Carole Angier
Sebald’s Paradoxes
In search of an enigmatic author
When the books of an unknown German writer called W G Sebald began to be translated in the mid-1990s, readers around the world were astounded by their mystery and melancholy, and above all by their deep empathy with the victims of history and the whole of nature. But researching and writing his biography, I learned that empathy wasn’t Sebald’s full story. One thing brought out ruthlessness in him instead: writing.
He was startlingly ruthless in his academic writing, for instance, when he was a young man making his way, teaching German literature at the University of East Anglia. He grew out of that, but never stopped attacking writers whom he judged inauthentic. The literary quality of a work depends on the personal integrity of its maker, he argued: if there’s any falsity in the writer, it comes out in the writing. He launched violent attacks on German literary stars like Alfred Andersch on these grounds. It made him thoroughly unpopular with many German readers. But he didn’t mind that as long as they listened.
This is the same man who wrote The Rings of Saturn, in which the destruction of pheasants for fun is described with extraordinary anger. The narrator’s empathy with herrings, murdered in their millions every day, is no less intense than his empathy with the victims of the extermination camps, murdered
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'The day Simon and I Vespa-d from Daunt to Daunt to John Sandoe to Hatchards to Goldsboro, places where many of the booksellers have become my friends over the years, was the one with the high puffy clouds, the very strong breeze, the cool-warm sunlight.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/temple-of-vespa
Some salient thoughts on book collecting from Michael Dirda with a semi tragic conclusion that I suspect many of us can relate to from the @Lit_Review #WednesdayMotivation
Sign up to our newsletter! Get free articles, selections from the archive, subscription offers and competitions delivered straight to your inbox.
http://ow.ly/zZcW50JfgN5