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In Paradise: A Novel
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In Paradise: A Novel
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In Paradise: A Novel
Audiobook6 hours

In Paradise: A Novel

Written by Peter Matthiessen

Narrated by Mark Bramhall

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

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.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 8, 2014
ISBN9780698164918
Unavailable
In Paradise: A Novel
Author

Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen is a three-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and nonfiction writer, as well as an environmental activist. His nonfiction has featured nature and travel, as in The Snow Leopard, or American Indian issues and history, as in his detailed study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. He lives with his wife in Sagaponack, New York.

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Reviews for In Paradise

Rating: 3.7110074311926606 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Based on the journal that Peter Matthiessen kept during a spiritual retreat ( Mattheissen was a Zen Buddhist) in Auuschwitz/Birkenau, IN PARADISE tells the story of Clements Olin, who, in 1996, joins a disparate group of people who gather in a spiritual retreat at a former Nazi death camp in Poland.
    I realize that this would not be an easy book to write, either as fiction or non-fiction. Although I read it in its entirety, I kept wanting to send it back to the library, unfinished. There were so many cliches, so many stereotypes that, in the end, the book became a detached piece of writing that somehow trivialized the subject matter.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    D. Clements Olin, a professor in the United States, goes on a spiritual retreat to Auschwitz in 1996, ostensibly to research the poet Tadeusz Borowski, but also with a personal quest of his own.This quiet, introspective novel speaks of the impossibility of making sense of such a terrible tragedy in which, the characters seem to be telling us, all of us are guilty, culpable, or capable of great harm. Yet in the bleakness there is also hope, beauty and love. Each of the characters has his or her own reason for being on this retreat, and readers will struggle with them as they try to make sense of history and their own lives.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wanted to like this book but the audio version seemed to go on forever. When I saw the actual book at the library I was surprised at how short it was and somewhat disappointed at the amount of time I had put into listening to the book when I could have read it so much more quickly. I did not enjoy listening to the reader, Although it was interesting hearing him pronounce names and places I would have mangled, there were times when he was trying to provide an effect for a character that were just irritating. As for the story itself, I had a hard time understanding some of the main characters actions. I don't believe you have to like the characters in a book to like the book but the point is understanding and I'm not. Maybe it will come to me later.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The only other book by this author which I have read is The Snow Leopard. Hard to tell this was written by the same person, I am glad I had the Audio version since I think I would have struggled with reading this book. The characters are mostly unlikeable. The setting and story are gloomy at best. It doesn't really go anywhere. I did learn a lot about Poland during the war. But mostly you are waiting to find out each persons motivation for attending the retreat and their history. It was disappointing.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This isn't my first Matthiessen. I also read Shadow Country. I thought that one was much better than this one. This story about Clement Olin's quest to Auschwitz to learn what happened to his mother and his possible affair with a novice seemed pointless to me. I think Matthiessen was trying to hit on how religion complicates peoples' true feelings, but I didn't connect with the story enough to care.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Do not pick up In Paradise lightly. It is a heavy work in a slim volume. I will need to read and reread it before being able to review it if indeed writing a review ever becomes possible. Matthiessen immediately exposes the lies we tell to mask our hatred for each other and for what the other has suffered and inflicted on somebody else. There is no answer. The answer transcends our ability to receive it.Dr. Clements Olin has joined a group of "witnesses" who spend a week living in the guards' barracks at Auschwitz and meditating and talking about what happened there. His connection to the place is his academic focus on Tadeusz Borowski and Primo Levi, but he is not a detached observer. Auschwitz itself reaches deeply into him and demands his very self in response. He remarks that a very early Eastern reading of Jesus' reply to the thief crucified with him is not "Today you will be with me in paradise," but "Today you are with me in paradise." So the mystery is how paradise can exist in Auschwitz.The reader is not left in despair. Like Clements, he is left wholly broken and being broken, is invited to live.