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In Paradise (2014)

by Peter Matthiessen(Favorite Author)

3.37 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1594633177 (ISBN13: 9781594633171)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: Matthiessen has written a brilliant book about a group of people who gather at Auschwitz to pray, to witness, to try to understand what had occurred. The story revolves around Olin, an American professor, who ostensibly comes to finish his research on a Polish poet who had committed suicide. By the end of the week of being together, each character has grown and gained insight into him/herself. The writing is masterful. Matthiessen, whose non-fiction works are so vivid, draws on these same writing skills. He brings a palpable physicality to the death camp.
review 2: This was about a group of people who gathered at the site of a former death camp (Auschwitz) to pray and meditate about what happened there and to try to come to terms with the events and to heal fr... moreom their own experiences. I liked the descriptions of the setting, and even the flashbacks to the 1940's, although understandably much of it was hard to read. I wish the main characters were more developed though. I often try to discern how the title of a book relates to the story. For me, the title is the opposite of what the main character, Clements Olin, discovers: in a stained glass window he sees "the dead hand of an aghast Almighty withdrawn from his creation". less

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