The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

W.G. Sebald (1944 - 2001)

Sebald was a German author who lived in England, teaching at the University of East Anglia.

Bibliography

- After Nature (Nach der Natur, 1988; essays)
- Vertigo (Schwindel, 1990; novel)
- The Emigrants (Die Ausgewanderten, 1992; novel)
- The Rings of Saturn (Die Ringe des Saturn, 1995; novel)
- A Place in the Country (Logis in einem Landhaus, 1998; essays)
- On the Natural History of Destruction (Luftkrieg und Literatur: Mit einem Essay zu Alfred Andersch, 1999; essays)
- Austerlitz (Austerlitz, 2001; novel)
- For Years Now: Poems by W.G. Sebald (2001; stories and poems)
- Unrecounted (Unerzählt, 2003)
- Campo Santo (2005; essays)
- Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001 (Über das Land und das Wasser, 2008; poems)

I sometimes still wish I hadn't discovered Sebald yet, that I'd still have the books waiting there for me read them for the first time. But I'm also glad I've read them, that I can reread them, and that Sebald's work has been influencing my perspective on the world for a while now.

I have only read the four "novels," but the edition of A Place in the Country that Random House put out a couple of years ago is a stunning production in and of itself. I am excited to dig into it sometime.

I've been ranking the work of each author I've been posting, provided I've read more than a couple of his or her books, and I'm finding it particularly difficult with Sebald. Not because I don't have a particular order, but because they are so close, and I worry that seeing a book in last place will suggest it is some kind of loser, where there are no losers here. Nevertheless:

1. The Rings of Saturn
2. The Emigrants
3. Austerlitz
4. Vertigo

My all time favourite author at least for his novels and essays (the poems pass me by a little).

Austerlitz to me is his master work, and actually a book I read only weeks before his untimely death.

Rankings:

1 Austerlitz
2 Rings of Saturn
3 Vertigo
4 The Emigrants
5 Campo Santo
6 After Nature
7 On the Natural History of Destruction
8 A Place in the Country
9 Across the Land and the Water
10 For Years Now
11 Unrecounted

On the essays, On the Natural History of Destruction is an odd one - Clive James, otherwise a massive Sebald fan sums it up nicely: "the prose, being Sebald's, was exquisite...but the basic idea was, for him, uniquely nonprofound." And A Place in the Country is, in Sebald's own accurate words, "extended marginal notes and glosses."

I would also recommend The Emergence of Memory, a book of interviews with him, and the documentary Patience with Sebald, which retraces Sebald's tracks in the Rings of Saturn.

Paul wrote: "My all time favourite author at least for his novels and essays (the poems pass me by a little)."

I'm glad we got him a thread here, then, Paul! It's been several years since I last read anything by him, and I've been hankering to go through Austerlitz again. I loved it, but I think some of it went over my head at the time.

It sounds like I don't really need to feel guilty for not reading much of his other stuff, though I'll go by your rankings and assume you recommend Campo Santo and After Nature quite highly.

The novels do stand well above the other work. Campo Santo is excellent but I should flag it was published after he died and so consists of "fragments, essays and unfinished pieces" (Guardian) and After Nature is in a slightly odd prose poem format which is neither one thing nor the other. Both worth reading though - frankly if he'd written one line on the back of a napkin to settle a restaurant bill, I'd buy and read it.

Hmm - prompted by the fact that I was missing Unrecounted to complete the set I promptly bought it.

The problem is that it is a slim volume, 80% of the content is not by Sebald, and even the parts that are we get

- micro poems - which actually include several of those in For Years Now.

- and an essay also included verbatim in A Place in the Country.

Perhaps the only thing of interest was a slightly piqued introduction from his translator which, reading between the lines, rather suggests the two fell out. He also suggests the duplication of the poems between Unrecounted and For Years Now could be a sign of distractions in Sebald's life.

Ranking above updated.

Austerlitz was probably the most powerful, I liked the Emigrants a lot too and I still have a soft spot for the Rings of Saturn, if only because it was the first one I read. A unique and much missed voice.

I've enjoyed a few of these so far. 'Austerlitz' was probably the best, but 'The Rings of Saturn' was the one I enjoyed the most. Still haven't read 'Vertigo', so I'm sure I'll get to that soon , along with some of the non-fiction. Luckily, I don't have to rely on a grumpy translator ;)

My favourite gripe from the grumpy translator is that, having gone through an exhaustive process of revisions to the translation with Sebald, "even the finished copy of the English Austerlitz he inscribed and gave to my wife contains emendations in his hand, after the book's publication."

