In Paradise
A Novel
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In Paradise
Narrated by:
Mark Bramhall
Buy Now for $21.99
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Narrated by:
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Mark Bramhall
About this listen
In the winter of 1996, more than a hundred women and men of diverse nationality, background, and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths. Clements Olin, an American academic of Polish descent, has come along, ostensibly to complete research on the death of a survivor, even as he questions what a non-Jew can contribute to the understanding of so monstrous a catastrophe. As the days pass, tensions, both political and personal, surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to healing or closure. Finding himself in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observer’s role and to embrace a history his family has long suppressed—and with it the yearnings and contradictions of being fully alive.
In Paradise is a brave and deeply thought-provoking novel by one of our most stunningly accomplished writers.
The story asks why we (collectively) have conspired to avoid speaking about the horrific events that transpired in Auschwitz, Poland. Matthiessen spent time there, getting historical detail correct (unlike a number of other writers who have churned out best sellers on the subject). The setting is in the late 1990s, a retreat attended by over a hundred people. As the story unfolds, the participants in the retreat question the value of such an intervention as they strive to "bear witness." The focus is on an historian, a rabbi, a Catholic priest, two novice Catholic nuns, a pair of urbane Zen Buddhists, as well as an uncouth disruptor, and a cynical cultural anthropologist. These characters harbour their own ghosts, dark histories and human failings.
The group also includes participants who have complicit entanglements with the past: several middle-aged German natives and local Polish residents, the latter whose family members aided and abetted the atrocities. In particular, the account is an indictment of the Catholic church and its collaboration with the Nazis. But who bears responsibility? How would the participants of the retreat have acted if placed in the same situation? As the lead character says, the line between good and evil runs through every human being. The title In Paradise references Christ on the cross, where according to some biblical accounts, he speaks of our paradise here on earth, not the pure paradise in heaven. This is a paradise of our own making.
Incomparable account of humanity
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Hard to hear, hard to leave
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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.