paradise” is that fiction – his last, published just days after his death at the age of 86. It gives voice to troubling questions, not just about good and evil but about what can or should even be said about the unspeakable horrors of that place and about whether even the best intentions to commemorate and bear witness are legitimate. In probing these questions, the novel in fact questions its own legitimacy. Matthiessen was a dedicated Zen Buddhist and in the 1990s participated in several Zen retreats on the grounds of Auschwitz. The protagonist of ”In Paradise,” Clements Olin, an American scholar descended from Polish aristocracy, has traveled to Poland to research the life of a writer who survived Auschwitz and committed suicide after the war. Olin tags along with a group of more than 100 people of different nationalities and different motivations who have come on a retreat to the death camp to meditate and bear witness. He struggles with the intense and conflicting emotions aroused by the ghastly crematoria and selection platform, his uncomfortable interactions with the retreat participants and his profound doubts about what any of them are doing there. “So even if these people witness truly, what could 'truly' mean? Spreading word of their impressions of this scene of heinous crime? Too late, too late...Surely the time, means and goodwill of these would-be 'witness bearers' might be better spent out in the world, helping the hordes of refugees and other sufferers for whom some sort of existence might yet be salvaged. The point of life is to help others through it – who said that? We must help the living while we can, since the dead have no more need of us.“In this empty place, then, at the end of autumn, 1996, what was left to be illuminated? What could the 'witness' of warm, well-fed visitors possibly signify? How could such 'witness' matter and to whom? No one was listening.”This is a difficult novel. With the exception of one episode of spontaneous joy, it is chilling and bleak both in its setting and in its examination of past horrors and present ugliness. There are plot points involving a tentative but impossible erotic attraction, the unsurprising uncovering of a family secret and several absorbing back stories. But plot seems incidental to Matthiessen's purpose, almost as if he needed it to make this the novel he felt he had to write. You might consider the book a deeply personal meditation in the guise of a novel but little matter; you needn't question its legitimacy. It is a book that needs to be read for its beautiful prose and for its uncompromising willingness to confront painful truths.

[detailmuse · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The only way to understand such evil is to reimagine it. And, as Goya knew, the only way to reimagine it is through art.In this novel, D. Clements Olin -- born in Poland, raised in America, now a scholar specializing in “survivor texts” -- is in the midst of a book project on writer Tadeusz Borowski, who memorialized his experiences at Auschwitz and, tragically, committed suicide six years after liberation. To better understand writers like Borowski, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Primo Levi, Olin joins a spiritual retreat convened on the grounds of Auschwitz.It’s a very short novel; the pages fly with lovely language and descriptions that put the reader at Auschwitz. But I found myself letting the book sit, rather than picking it up to read. To make a comparison: I may be one of few people who didn’t like the film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?; it seemed more a series of dry philosophical debates than a story. Well, this book felt very much the same. As in the quote above, Matthiessen felt he needed to write it as fiction, but it reads like an essay. Its group of stereotypical (and mostly unlikeable) characters mostly debate a series of heated topics, among them whether Germans should feel guilt; whether Jews were passive and co-responsible; whether there’s any place for Holocaust commerce (art, literature, tourism). Emotion comes into the book through two sub-plots, but one left me unsatisfied and the other annoyed me.I liked the language enough that I’ll likely try an earlier novel by Matthiessen. If you do decide to read this one, I recommend doing so in as close to a single sitting as possible.

[bellettres · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Clements Olin, a 55-year old Polish-American professor, attends a retreat at Auschwitz in 1996. He is on a quest: for identity, understanding, and liberation from the past. As he interacts with other attendees (priests, rabbis, nuns, survivors, descendants of members of Hitler's SS), he experiences a wide range of emotions from despair to joy. Matthiessen offers glimpses into private lives and political issues, all illuminating the human condition in one way or another. The writing is beautiful, although very dense in places. I was reminded throughout the novel of Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower, both in themes (solitude, forgiveness, identity) and in scope.