Some seems a little churlish "he was most readily available for interviews that probed matters he would not divulge to his closest friends", "although he had given me copies of all his books published since our first acquaintance, he never so much as mentioned the writing [of Unrecounted] to me and gave me no copy of For Years Now."

Trevor wrote: "I sometimes still wish I hadn't discovered Sebald yet, that I'd still have the books waiting there for me read them for the first time. But I'm also glad I've read them, that I can reread them, and..."

Austerlitz was such a life changing reading event for me that I have not read another book yet by Sebald, just because his novels are a precious resource I don't want to use up too quickly. I've felt that way about just two other authors, where I don't want to have read them all.

poingu wrote: "Austerlitz was such a life changing reading event for me that I have not read another book yet by Sebald, just because his novels are a precious resource I don't want to use up too quickly. I've felt that way about just two other authors, where I don't want to have read them all. "

I know the feeling you mean - especially when I find myself searching out books which are rehashes of material already published or earlier inferior works (e.g. Saramago).

Who were your other two authors?

Paul wrote: "Who were your other two authors? "

it's a boring answer, Paul: I feel that way about Jane Austen and George Eliot too, where I've hoarded their novels like vintage wine in the cellar.

I also know the feeling, and I sometimes hoard books that way, saving them for some occasion I cannot define, hoping I'm not waiting too long!

I did this with John Williams books for a while. I read Butcher's Crossing and Augustus, and it was a few years before I finally sat down to read Stoner. I'm glad I did, though as Paul said, now I'm rummaging excerpts.

In 2014, Colin Dickey wrote a lengthy review of A Place in the Country for The Quarterly Conversation. Here it is, for those interested.

Today I received New Directions editions
of The Emigrants

The Rings of Saturn

and Vertigo
.

I love matched covers. The translator is Michael Hulse; I hope he is good. I got so caught up in matching covers I didn’t think to research translator!

Ooh, lovely covers! I read the Hulce translation of Rings of Saturn, my first Sebald, last summer and it felt effortless.

We're buddy-reading Austerlitz later this year in the Reading the Twentieth Century group if anyone is interested in joining us - I think it's in June.

The books aren’t of super high quality, but there not bad. I googled best translator of Sebald and Hulse and Anthea Bell

I also read about the exchange Paul describes in message 9 above, which at first read I thought Paul was saying Paul’s wife was given a translation with corrections hand written in! It was very late and I was tired so the quotation marks didn’t signal that Paul was quoting someone.

Sebald’s house in Norfolk (at the time of his death and for some years before) has recently come on the market. I was half tempted but it’s already been sold, although oddly the estate agent’s blurb failed to mention the connection.

I thought of the Fulchers because I believe one of you lived in or near Norfolk or Norwich.

I wanted to know a bit about Sebald’s life, coming from post war Germany I assumed it impacted him, so was glad I found a brief essay of life events, four of which he writes about in The Emigrant. http://kosmopolis.cccb.org/en/sebaldi...

Sebald is surprisingly (to me) easy to read. I expected something more dense, I think. When I read his praises I did not expect a book this unadorned and dispassionate, yet it is still moving and I expect that like O-lan, Jose, Pecola Breedlove and other memorable characters, Dr Selwyn, Uncle Ambrose, Aunt Fini, Paul, and Max Ferber who I will meet on the next page, will drift across my mind for years.

An enthusiastic 5 stars for The Emigrants. I was impressed all the way through, but the book as a whole is deeply moving. On to The Rings of Saturn.

Reading Sebald reminds me how much I still love and need to read novels written in a more formal writing style. I enjoy modern and experimental fiction and I think many of the original novels coming from indie presses are exceptionally good, but I hope the classic syntax and grammar like we see in Sebald, Brookner, the recently scolded Banville, Byatt, etc., don’t become viewed as archaic and stuffy; it is probably already considered stuffy, but it is a real joy to read a novel in which attention is paid to each word, each sentence, and there is no casual prose.

This will definitely be a time of reading/rereading classics for me.

Sebald is one of my favorites, Wendy! I'm glad to see you loved The Emigrants and that you're going forward with The Rings of Saturn. Though New Directions didn't get the opportunity to publish it (nor did Hulse get the job of translating it), do pick up Austerlitz as well!

This is the book I am waiting for - seems to always be about to be published: https://www.boilerhouse.press/product...

Isn’t it a book of photos?

It is (plus some essays) but the photos were a tad important to his work.

It’s interesting to speculate what he could have achieved if he had actually learnt to focus a camera.

Probably rather less. Hard to improve on being the second best writer in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. To be the best he needed to be a bit more caustic rather than a better photographer.

Trevor, I’ve had Austerlitz for years and never got to it, but when I decided to read Sebald I started with the trilogy so I could save Austerlitz, which I’ve heard is his best, for last.