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A rather strange thing happened to me while reading this novel. I went to bed last night, leaving forty pages unread and all set to give this book a three star rating. Not because this is not well written, at 86 Matthiessen has definitely perfected his craft, but because I felt so distant from the characters. Anyway I went to bed and dreamt this novel, that I was one of the participants at the retreat trying to come to terms with the horrible things that have happened there. I woke up realizing that the camp itself, Auschwitz, was the main character and that the characters were only a device used to tell the story.A week long retreat at Auschwitz, attended by 100 people of diverse nationalities, religions and sex. Headed by a Zen teacher (of which the author is a practioner himself) they are there for remembrance, meditation, hoping to gain an understanding and come to terms with the past. Also a man named Clements Olin, who is said to be a researcher trying to figure out why the Polish author Tadeiz Borowski, who wrote stories and poems of his experiences while sentenced to camp, committed suicide at the age of 28. He is mentioned extensively In the first part of the novel. The pervasive atmosphere effects each of these people in different ways.The second part of the novel, unravels the personal lives of many of them, why they are really there, what they hoped to find, feel.This is also when the story of Olin is revealed and he must come to terms with a past, of which has only shortly been made aware.This is a novel told in a very unemotional matter, the place itself provides the emotion, the awareness of what when on there, what the characters see and feel. Many leave with a new understanding, Olin among them. Some find their lives changed and more secrets are revealed. So I had to give this a four, it was amazingly constructed, and the reader gets a chance to read about the many different people that have a need to remember. Plus this is the first book I have ever dreamed in which I was a character. Still shaking my head.ARC from publisher.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Sadly, this is the last novel written by the author, Peter Matthiessen and he ends with a gripping plot.In 1996 a hundred people gather at the site of a former death camp. Because I have visited each of them, I felt as if I were back there again. Not a pleasant feeling, but I was pulled along by this magnificent author, living and reliving the horror of the camps.Tensions arise on a political and personal surface and not allowing any easy pretense to resolution or healing. Each person has his agenda, and it makes for a great plot but an equally great novel.Clements Olin, an American of Polish descent, is there only to do research, but ends up forced to abandon his research role to bear witness not only to his family's ambiguous history, but to his own as well. The author has done a masterful dialogue throughout the novel and the characters will be in your mind long after you have finished reading the book.I heartily recommend this book to anyone who loves good writing, great plots, WW2 experiences and unforgettable characters.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Clements Olin, a 55-year old Polish-American professor, attends a retreat at Auschwitz in 1996. He is on a quest: for identity, understanding, and liberation from the past. As he interacts with other attendees (priests, rabbis, nuns, survivors, descendants of members of Hitler's SS), he experiences a wide range of emotions from despair to joy. Matthiessen offers glimpses into private lives and political issues, all illuminating the human condition in one way or another. The writing is beautiful, although very dense in places. I was reminded throughout the novel of Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower, both in themes (solitude, forgiveness, identity) and in scope.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this book as an Early Reviewer. Clements Olin is a middle-aged academic who takes part in a retreat of sorts in Poland, to stand witness and remember the victims of the Holocaust. It's an international group and loosely organized, and it isn't clear why Olin has joined this group until a ways into the story. Other members of the group are Catholic nuns, Zen Buddhists, Germans, and one guy that won't identify why he's there. The atmosphere of post-Holocaust Auschwitz is very accurately portrayed, at least as I remembered it. The eerie, heavy, solemn atmosphere is sobering, and yet you don't really know how to act. In a place of tremendous hate and overwhelming torture and death, how should you witness? How does one visit this place and come away the same person? In the story, this is a central theme- what are they doing there, and how should they do it? Olin's story comes out in bits and pieces, and by the end, his character is more solid. My only complaint of the book is that it took awhile to distinguish who was who and which personal story they belonged to. The emotion of the book is subtle, respectful, and personal in a way that is universal, if that makes sense. Well-written and easy to read, this book requires time and space to digest.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this novel in a matter of hours, and it felt like being punched in the gut the whole time -- but I couldn't put it down. It's searing, breathtaking, difficult. In Paradise reads like first-person memoir, partially, I suspect, because the author did attend a retreat at Auschwitz in the late 1990s. It resists easy answers, platitudes, and conventions about the Shoah. I was surprised at the depths of animosity between cultures and backgrounds that the novel reveals, although perhaps I shouldn't have been. It's a deeply affecting book, one that I think I'm still processing, and will be for some time. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A thoughtful novel that records an American professor’s experience on a week long spiritual retreat to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Memorial, along with a diverse group of individuals from different religions and nationalities. In Paradise is a thought provoking novel with expressive prose. The setting is a vital part to the story and is vividly portrayed with stunning accuracy. The history components of the story are also presented in an engaging manner. The novel is very character driven but chooses to focus mainly on their existential ideas. I think the characters are suppose to represent exaggerated archetypes or symbolic caricatures. The characters have intense dialogue that can be blunt and offensive. This results in continuous, highly charged, unfiltered character conflict. The plot was relaxed and exploratory but highlighted character interactions, revelations and back stories. The novel illustrates how a person’s culture, family, nationality, religion, and hometown helps mold their world outlook. It was interesting to learn why certain characters chose to make a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, what they hoped to gain from the experience, and their view of what took place in history.It was fascinating to watch the characters go through a cathartic transformation based on their longing for a sense of identity, redemption, absolution, and faith. I also enjoyed the philosophical narratives on the origin and evolution of evil, survival, and human nature. [Disclaimer: I won a copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads]
