W. G. Sebald
It is difficult for me to make a kind of assessment of this book. On one hand, it is lyrical, poetic, moving; on the other, plodding, confusing, and pompous. Sebald has a gift for language, deployed wonderfully through translator Anthea Bell, and there are times when this talent is so luminous that it masks a digression or a lack of plot. At others, however, no amount of lyrical beauty can persuade the reader that the text at hand is anything but the author's indulgence, prioritizing a favored technique or Daring Literary Idea over the needs of the story being told which, all things considered, is quite a powerful one. Peppered with thematic and stylist diversions and distractions, the story is at heart a powerful exploration of identity and anonymity, strangely intertwined and the driving forces between both the erratic style and half-dreamed substance of the book. Constructed primarily of the patchwork narrative of Jacques Austerlitz, told to an unknown acquaintance over a period of thirty years, Austerlitz retraces individual and collective disturbances caused by the Holocaust and the ways in which the past can shape how one views oneself as an individual or within the context of a larger community.
The ethereal nature of identity, its fluidity and inescapable insecurity, are captured effectively by many of the same literary methods that often make the book a chore to read. The displacement of the primary narrative, accomplished through ambiguous, unnamed first-person narration and deliberately evoked through self-referential third-hand quotation, makes the act of reading the book in some ways as unstable as its original telling. Constructions that call attention to the story's murky provenance are frequent and, though jarring, create a chord of thematic harmony as the narrator relays information across several channels of communication ("He said, Austerlitz continued…"). Though these reminders highlight how difficult it often is to remember who, exactly, is narrating at a given moment, the ambiguity reflects the questions of certainty that drive the story. Austerlitz is, in many ways, a man without a history, and his gradual uncovering of the past serves both to solidify his identity and to make him feel increasingly out of place in the world. Sebald's exploration of this dual-pronged result of historical inquiry is an extremely perceptive and appropriate method by which to examine the horrors of the Holocaust and the insanity that occupied Europe throughout the early mid-20th century.
Just as Europe could not, and to a certain degree still cannot, reconcile its past with its present identity, so Austerlitz re-traces his own history, both aimlessly and with an inevitable, inextinguishable desire to progress further. The journey, in Sebald's hands, is both painful and strangely beautiful. There is a lyrical sadness to the book and a heavy weight to both its words and images, many of which are reprinted in stark black and white throughout the text; frequent foreshadowing creates an air of constant slight unease paired with a desire to see where, exactly, the story is heading. The novel in its construction echoes brilliantly its theme, yet it is often cumbersome and seems to be intentionally difficult, much to its detriment. One sentence stretches on needlessly over the course of five or six pages until, exhausted under its own weight, it collapses and allows readers to glaze over. Moreover, the story is presented in large chunks of prose, without chapter distinctions and suffering for want of more than about five paragraph breaks. The structure may mirror the course of the conversation and the neverending flow of history and relational thinking, but a constant battering of words and images and ideas will exhaust many readers and will distract from the greater importance and, yes, beauty of the book. Austerlitz is, as is its central theme, in many ways a paradox, a brilliantly conceived, brilliantly constructed, and brilliantly written novel that suffers from the burden of its care and its uncompromising capitulation to form over substance and readability.
Grade: A-
It is difficult for me to make a kind of assessment of this book. On one hand, it is lyrical, poetic, moving; on the other, plodding, confusing, and pompous. Sebald has a gift for language, deployed wonderfully through translator Anthea Bell, and there are times when this talent is so luminous that it masks a digression or a lack of plot. At others, however, no amount of lyrical beauty can persuade the reader that the text at hand is anything but the author's indulgence, prioritizing a favored technique or Daring Literary Idea over the needs of the story being told which, all things considered, is quite a powerful one. Peppered with thematic and stylist diversions and distractions, the story is at heart a powerful exploration of identity and anonymity, strangely intertwined and the driving forces between both the erratic style and half-dreamed substance of the book. Constructed primarily of the patchwork narrative of Jacques Austerlitz, told to an unknown acquaintance over a period of thirty years, Austerlitz retraces individual and collective disturbances caused by the Holocaust and the ways in which the past can shape how one views oneself as an individual or within the context of a larger community.
The ethereal nature of identity, its fluidity and inescapable insecurity, are captured effectively by many of the same literary methods that often make the book a chore to read. The displacement of the primary narrative, accomplished through ambiguous, unnamed first-person narration and deliberately evoked through self-referential third-hand quotation, makes the act of reading the book in some ways as unstable as its original telling. Constructions that call attention to the story's murky provenance are frequent and, though jarring, create a chord of thematic harmony as the narrator relays information across several channels of communication ("He said, Austerlitz continued…"). Though these reminders highlight how difficult it often is to remember who, exactly, is narrating at a given moment, the ambiguity reflects the questions of certainty that drive the story. Austerlitz is, in many ways, a man without a history, and his gradual uncovering of the past serves both to solidify his identity and to make him feel increasingly out of place in the world. Sebald's exploration of this dual-pronged result of historical inquiry is an extremely perceptive and appropriate method by which to examine the horrors of the Holocaust and the insanity that occupied Europe throughout the early mid-20th century.
Just as Europe could not, and to a certain degree still cannot, reconcile its past with its present identity, so Austerlitz re-traces his own history, both aimlessly and with an inevitable, inextinguishable desire to progress further. The journey, in Sebald's hands, is both painful and strangely beautiful. There is a lyrical sadness to the book and a heavy weight to both its words and images, many of which are reprinted in stark black and white throughout the text; frequent foreshadowing creates an air of constant slight unease paired with a desire to see where, exactly, the story is heading. The novel in its construction echoes brilliantly its theme, yet it is often cumbersome and seems to be intentionally difficult, much to its detriment. One sentence stretches on needlessly over the course of five or six pages until, exhausted under its own weight, it collapses and allows readers to glaze over. Moreover, the story is presented in large chunks of prose, without chapter distinctions and suffering for want of more than about five paragraph breaks. The structure may mirror the course of the conversation and the neverending flow of history and relational thinking, but a constant battering of words and images and ideas will exhaust many readers and will distract from the greater importance and, yes, beauty of the book. Austerlitz is, as is its central theme, in many ways a paradox, a brilliantly conceived, brilliantly constructed, and brilliantly written novel that suffers from the burden of its care and its uncompromising capitulation to form over substance and readability.
Grade: A-
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