In Paradise by Peter Matthiesen
Peter Mattheisen is memorable because I met him in a Key West Literary Conference in which I was accepted as a participant. He was there with Annie Dillard, and I also heard him read in Manhattan, probably at the Y 92. I had also attended Explorers Club meetings in their club house in Manhattan.
He also was a friend of George Plympton, who befriended me. They started the Paris Review together, which hardly anyone remembers!
In any event, In Paradise is the last major work before Peter Matthiesen's death. Known for embracing Buddhism, this last book is a quandry. He situates it in Auschwitz, with tourists visiting, pursuing each of their own nostalgic journeys. The most perplexing are the young nuns. It is distuburbing, provocative, about human nature, rather than the wider Nature, which is the main character in many of Matthiesen's essays and books.
This book is about memory and about our relationship to the past as well as to atrocities such as at Auschwitz. It reminded me that my own birth father freed concentration camps with armored tanks. I remember being showed the pictures when I was a child. My father's best friend was a LIFE photographer, who lost his life.
I don't know why this book had such a hold on me, but beyond Anne Frank, we must remember what it was like to be part of a race of people who was facing extermination, for no reason of their own.
It sounds like a dreary book, but like all good works of art, it is aeshethecized, and still remains poignant.
He also was a friend of George Plympton, who befriended me. They started the Paris Review together, which hardly anyone remembers!
In any event, In Paradise is the last major work before Peter Matthiesen's death. Known for embracing Buddhism, this last book is a quandry. He situates it in Auschwitz, with tourists visiting, pursuing each of their own nostalgic journeys. The most perplexing are the young nuns. It is distuburbing, provocative, about human nature, rather than the wider Nature, which is the main character in many of Matthiesen's essays and books.
This book is about memory and about our relationship to the past as well as to atrocities such as at Auschwitz. It reminded me that my own birth father freed concentration camps with armored tanks. I remember being showed the pictures when I was a child. My father's best friend was a LIFE photographer, who lost his life.
I don't know why this book had such a hold on me, but beyond Anne Frank, we must remember what it was like to be part of a race of people who was facing extermination, for no reason of their own.
It sounds like a dreary book, but like all good works of art, it is aeshethecized, and still remains poignant.
Comments
Post a Comment