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In Paradise is a book about loss, memory, and whether it is possible for non-survivors to interpret the Holocaust. The main character Clements Olin, an American academic, joins a week-long spiritual retreat at Auschwitz, ostensibly to research his book on Tadeusz Browski, a Holocaust survivor and novelist who committed suicide at the age of twenty-five. But there is a more personal reason behind his trip, and as the other retreat participants share their stories, the reader is asked to consider questions of identity and modern anti-Semitism. I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. For me, the author too frequently used his characters to expound history, which felt pedantic and unnatural. I was also uncomfortable with some of the national stereotypes which he used. That said, I thought Matthiessen raises some interesting questions, including whether non-survivors can legitimately add anything to the discourse about the experience of the Holocaust and whether words are the proper medium for that discourse.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a particulary difficult book to read but so well worth the effort. I read it nearly a month ago, and only now feel I can talk about it. Beautiful writing, I don't even feel qualified to write about it. There are almost no words to describe how profoundly this book affected me. A must read for anyone interested in the Holocaust. Mr. Matthiessen is a rare talent and he will be sorely missed.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A weeklong retreat in Poland at the site of a former concentration camp brings together a variety of individuals who have all come to pray and bear witness to the horrors that occurred there. At the center of the story is Clements Olin, an American scholar whose background is tied to the concentration camp. The interactions between the attendees, whose nationalities and religious backgrounds give them a different perspective on the events that occurred there, become heated, and we come to see how complex it is to bear witness to an event of this magnitude. This was the first of Matthiessen's books that I read, and I enjoyed his spare, precise language. The book will be released on April 8, just three days after his death on April 5.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This Peter Matthiessen best work. It a novel where each character needs and wants to face their grief, they may want to face it but the sorrow is so huge they still run. There is no happy ending there is no closing they are no answers to the evil. nothing changes and everything changes.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is not an easy book. Books that deal with the Holocaust are never supposed to be easy, even one that takes place more than fifty years later like this one. This book asks questions that are unusual and very confrontational. It calls into question why we would ever read a book on the Holocaust. It questions what purpose it serves. What are we witnessing at this point really?The question that remains is whether or not this is a good book. I think the answer is definitely yes, but not a resounding yes. It makes you wrestle with important questions, and to challenge your assumptions and also has moments of profound beauty juxtaposed with outright human ugliness. But, the characters are not always engaging, and what plot there is seems plodding and forced at times. An personal essay, rather than a novel, may have been more effective. Still Peter Matthiessen is always worth the time. (Please read any and all of his other books.) He will be missed.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Well, I gave it my 50-page test and lost interest. Moving on.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I disliked this book intensely. The main twist was somewhat obvious. The characters were boring. Do not read this book. There are tons of other books on the subject that are far more interesting and better written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received the audio book version of this book for review. In the beginning of the book, I found the narrator's voice very pleasing and the actual words most entertaining. I loved the writing style of the author. The story carried me through about half of the CD's (half the story), but then it just started getting aggravating "hearing" the narration of the arguing between the characters in the book. I never really did connect with any of the characters, but did find the boisterous, annoying one entertaining after a while. To be able to listen to the book while I did other tasks is what helped me to get through the book. If I actually had to read it, I would have probably given up half way through and picked up a new book. I wouldn't have had the patience to get through reading it. If the center of the story was omitted, I really doubt it would have had much bearing on the end of the story, just my opinion. I am giving the book four stars because, as stated before, I enjoyed the author's writing style.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've started this review several times, and am still at a loss of where to begin. In Paradise is a heavy read, and I mean that in the loveliest of ways. Words and phrases matter so much here that, although the audiobook was well done, I would have to recommend reading this book in a hard copy format, as there were times when the audiobook went by just a bit too fast (as audiobooks are want to do, of course) and I couldn't savor the language or the moment in the way it was meant to be savored. As a teacher of the Holocaust, there is much here to reflect upon, and I enjoyed the way it challenged me.