In Paradise. Peter Matthiessen. 2014.
A novel set in 1996, with several characters gathering at Auschwitz-Birkenau to bear witness to the dead, confront their own demons or escape from them, and generally grapple with the implications of the Holocaust within the human community. A Zen retreat at the death-camp complex is the setting for the novel, and the central character is an American journalist, D. Clements Olin, who comes to the retreat not to bear witness but to study a Polish writer who committed suicide after surviving Auschwitz. As always, Matthiessen’s prose takes my breath away. I will miss this writer, who died shortly after the publication of the novel. In Paradise invites us to reflect on our spiritual identities, our cultural responsibilities, and the gift of love that sustains us in the most horrific of times.
A novel set in 1996, with several characters gathering at Auschwitz-Birkenau to bear witness to the dead, confront their own demons or escape from them, and generally grapple with the implications of the Holocaust within the human community. A Zen retreat at the death-camp complex is the setting for the novel, and the central character is an American journalist, D. Clements Olin, who comes to the retreat not to bear witness but to study a Polish writer who committed suicide after surviving Auschwitz. As always, Matthiessen’s prose takes my breath away. I will miss this writer, who died shortly after the publication of the novel. In Paradise invites us to reflect on our spiritual identities, our cultural responsibilities, and the gift of love that sustains us in the most horrific of times.
