Hotel Irrealismo discussion

Group member, Charlie Mansfield mentioned the possibility of discussing Sebald's Campo Santo and is particularly interested in the travel aspects of Sebald's writing. I'm reading the book now. If anyone else is interested, please do join me.

I'm in. My copy (just acquired) is a collection of 'prose' and 'essays' by Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell. I'm hoping the essays will give me more perspective on Sebald. One of the essays is about Bruce Chatwin.

Good stuff, Steve. Yes, that's the one. The first four chapters are from the never-to-be-finished Corsican project (Prose) and the remaining chapters (Essays) collect writings on various other concerns.

Can you get a PDF of Campo Santo, then?

That makes sense. I don't read e-books except in exceptional circumstances. I like the physical artefacts.

I think reading Rings of Saturn would be a good idea, Thomas (outside of the reading what you've got on hand issue--I'm pretty much in the same boat with unread books--got stacks of books I've picked up over the years that are, even now, looking at me resentfully, asking why, why, why--what can be more tragic than an unopened book? is it less sad if it's an ebook?).

Anyway, I just finished Rings of Saturn myself and can say that it is very relevant to a travel aspects discussion concerning Sebald.

Since Steve has now read 'Rings of Saturn', Thomas intends to read it and I recently re-read it, I shall set up a discussion page for it.

How active of us! Where are those new members who said it was deadly quiet around here?

Well, I've finished Campo Santo. My thoughts are here

Thanks for your review, Paul.

As a new reader of Sebald, I found the essays very helpful for appreciating Sebald, especially: the 'Total Destruction' essay, 'An Attempt at Restitution' and his acceptance speech to the German Academy.

I'm hoping that someone who has read more of travel writing will contribute to help me get a better idea of how Sebald fits with travel writing as a genre.

Sebald evidently really was a traveler himself. So, although he wrote what he identified as 'fiction', which means we have to separate the traveler narrator from the author, we can assume that the events and people described are not complete fabrication (still, I'm suspicious of some of the narrator's subjective experiences--and, of course, the historical 'facts' he recounts are subject to revision).

Sebald's prose really seems (to me) to be an extension of his scholarly essays. In 'Campo Santo' we read more than just a vivid description of a beach, a graveyard, etc. We read a contemplation of what they 'mean' geographically, historically, etc. The 'traveler' is a 'self' pressed into 'real world' and struggling to make sense of it.

This may be more what I think than what Sebald meant but: Sebald is doing a tightrope act here--with the traveler persona. On the one hand he knows (per Borges, surely) that writing creates another parallel world -- but on the other hand there ARE 'others' and we are (whether we like it or not) connected, which leaves us with a need for some kind of morality and conscience and requirement of restitution when necessary.

The 'Campo Santo' piece seems very polished to me, by the way. It's a good piece of writing (at least in translation) by itself. I wonder if Sebald had plans to continue with this Corsican project or just gave it up. He might have been pulling out a thread to a very large fabric. There are some big themes implicated. Might have meant a lot of traveling and a lot of reading to continue. Better to leave it as is? Confucius said he would pick up one corner but he expected his students to pick up the other three. Is it our ethics as readers to pick up the other corners of this essay to complete it?

Some interesting points for thought there, Steve. Thank you.

I'm hoping the member who suggested we read the book with an emphasis on its travel aspects will give us his steer on the book.

The travelling, I think, is the point of departure for the other urgent enquiries his intellect wished to explore.

Yes, spot on, Steve; just like Borges, there's another isotope of Sebald narrating here. I suspect that most of the writers who would fit into our irreal remit would look back to the ideas of Borges and Kafka as a foundation. I see the traveller as a deeply moral character, given his concerns and his close proximity to the writer himself.

I think we may be pretty sure that the English translation accurately reflects Sebald's original German since he closely oversaw the project and Anthea Bell lived just down the road from him, so to speak. Yes, the Corsican pieces are very fine indeed. All I know is that he was planning to write something much longer but then got absorbed in the writing of Austerlitz. Who knows if he ever would have returned to the project? It's a neat idea to investigate Corsica and its history for ourselves in order to complete the book...

Thomas wrote: "I download them as EPUB files and then convert them to PDF. If you want a link it."

I am thinking of tackling a Sebald. What format is EPUB in and how do you convert to PDF? PDF is the only e-book format I have liked.

Is EPUB the format that Kindle books are in? I have been unsuccessful downloading Kindle books to my laptop for the past few years, so I'm stuck reading them via the online Kindle reader. So annoying.

Oh, you should definitely tackle a Sebald, Klowey. Great joy lies ahead (filtered through W.G.'s melancholia...).