Book review of In Paradise: A Novel by Peter Matthiessen, 2015

This is a dark, bad novel, with an international cast of confusing characters, and a contrived plot which includes intimations of a forbidden love affair which only diverts from the already convoluted storyline. As the novel proceeds, its plot gets more unrealistic and characterizations more confusing. Perhaps the first half of the book was the author’s second or third draft, while the second half of the book was only his first draft. Indeed, as he was dying of leukemia while writing this, he may have run out of time, may have had time only to write, but not to rewrite and to re-rewrite. This could very well be only a rough draft resuscitated by the editorial assistants that he acknowledges in his afterword. First draft or last draft, it sadly will remain his last book.

I greatly admire Matthiessen’s non-fiction books about nature and wildlife. A good friend who understands my penchant for dark literature bestowed the book upon me, otherwise I would never have begun reading this novel, as I no longer have time to devote to the luxury of reading novels. My admiration for the author’s non-fiction and my interest in his contemplations upon the Holocaust (I am ethnically Jewish and have visited Dachau) gave me the fortitude to finish reading it.

He could have more successfully expressed his noble ideas in a 50-page essay, as I do appreciate his thoughts about the Holocaust, including his accusations upon Christianity as espoused by the insectivorous Earwig, a ruffian whose loudmouth at least made him stand out from the confusing cast of the other characters.

Matthiessen’s first book of non-fiction, Wildlife in America, is a gem. Whereas this novel about the Holocaust neither saddened nor outraged me, the chapter in Wildlife in America on the plight of the California Condor made me weep. First published in 1959, the book was already outdated when I read it in 1993, but its impact still is strong. It is no longer in print only because so many more species have gone extinct, yet that book still is worth reading. In Paradise, in contrast, was not worth my time.