Wrong thread, but I also just received Concrete and Wittgenstein's Nephew. They are both so short I might finish Wittgenstein’s Nephew tonight and get back to Sebald tomorrow.

Wittgenstein’s Nephew and is reminding me of Castorp, which I read ten or so years ago. Has anyone else read this? It was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2008. I think Castorp would find fans here.

I need to finally read The Magic Mountain too.

I just finished The Rings of Saturn, which I liked even more than The Emigrants. What an incredible book. Every piece of history that he shares, no matter how obscure, is fascinating and each one will have you going to the internet to find out a little bit more. I am so sad that after only two books I’ve already read half of his novels.

I’m about to start Vertigo, even though that leaves me only one Sebald left to read and I won’t put that off since I want to read it, but I was thinking about rereading and wondered, Paul, if you would reread Sebald, especially The Rings of Saturn, since there is so much information in each book. It seems different reminiscences and observations would stand out after each reread. I know Sebald is one of the authors whose books you keep.

In addition to the "novels", there are also at least two collections of shorter Sebald pieces - Campo Santo and On the Natural History of Destruction.

I just read your reviews of Campo Santo and On the Natural History of Destruction, Hugh, and it sounds like the former will be more interesting to me than the latter. On the Natural History of Destruction is probably of more interest to Germans and people who study German culture.

I wonder why four of his books are labeled novels and these two are labeled essay collections when The Emigrants is more of a memoir of real people he met and Rings of Saturn is a collection of essays or history lessons about a number of topics. Even Vertigo, which I’m sad to say isn’t working for me this evening, is essays and memories.

Sebald really is unlike anyone else I’ve read.

Thanks for making me aware of these other books.

Yes I do and will re-read Sebald

I can't remember exactly what Sebald himself said but there is a quote somewhere. But the 'novels', for want of a better word, are mixtures of fact and fiction (e.g. whether he actually met those people or took that exact trip, even the photos which is several cases are ones he discovered then worked in to the text)

On the Natural History of Destruction is a little polemical in places.

For all fans of Sebald: His poem ‚After Nature‘ is so good. It isnt poetry, because it is Sebald. But I keep rereading it as there is so much that I still don‘t understand.

I found this about After Nature https://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2011/...

and now I will look for After Nature.

Paul wrote: "frankly if he'd written one line on the back of a napkin to settle a restaurant bill, I'd buy and read it..."

I just re-read Rings of Saturn - which was every bit as good as I remembered (helped by knowing much of the area)

But I also dug out some of my other Sebald's including "For Years Now" which I have to say pretty well was one line on a restaurant bill (with some dotty doodlings around it by a fellow diner).

Some of the comments on this thread are nearly as long as that entire "book".

There you go then, Paul, the back of the napkin piece by Sebald you’ve been waiting for.

I might be off track here with this post because I've only read one Sebald (Austerlitz), but it seems like this newsletter potentially may be of interest to Sebald fans.

It's called Obstructive Fictions and is about "fiction that frustrates interpretation." I discovered it sort of randomly via Twitter.

https://obstructivefictions.substack.com/p/obstructive-fictions

Thank you, Marc! This looks like it will be interesting.

Hopefully, it meets expectations, Wendy!

The first few did. I read them late and was starting to doze so I’ll read them again.

Excellent! I stayed up late trying to schedule a vaccine appointment for my stepmom. For anyone having trouble here in the U.S., you frequently have to keep refreshing your browser over and over and... I had heard that certain pharmacies refresh their appointment availabilities around midnight---I don't know if it was true, but after a week of trying to get an appointment, trying around midnight did the trick.

[We now return to our regularly scheduled Sebald discussion... ]

My mother, 83 next week, is on the waiting list and will get hers very soon. I’m glad you got your stepmom an appt.

Returning to For Years Now - here is one example from the book (there are 20 such examples so this is around 5% of the entire £10 volume)

Poem: “Apparently the red spots on Jupiter are centuries old hurricanes”
Facing Illustration: A red page with white spots

Not sure "Spots of Jupiter" is quite up to "Rings of Saturn"

5% isn’t a lot.

Looking forward to the vaccinations of our loved ones feels like a little ray of light these days!

Having only read Austerlitz, what Sebald would be a good next read? (I had a somewhat lukewarm reaction to Austerlitz; didn't love the book but could tell I was in the hands of a writer whose writing I definitely wanted more of.)

Rings of Saturn I would say from the comment trail.

I would say Rings of Saturn, but The Emigrants was equally as good.

Thanks!

Let's add to the chorus of Rings of Saturn tips ;)