In Paradise

January 13, 2014
Early in this novel by Matthiessen (Shadow Country), which follows a meditative retreat at Auschwitz, main character Clements Olin thinks, “Nobody knows whom to be angry with in such a place.” Indeed, the story centers on the search for understanding on the part of the retreaters, and their attempt to spiritually confront the evil that occurred at the site. What makes Matthiessen’s latest stand out from the scores of other Holocaust books is that Olin, a non-Jewish academic of Polish descent, is aware of the vast Holocaust literature (“You got some new angle on mass murder, maybe, that ain’t been written up yet in maybe ten thousand fucking books?” someone asks him)—and feels self-doubt to the point of defeat about what he’s doing in Auschwitz in the first place. More concretely, Olin is there for two reasons: one is “personal” and “too sentimental” and isn’t revealed until later in the book; the other is to figure out why Polish author Tadeusz Borowski, who survived the death camp, later committed suicide at the peak of his fame, three days after the birth of his daughter. The strongest sections relate to these more concrete missions—passages about Olin’s family history, in particular, stand out. But the novel focuses mainly on the abstract: what it feels like to spend days on end at the death camp—the frustration, alienation, and otherworldliness of it. Throughout, there’s a hum of absurdity underneath (“Who sets out winter food for little birds in such a place?”), and at times it comes to the surface in the form of directionless bickering among the retreaters, only to fade back again into the landscape, which, it seems to Olin, is always in winter. Agent: Neil Olson, Donadio & Olson, Inc.

February 1, 2014
The peripatetic Matthiessen (Shadow Country, 2008, etc.) ponders Auschwitz decades after the Holocaust, in a novel that's philosophical, mordant and surprisingly romantic. Clements Olin is a 55-year-old professor of Slavic literature with a specialty in works by Holocaust survivors. That interest has been an abstraction for him for much of his career, but as he visits the Nazi camp for a two-week spiritual retreat in 1996, his understanding becomes more emotionally concrete. Clements is one of 140 pilgrims there, and the agenda includes a mix of tourism, meditation, and evening dinner discussions that inevitably turn into heated arguments about God, anti-Semitism, patriotism and man's capacity for evil. Chief among the instigators is Earwig, who rains contempt upon the visitors, whom he considers "soft and runny as one-minute eggs." Clements is tolerant of the man's profane reprimands--he's the necessary point of entry for Matthiessen's musings, after all--but the professor has other things on his mind. First of these is learning what happened to his mother, who lived near the camps and may have been sent there; second is Sister Catherine, a young nun whose spiritual unsteadiness serves as a magnet for Clements' own spiritual and romantic anxieties. Matthiessen handles these threads gracefully and without a studious reverence for his novel's difficult subject; Earwig is the book's comic relief as well as its angry id. Even so, In Paradise as a whole feels overly formal; the framing device of the retreat makes the philosophizing feel potted (today, the perils of patriotism, tomorrow, the complicity of the Catholic Church, and so on) and Clements' emotional longings, constricted. A burst of spontaneous dancing on the retreat gives the book a similarly surprising lift, but it's quickly back to hand-wringing and self-loathing. An admirable, if muted, minor-key study of the meaning of survivorship.

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Starred review from February 15, 2014
After participating in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz, Matthiessen addresses that experience with what, at 86, may very well be his final novel. With In Paradise, the two-time National Book Awardwinner doesn't shy away from boldly tackling the most profound of subjects. And as protagonist Clements Olin wonders, what fresh insights into the horror of the camps remain to be had, especially from someone without direct experience of the camp? Olin, a Polish-born American scholar and Holocaust authority, joins an ecumenical group that includes Germans, Poles, Israelis, Jews, Catholic nuns, and Zen Buddhists at the death camp for a fortnight of homage, prayer, and silent meditation . . . to bear witness lest the world forget man's depthless capacity for evil. Some attend to alleviate shame or guilt, while others are tourists and Holocaust voyeurs and still others are looking for some sort of closure or healing. But earnestness is overrun with grievances as, Olin observes, behind all the good will, there are so many old hates. Arguments, accusations, and old resentments erupt, disrupting any silent meditation. Olin's motivations for attending are initially obscure, but we learn that his family might not all have escaped to the U.S. when the Nazis came to power in Poland. Matthiessen expertly raises the challenges and the difficulties inherent in addressing this subject matter, proving, as the muralist Malan says, that the creation of art is the only path that might lead toward the apprehension of that ultimate evil . . . that the only way to understand such evil is to reimagine it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The world-renowned naturalist and author Peter Matthiessen, in his first work of fiction since the 2008 National Book Award winner, Shadow Country, pens what may be the 86-year-old author's last word in this powerful novel about the Holocaust.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 15, 2014

Attending a multidenominational retreat at the site of the Auschwitz concentration and death camp in 1996, American scholar Clements Olin plans to research poet Tadeusz Borowski's connection to the camp while also rediscovering his own Polish gentile roots. A large group composed of many nationalities, including German gentiles, has gathered to bear witness, make personal statements, and explore other avenues for attempting to come to grips with the horrifying reality behind the dreary and forbidding ruin they see. As spiritual leader, Ben Lama gently guides and occasionally soothes members when accusations fly as Olin becomes attracted physically and emotionally to a young nun participating in the event. Away from the group, he explores the surrounding area and gradually learns unsettling truths about his family. Facts and uncertainties about the camp and the nature of the genocide are woven into the story, and the role of the Catholic Church during the war is also examined. VERDICT Not a mere recounting but a persuasive meditation on Auschwitz's history and mythology, this novel from three-time National Book Award winner Matthiessen uses scenes of confrontation, recollection, bitterness, and self-examination to trace aspects of culture that led to the Holocaust and that still reverberate today. [See Prepub Alert, 10/4/13.]--Jim Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2013

In his first fiction since the 2008 National Book Award winner Shadow Country, which itself reimagined a trilogy he had published over the previous decade, Matthiessen boldly leaps into the big questions raised by the horrors of the Holocaust. What is the nature of good and evil? Can we bear to bear witness? Can beauty endure after the smokestacks of Auschwitz? These questions are pondered by a group gathering for a weeklong meditation retreat at the site of a World War II concentration camp. Matthiessen, who has participated in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz, has long wanted to explore the consequences of the Holocaust but has stated that "as a non-Jewish American journalist, I felt unqualified to do so." Given his humanist views and penetrating moral stance, I can think of few authors more qualified.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.