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Review

The Ways of Paradise: A surrealist labyrinth, written in footnotes

Translated by Saskia Vogel, The Ways of Paradise from Peter Cornell gives us beguilingly ambiguous novel-in-footnotes.

Photo: IMAGO / Dreamstime

You would be forgiven, on opening Peter Cornell’s The Ways of Paradise, for thinking that the first half of the book is missing. Instead of text, we get only the footnotes – ostensibly all that remains of a manuscript by an anonymous researcher who toiled for years in the reading room of the National Library of Sweden.

The imaginary manuscript is (probably?) about Surrealism, but the notes themselves range widely, offering disquisitions on subjects as far-flung as the 1099 siege of Jerusalem, the geography of Paris and the Rosenberg trial. Some are straightforward, while others are beguilingly ambiguous – “Not how it happened” or “Lost, forgotten word” – together hinting at an argument that emerges only mistily from its references.

This might make the book sound dry, but Peter Cornell’s meticulous tone, translated into pitch-perfect faux-academic English by Berlinerin Saskia Vogel, is part of a grand Surrealist tradition. He’s having fun collaging text, image and reference, and the frustration of not being able to figure it out turns out to be fun for us too – a trip into a labyrinth with something not-quite-visible at its centre.