Thoughts on W. G. Sebald
As much as I love this writer, I have very little to say about him. Oh really, I often surprise myself! I've read two of his books (after After Nature, I was starving for more more MORE).
I can't figure myself out. I guess I just never had very much to say on anything...since I'm always like this for practically everything.
So why do I like him?
I found the book, After Nature in the library as the previous year was drawing to a close (or at least the school year was) and checked it out without an inkling as to whom he was. Was, regrettably, he died in 2001, meaning no more books from his remarkable hand, no more visions and passions of his different sort.
Early this year, I bought his book The Rings of Saturn. I enjoyed it as well. It was a considerably denser book than the former.
His books, on reading, induce a terribly narcotic feeling. I'd liken it to being high on opium. Dreamlike. Like gazing at those half-musty misty portraits of nobles from an age ago; the sixteenth century, if you would believe me, smelt of the dust of libraries, which grows in old books, off the ink and the thoughts and the words. History and memory.
History and memory: that's what his books are about. About the nature of rise and fall, very natural patterns of the universe. However, Sebald's writings are anything but existential. More like metaphysical.
Sebald never wrote novels in the conventional sense, no characters, no John and Lily and Rose and Coriolanus. He didn't really write essays either--not in the pure sense at least. Whenever I read him, I feel that he is, or was, saying something. But then again not. He'd tell you something, elaborate but never drill a point hard into your skull. This makes getting his point an exhausting activity as the words just wash right over the reader like thoughts in the periphery of the mind sprouting from the subconscious.
He had an odd way of looking at the world. Like no other. His books are a little like geological rock formations, full of the history of the world that is with you, under you all the time but has never come to light. Until now.
The memory of life will wound the soul forever.
I can't figure myself out. I guess I just never had very much to say on anything...since I'm always like this for practically everything.
So why do I like him?
I found the book, After Nature in the library as the previous year was drawing to a close (or at least the school year was) and checked it out without an inkling as to whom he was. Was, regrettably, he died in 2001, meaning no more books from his remarkable hand, no more visions and passions of his different sort.
Early this year, I bought his book The Rings of Saturn. I enjoyed it as well. It was a considerably denser book than the former.
His books, on reading, induce a terribly narcotic feeling. I'd liken it to being high on opium. Dreamlike. Like gazing at those half-musty misty portraits of nobles from an age ago; the sixteenth century, if you would believe me, smelt of the dust of libraries, which grows in old books, off the ink and the thoughts and the words. History and memory.
History and memory: that's what his books are about. About the nature of rise and fall, very natural patterns of the universe. However, Sebald's writings are anything but existential. More like metaphysical.
Sebald never wrote novels in the conventional sense, no characters, no John and Lily and Rose and Coriolanus. He didn't really write essays either--not in the pure sense at least. Whenever I read him, I feel that he is, or was, saying something. But then again not. He'd tell you something, elaborate but never drill a point hard into your skull. This makes getting his point an exhausting activity as the words just wash right over the reader like thoughts in the periphery of the mind sprouting from the subconscious.
He had an odd way of looking at the world. Like no other. His books are a little like geological rock formations, full of the history of the world that is with you, under you all the time but has never come to light. Until now.
The memory of life will wound the soul forever.
posted by fairypenguin at 3:49 PM
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