Reading the 20th Century discussion

W.G. Sebald is not a favourite as I've yet to read anything by him


I'm hoping you lovely people can tell me about him

Should I be reading W.G. Sebald?

Where should the W.G. Sebald newbie start?

I'm intrigued by The Rings of Saturn

I have not read anything by him either, yet I have seen some titles I'd like to read. I picked up The Emigrants sometime in the recent past when it was a Kindle deal. I have marked as wish list your The Rings of Saturn and also his Austerlitz.

Nigeyb, I would be willing to go for a buddy read on one of these, but I'm currently pretty overwhelmed for the next few months. Summer maybe?

To my shame, I haven't read anything by Sebald yet, but I did go to a fascinating exhibition based on his work at Norwich Castle a few weeks ago.

My husband's late uncle, Alec Garrard, who built an enormous scale model of the Temple of Jerusalem, featured in Sebald's book The Rings of Saturn, so that is the one I will be reading when I get a chance. There were photos and videos of Alec in the exhibition, which were lovely to see.

Thanks Elizabeth. Thanks Judy.


I'm up for a read of The Rings of Saturn - and possibly one of the others too

I have a copy of The Rings of Saturn so would prefer to start with that one

Judy wrote: "To my shame, I haven't read anything by Sebald yet, but I did go to a fascinating exhibition based on his work at Norwich Castle a few weeks ago"

It's a sign Judy

Judy wrote: "There were photos and videos of Alec in the exhibition, which were lovely to see."


How wonderful

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Elizabeth. Thanks Judy.


I'm up for a read of The Rings of Saturn - and possibly one of the others too

I have a copy of The Rings of Saturn so would prefer to s..."

I can acquire that one. ;-)

I started with The Rings of Saturn. Austerlitz and The Emigrants are very good too.

Will not being familiar with the area traveled in The Rings of Saturn likely affect one's understanding? There are things in the GR description that I've never heard of, though apparently that didn't keep me from adding it to my wish list.

No, I don't think you need to know anything about East Anglia.

Hugh wrote: "No, I don't think you need to know anything about East Anglia."

Thanks Hugh, that's a relief. ;-)

I tired to read Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. It didn't work for me at all! Many do like him, but I am not one of those.

I would like to join you in a buddy read of The Rings of Saturn, if there is one.

Thanks Val - certainly seems as though we have enough takers to make a buddy read of The Rings of Saturn worthwhile

I suggest June 2020 as Elizabeth won't have time until the Summer. I know it's a long way off but nothing like having something to look forward to

I'll do the admin when I have a moment

June sounds like a good time to do it then. (I will be busy trying to read all the Women's Prize nominees and most of the International Booker nominees in March and April.)

Thanks, Nigeyb. I can easily slot that for June and it will take priority.

Nigeyb wrote: "Thanks Val - certainly seems as though we have enough takers to make a buddy read of The Rings of Saturn worthwhile

I suggest June 2020 as Elizabeth won't have time until the Summer...."

I've opened our discussion about The Rings of Saturn

No urgency of course, the thread will be open for whenever you have a chance to get to it....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Roman Clodia wrote: "And if anyone is interested in another Sebald buddy-read, I'm in. Both The Emigrants and Austerlitz look fabulous."

Deffo

My library, which I am hoping is going to reopen soon, has a copy of Austerlitz which I hope to nab the second the doors are flung open to the public. Last I heard 4 July is the earliest date this might happen. I'll keep you posted.

If anyone else is interested in either book then let the rest of us know.

I'm delighted to confirm that we will be enjoying a buddy read of....


Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

....in June 2021

More information about Austerlitz....

Austerlitz , the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by “one of the most gripping writers imaginable” (The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, the fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, he follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.

Looking forward to it - everyone welcome, as always!

There is a biography of Sebald currently on NetGalley - Speak, Silence: In Search of W. G. Sebald if anyone is interested?

The first biography of W. G. Sebald: a robust, intricate, landmark portrait of one of the most significant and lauded cultural figures of the twentieth century

W.G. Sebald was one of the most extraordinary and influential writers of the twentieth century. Through books including The Emigrants, Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, he pursued an original literary vision that combined fiction, history, autobiography and photography and addressed some of the most profound themes of contemporary literature: the burden of the Holocaust, memory, loss and exile.

The first biography to explore his life and work, Speak, Silence pursues the true Sebald through the memories of those who knew him and through the work he left behind. This quest takes Carole Angier from Sebald's birth as a second-generation German at the end of the Second World War, through his rejection of the poisoned inheritance of the Third Reich, to his emigration to England, exploring the choice of isolation and exile that drove his work. It digs deep into a creative mind on the edge, finding profound empathy and paradoxical coldness, saving humour, and an elusive mix of fact and fiction in his life as well as work. The result is a unique, ferociously original portrait that pushes the boundaries of biography as its subject pushed the boundaries of fiction.

Thanks Susan. Off to investigate 🏃

Nearly 700 pages. Perhaps one day. I need to read more of his work before deciding if a lengthy biography feels like a good use of reading time

Ooh thanks, I couldn't resist.

I haven't really read anything by him, but I know you are both keen, so thought I'd mention it.

Postie has just delivered my copy of....


Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

Perfect timing. I'm going to get stuck in this very day (though will probably only manage a few pages given my punishing schedule)

Remember we have a buddy read coming up in a couple of weeks and all are welcome

This from a Guardian article has my appetite whetted for more WGS....

In W G Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, which helped him acquire a large British reputation, one of the more memorable scenes - intentionally or otherwise - involved a fogeyish narrator, staying at an empty seaside hotel in Suffolk, attempting to eat fish and chips. The fish, Sebald begins,"had doubtless lain entombed in the deep-freeze for years... The breadcrumb armour-plating had been partly singed by the grill, and the prongs of my fork bent on it... The tartare sauce was turned grey by the sooty breadcrumbs." When the narrator finally manages to bite into his fillet, he finds "nothing but an empty shell".

To load a bad meal in a small English town with so much morbid imagery takes a certain confidence. But so hypnotic were Sebald's sentences, and so suggestive the connections he kept making between his depressed narrator's minor wanderings and whole galaxies of grim forgotten history, that it was easy to go along with the book's relentless melancholy. At times, it was delicious; the text even came with attractively faded photographs of ruins and wintry beaches.

Rest here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

More information about Austerlitz....

Austerlitz , the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by “one of the most gripping writers imaginable” (The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, the fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, he follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.

Thanks for the reminder about Austerlitz, an upcoming buddy read later this month - I'm looking forward to it very much.

I've got a copy through from the library and will be starting soon, too.

Judy wrote: "I've got a copy through from the library and will be starting soon, too."


Wonderful news

Glad you are similarly enthused RC

I read this recently - my first by the author.

Susan wrote: "I read Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald recently - my first by the author."


Oooh - exciting

I'm about a third of the way through Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald and finding much to enjoy and appreciate

As with The Rings of Saturn it's highly unusual and original. W.G. Sebald certainly found interesting ways to tell stories

I found this helpful abstract about an article, that is spoiler free and nicely sets up Austerlitz....

Austerlitz was the German expatriate author W. G. Sebald’s last book before his untimely death in 2001. Greeted with great critical acclaim, the novel is a profound meditation on history, memory, and loss. Sebald’s larger attempt to represent and memorialise the lasting trauma of the Holocaust, in an oblique and understated rather than a literal way, led him to a new kind of literary expression described by Eric Homberger as ‘part hybrid novel, part memoir and part travelogue’. What is most interesting about Austerlitz, for the purposes of this article, is that it makes so much use of architecture. In this, it joins a tradition of literary works that treat architecture as a metaphor for human endeavour and artifice, social structures, and attempts to order and construct the world. But, there is more to the buildings in Austerlitz. The book offers insights into the larger meaning – often, but not always, melancholy – of architecture in culture and society, past and present. This is elucidated at a personal level, in the way that surroundings and spatial atmospheres can affect the emotional life of an individual, and also at a collective level, in the way that buildings bear witness to, and last beyond, the trials and duration of a single human life.

Architecture and memory in W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 June 2015

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa...

I've now finished...


Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

In plenty of time for our forthcoming buddy read discussion

There's lots for us to get our teeth into when the time comes

Here's my review...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I am hoping to join the June reading.

Splendid news Joy

I've started but am not very far in as yet.

Austerlitz is a book I would love to reread, but my copy has gone missing (or at least is not where I thought it was). I did find most of Sebald's other books, including two copies of Vertigo, while searching for it.

I also started and read around 150 pages/400. The beginning was a bit slow until i got used with all the architectural details but I am enjoying it now.

I will be reading this but haven't started it yet.

I hope to start this next week once I finish The Sympathizer.

I started enjoying it much more around 15% of the way in, when Austerlitz began relating his life story, but the opening parts are important for establishing a framework of metaphors for his life history and psychology.

I've just opened up the Austerlitz thread - all are welcome to come over and join in the discussion.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hurrah. Let's get this party started

Very good article by Ben Lerner on Sebald in the current issue of The New York Review of Books.

“Sebald’s books suggest that we are powerless to remember adequately and powerless to forget. Memory invariably involves falsification (“And the last remnants memory destroys” is the epigraph to “Dr. Henry Selwyn”), and what we repress always comes back, often with deadly results. Repetition is both his technique and theme; his books are more patterned than plotted; the way phrases and figures and events recur at intervals enacts what he and his characters so often describe ….”

“More generally, if history is one long catastrophe returning in new guises, the work of historical reckoning can pass into a transhistorical fatalism. This is why I can lose patience with Sebald’s narrators’ tendency to see only ruins, which is a way of not seeing forms of life and meaning-making that have sprung and might spring up in their midst. It’s not that it’s depressing; it’s that it’s leveling.”

Thanks Ben. I'll seek out the article

I've only recently started reading Austerlitz and loving it. 140 pages so far. I found Sebald by way of A.C.Grayling's Among the Dead Cities: The Hitory and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan. I've resumed reading after a pause at halfway some years ago. Grayling mentioned W.G. Sebald's The Natural History of Destruction, which I've ordered and eagerly waiting for to arrive. I can see why Austerlitz is raved about.

Great news Greg


Revive our discussion if you feel inclined....

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I started The Natural History of Destruction early in the summer as a follow up to The Immigrants. I had to put it aside unfinished (at least for now) because of a slew of interruptions, but I found it well worth my time.