In Paradise Hardcover – Deckle Edge, January 1, 2014

Profound, poetic, cerebral, the novel reflects on the memory of the Holocaust through the first subsequent generation of survivors and questions the future perception of the horrific event. Matthiessen intellectually explores the phenomenon of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust, peering into the enormity of the Crime, the insensitivity to the Crime and the insensibility of the Crime.The first chapter so intense and so disturbing; however, the reader leans in for more. What can be said of ignorant Polish youth who know little of their city (Cracow) and history of their country, yet who, though have never met a Jew, spout snide comments of Jews.Set in Auschwitz in 1996, an eclectic group of individuals desire to “bear witness” to the suffering at Auschwitz. As the individuals on the retreat labor to understand, (each wrapped in his/her own sorrow), the incomprehensible evil done at Auschwitz, some rationalize, some blame, and some accept responsibility.Icy cold images of snow-covered, barren fields set against dark, bricked buildings that once held prisoners, renders the sense of loneliness and despair. Symbolically, the guests partake in meals of soups and dry bread. In one event, the author juxtaposes the uncanny, innate spark of unquenchable desire for life, even in the face of the most horrific knowledge of brutality, and in the midst of one of the most notorious settings.Through character development, the author analyzes the stigma of being Jewish in an anti-Semitic world, where the Jews of Europe, misunderstood, set apart, accused, and hounded to their end, were then murdered without conscious in death camps across Europe.

As a Jewish woman born in the USA in 1951, my life was dominated by the shadow of the Holocaust. Parents, relatives, neighbors, the whole world into which I came was shattered by the revelations from Europe. And the annual Easter rampage by the Polish Catholic kids, the only other ethnic group in the neighborhood, turning on the Jewish kids after mass, made it very real indeed. So I have extensively read about and pondered on the meaning of the Shoah to me, to Jews, to Americans, etc.In Paradise is about an ecumenical Zen retreat at the remains of the Auschwitz death camp in the middle of winter. The author has attended three such retreats led by Roshi Ben Glassman, the Ben Lama of the novel. He has said he felt unqualified to write about the Holocaust, not being Jewish, but as he approached the end of his life he wanted to contribute his say and chose fiction as the appropriate medium . I am sure that only through fiction could he put into the voices and experiences of his characters the thoughts and observations he felt compelled to share without violating the confidences of actual attendees.There is little action, of course, meditation being the opposite of action. It is not doing, not acting, while being fully present, focusing the mind on the breath or on a koan, a puzzle not solvable through normal logic. In this case, the koan is the death camp itself, a representation of pure evil. I have myself experienced the kind of transcendence after long meditation which comes to many of the characters, and Matthiessen does as good a job as I can imagine describing it. It is something to be felt, not something amenable to words, but he does well.As the author says, there is nothing new to be learned, and there can be no interpretation that has not been better said by survivors. There is only the coming to grips with the reality of Auschwitz. The book raises several key questions or caused them to arise within me. Is such evil part of being human? (I think so, homo sapiens being the only species which has annihilated all similar species, and then, rather than dealing with its propensity for violence, had the audacity to claim its singularity as a sign of God's love!) Is any one truly innocent with regard to the Holocaust? (I think so, but how hard did most Jews work to free the others trapped in Europe? Was there any survivor who made it without sacrificing another?) Would the Jews themselves have intervened if the Holocaust had been limited to gypsies and homosexuals? (I doubt it.) What subtle racism do I carry? What was the level of complicity of the Catholic Church? What became of those brave souls who tried to get the Vatican to intervene? Is it time the Jews more fully recognize the others, the majority of the 14 million killed by the Nazis? And a key question of my life - what does it mean to be Jewish?The characters are stripped bare as they sit in this harshest of environments, fed meager and untasty food, surviving in far greater comfort, of course, than the inmates, but still deprived of much we take for granted. What action there is comes with the clash between personalities and ethnic groups. Each participant has come with a question, whether or not they realize at the outset. The main character, a descendant of the Polish nobility raised in the USA, learns the answer to the biggest question of his life, and is still reeling at the end. For the others, also, many of the questions are answered. Some, survivors or otherwise, are drawn to visit repeatedly, perhaps by nagging questions they cannot answer?There is an impossible romance between the protagonist and a brave young novice, each reaching out tentatively from loneliness and pain. We long to see them find joy in each other, but could they do so without one destroying the other? Perhaps the romance is symbolic of the central theme of the novel - can we fully grasp man's propensity for evil and still love and accept ourselves?Very highly recommended reading for anyone trying to understand the horrors of the twentieth century or the ongoing horrors of our current epoch.

I got interested in this book after I heard an interview with Peter Matthiessen on NPR, just before his death. He talked about trying to capture in this book the human condition that are present in all of us that could create an environment that made the holocaust possible (or at least that is what I thought he was talking about). Growing up in a family of Holocaust survivors I heard many of the stories of the surviving victims, and spent a lot of time imagining it. So I was very interested to have an insight into the psyche of the people who surrounded and assisted the events of the holocaust either actively or passively. I imagine most of them were ordinary people exactly like the people who surround us today, who simply told small excuses to themselves that absolved their conscience step by step until they were ready to assist in a genocide.Unfortunately, the book either couldn't capture this or it was about something else that honestly did not come through to me. The characters of the book "bear witness" in the Auschwitz memorial, each bringing in a different story. The whole setup rather gave the experience of participating in an AA meeting, but that was not what I was looking for. I didn't feel I got any new insight reading this book, and I didn't get lost in it emotionally either.

excellent

Final thought provoking novel from author. Transports you to a place in the human psyche we are reticent to go.

I have read everything that Peter Matthiessen has had published. He hooked me with "At Play in the Fields of the Lord" and I just hung on forever waiting for the next book. Unfortunately, this is the last we will see. Like many of his books it explores the nature of human nature and the subjects project their many facets. While a pilgrimage to Poland and Auschwitz would not be a natural point of departure for me the human side of the journey brought to life by the author made it a fulfilling personal journey.

Libro che nulla aggiunge alla già enorme letteratura esistente (fiction e non fiction) sull'Olocausto.Struttura abbastanza datata (romanzo corale intorno alla storia del protagonista principale, il solito "intellettuale" americano in cerca di armonia con il proprio passato) e protagonisti che non suscitano emozioni, nonostante il tema facile. Aggiungete suggestioni new age, una ricerca di antenati che si risolve in poche pagine, un amore non corrisposto. Veramente troppo.Si salvano alcune pagine sul dibattito post olocausto in Germania, Polonia e Israele.Avevo alte aspettative, purtroppo disattese

As an undergraduate Anthropology student in the early 1970s, I had a number of Peter Matthiessen's books assigned for some of the courses I took. Decades later, I still have those books, they made that much impact on me. This book, although a novel, not a textbook, has the same impact, and I am glad to have found and read it.