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I've long been a fan of Peter Matthiessen's nature writings, and intrigued by the author's personal story, and so was very pleased to receive a audiobook copy of In Paradise through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I was expecting a somewhat difficult and thought-provoking volume, and in that I was not disappointed ... but I left the book with a curiously unsatisfied feeling, and that did disappoint me.There are a couple of different ways to look at this book -- an observation on the hypocrisy and mental peril of "disaster tourism," and broader thoughts on the conflicted coexistence of tragedy and joy. This book highlights both of these thoughts very powerfully, but does so in a way that largely failed to draw me in. The flaws and secrets of the characters don't engage the reader, but keep one at a suspicious distance that doesn't allow the book to get some of the nuance of message across. I grew weary of the characters fairly quickly.For me, at least, as both an historian and a humanist, the true message of the book is this: it's time for all of us to leave our memories of war, and move on.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The late Peter Mathiessen was a wonderful writer, so I was pleased to get the audio book of his last posthumously published book as part of the Early Reviewers' program. Here Matthiessen explores the wide range of both survivor guilt and anti-semitism as a group of 100 people gather in the winter of 1996 at Auschwitz to pray and witness at the former crematoria. They eat and sleep in the quarters where fifty years before the Nazi officers who sent more than a million Jews to their death had lived.The chief narrator is Clements Olin, an American academic of polish descent, who is there to explore his own family mystery that he thinks is unrelated to the horrific events that happened in the camp, and even questions what he, as a non-Jew can contribute to the proceedings. The people gathered for what seems to be a macabre pilgrimage are a strange conglomeration of people: members of a Catholic group of nuns, survivors of the camp, guilt-ridden Germans born after the war and American Jews struggling with the guilt of having lived out the war safely out of the reach of the Nazis. They meet every day in the cold winter weather on the railroad platform where arriving prisoners were selected for immediate death, or the slower death of slave labor, to pray and to witness to the events of half a century ago.Almost immediately tensions, both political and personal, arise within the group threatening to derail the peaceful healing purpose of the group. Especially provocative is the member who is called by the apt name of Earwig, who seems to be determined to expose each member of the group as a shameful hypocrite - or worse. Olin tries to make peace among the factions, but as he delves more deeply into his own family mystery, finds that he is drawn into the unfolding drams in ways he could never have imagined. Ultimately, he is forced to abandon his role as an outside observer and to bear witness to is own family's shameful role in the Holocaust.This is a powerful book, where at the end, none of the characters are who you thought they were at the beginning and the reader comes to see that prejudice and injustice can take as many different forms as there are human personalities.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I cannot count how many books I have read about Nazi Germany for I am drawn to these sad novels where people die and somehow there is still hope. I find that the best of these books set in this time period are character driven. It is the story that makes the ultimate connection with the reader and not just the events. The events are known and have been well documented to the point off almost numbness and maybe this is what this book is trying to get at- the numbness of atrocity. This book was difficult to be engaged with. I did not care for the characters and I thought the orator sounded dull and lifeless. Personally, I found the book boring and could not get through the second half.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the story of David Clements Olin (nee Olinski), the bastard son of a Polish nobleman who fled Poland at the outset of WWII with his parents, finding and bringing David (who would later go by the name Clements) to the U.S. The boy never knew what happened to his mother.Clements, a distinguished professor and poet, attends a retreat being held at Auschwitz (Oswiecim, in Polish) ostensibly to participate in "being witness" to the events that took place there. However, the poet has another mission in mind. Moreover, during the retreat he encounters a Catholic novitiate - Catherine - who is on probation. Clements - who has a history of being unable to connect emotionally with people - seems attracted to Catherine, who, in turn, seems to be unable to articulate her feelings.This is Matthiessen's last book (he died before it went into print), and it maintains the standards that have characterized his other works. It is a worthy capstone to an excellent body of work. The book is rich with ruminations on the holocaust as we reach a period in history where the number of witnesses to its horrors are nearing zero, and later generations begin asking why we continue to dwell on such a sordid event.A definite must-read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book provides a new perspective of the holocaust death camps. So much has been written about the horrendous crimes that took place in Auschwitz and similar concentration camps that I wasn't sure if the author could add anything. But he did.I enjoyed listening to the story as much as one can "enjoy" such a sad topic. The only thing that I didn't like was the narrators pronunciation of German words, as well as his version of a "German" Accent. You could tell that he obviously isn't familiar with the language and at times it was difficult to understand what he was saying when he mispronounced the German words. But other than that it's an interesting read and I would recommend it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a hard book to read for a variety of reasons. One reason is simply the description of events that occurred in the