Lost Paradise (novel)

Paradise Lost is the title of Cees Nooteboom's novel whose first edition appeared lost under the Dutch title Paradijs 2004. The German translation of Helga von Beuningen was published by Suhrkamp Verlag, 2005.

Content

In the prologue, the author reports on a flight from Friedrichshafen to Berlin. He writes during the flight to begin an introduction for a book about cemetery angels. An attractive Mitpassagierin has a book with whose title can be deciphered only when landing from him the title of the book on which the prologue part.

Topping the novel with an imprint of John Milton's poem " Paradise Lost ". In the first chapter the narrator Brazilian Alma tells us about her journey from home in São Paulo in a slum ( favela Paraisópolis ), where she is raped by a group of men. As she remembers it is in Australia next to an Aboriginal artist, whom she met at an exhibition in Adelaide. She talks about her friendship with Almut, derived from German, while the narrator has a German father and a mother of southern, maybe Indian origin. The common dream of young people is a trip to Australia, which they eventually compete. Previously, the narrator studied art history and has an "angel tick ," she says of Botticelli angel. Alma tells of the journey to Australia, which finance the two young women with jobs locally. She tells also of their difficulties in getting their temporary Aboriginal partners closer to understand him and his background. This difference between Western thinking and philosophy, culture and traditions of Aboriginal people is a central theme of this part of the novel. This comes to a head when the narrator describes an encounter with a very old ethnological expert on Aboriginal culture. Its experience culminates in the determination of his own base band: " ... in the end you know everything and forgets it immediately. " Soon it from making the two women on a rock overhang with the drawing of an ancient " Dreamings ". In interviews, the two try to develop an understanding of these perhaps 40,000 years old culture. At the same time, they realize how lost they are in the modern cities encounter each Aboriginal. When the two protagonists get into financial difficulties they come across an offer from the Angels project in Perth. There contributors be searched for a fee. Both are accepted. The project envisages that angels are hidden in many places of the city and can be searched on fixed routes. While Almut stretched out on a theater as an angel, a sword in the air, the narrator has to lie still in a cupboard and is to be found there in an office building in Perth.

In the second part of the novel tells the Dutch columnist Erik Zondag of its non crisis-free relationship with Anja and with an ironic view of his professional employment with the Dutch literature. Between the lines lurks something of a midlife crisis. Following the recommendation of a friend, he takes full skepticism a cure in a hotel in the Austrian Alps. He wants / is to be a " new man ". It stands on a change of diet, many applications expect the Dutchman. Towards the end of the finally perceived by him as a beneficial cure ill his masseuse. Their representation by a woman who recognizes Zondag. The angel from Perth, the angel out of the closet in the West Bank. You got to know. It follows the flashback. In Perth there had been no appointment for a reunion. Also in Austria is Alma on chance, which determines a reunion. - At the end of the novel comes full circle begun in the plane. The author meets on the train from Berlin to Moscow again to his reader, with whom he is talking about writing: " How did you like the book? I asked. "

Form

The entry of the author is an ironic view on the own craft when he sees his own book in the hands of a woman he countered again in the final chapter. Noteboom leaves two narrators have their say, doubling the perspectives on traveling and on the memory.

Interpretation

Starting from Milton's poem to the biblical expulsion from Eden Nooteboom connects several centuries of European literary history and feel of the modern search for the lost paradises after. For it is here the archaic culture of the indigenous peoples of Australia. At the same time, the novel is a piece of travel literature that stimulating deals with Australia, the projections from industrialized countries and the complicated reality between marketing and marginalization of indigenous cultures.

Source

" Paradise Lost " Cees Nooteboom, Frankfurt am Main 2005

• Literary work
• Literature ( 20th century)
• Novel, epic
• Literature ( Dutch)