Holocaust at Auschwitz; the author describes these events in graphic detail on occasion as the main character, Clements Olin, and others are taking a tour of the concentration camp in order to "bear witness" to the atrocities that happened there. It's also hard to read because the author shows us by telling these characters stories that the world has not really learned anything from the Holocaust. There are still extreme prejudices present, an "us versus them" mentality, even considering who has the right to grieve for the dead.And yet, there are moments of beauty. There is a magical chapter in which many participants find themselves spontaneously dancing together in the camp. It is a brief coming together of humanity, but it is followed by people questioning how and why the dancing happened. As well as some guilt about how they could participate in an act of joy in a death camp.I think the late Mr. Matthiessen was a very good writer, and he allows us to truly care and empathize with the stories held throughout the book and why participants react the way they do. Unfortunately, the one aspect of the book that I really didn't care for was a bizarre love story that was thrown in the plot. We learn that Clements has been a womanizer all his life, unable to truly connect with just one woman, and yet then he wrestles romantic feelings to a Catholic novice awaiting her acceptance in the Holy Orders. It seemed out of place in the story, but then so is dancing in a death camp. It just seems odd that the book should end in that fashion.I should also note that this review is based on the audiobook presentation of this novel. To that end, I have to say that the reader, Mark Bramhill, did an amazing job with the narration. He did the various voices and accents exceedingly well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While i am a fan of Peter Matthiessen, I found this to be a very difficult read -- it was a struggle to finish it. The Holocaust is a difficult topic for most any reader or writer. Having visited Auschwitz and Birkenau more than 40 years ago and having traveled extensively in Europe since that time (including Poland and Germany), I found the characters and the views very believable which is perhaps what made the book all the more challenging.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was born about midway through Baby Boom era, more than a decade after the end of World War II. So, I have no direct memories of the many horrific events that defined that time, most notably the Holocaust. Indeed, when I was old enough begin to understand the sheer depravity of the “final solution,” it was difficult to find much context that might help me process the implications of such inhumanity. What happened in places like Auschwitz was almost unimaginable to someone who was raised half a world away and so many years later. Further, how can the monstrosities of the Holocaust be reconciled with even more recent genocidal campaigns, such as those in Cambodia and Rwanda? I simply had no way to sort out the combination of outrage, wonder, lack of awareness, and even guilt that I felt as I tried to answer the question: What would I have had the courage to do—or even could do—to make a difference?Peter Matthiessen’s profoundly moving novel In Paradise addresses just such a question. It is 1996 and a group of more than 100 people from around the world have gathered at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Poland for a week of prayer and meditation that, it is hoped, might lead to some understanding and healing. Among the group is Clements Olin, a literature professor from the United States who has no apparent connection to the proceedings save that he is of Polish heritage. However, as the reader soon learns, there is a deeper, more personal reason that Olin has come to the vigil beyond the need to “bear witness” that drives most of the other participants. From this premise, two parallel stories then unfold, one involving the complicated and sometimes volatile relationships that emerge at the spiritual retreat and the second one telling of Olin’s quest to understand his past while dealing with his very conflicted feelings for one of the other observers.In Paradise, the title of which alludes to a Biblical passage referring to paradise being anywhere you are when in the presence of God, dares to tackle extremely difficult issues involving guilt, responsibility, and compassion for the perpetrators of actions so heinous as to seemingly defy forgiveness. To his vast credit, Matthiessen offers us considerable insight—albeit a little densely expressed at times—into both the universal and intensely personal sides of these questions, but at no point does he suggest any easy answers. Indeed, there is a quote near the end of the book that frames the narrative perfectly. Citing an ancient tale in which a rabbi consoles a sorrowful man who worries that he has not suffered enough, the rabbi counsels: “The only whole heart is a broken heart. But it must be wholly broken.” That is certainly a suitable way of explaining the plight of the author’s protagonist as well as a fitting summary for the entire message of this thought-provoking and affecting story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Early in this complicated book we read: "The point of life is to help others through it.....We must help the living while we can, since the dead have no more need of us." In a recent interview Mr. Matthiessen, who has participated in three Zen retreats at Auschwitz, said he had long wanted to write about the Holocaust, but that because he is not Jewish, he did not feel qualified.“But approaching it as fiction — as a novelist, an artist — I eventually decided that I did,” he said. “Only fiction would allow me to probe from a variety of viewpoints the great strangeness of what I had felt.”A prologue tells of a boy refugee's sighting a transport train that left behind an old belt. The book's sixteen chapters take us to that place many years later, in 1996. Its cast is a mix of naive and sophisticated persons including two survivors. Their reactions (and interactions) are conveyed to us mainly by Clements Olin. His personal agenda emerges gradually, and, at the book's end we learn the cost.