false 76507 16 A meditation on memory and loss. Sebald re-creates the lives of four exiles--five if you include his oblique self-portrait--through their own accounts, others' recollections, and pictures and found objects. But he brings these men before our eyes only to make them fade away, "longing for extinction." Two were eventual suicides, another died in an asylum, the fourth still lived under a "poisonous canopy" more than 40 years after his parents' death in Nazi Germany. <p> Sebald's own longing is for communion. En route to Ithaca (the real upstate New York location but also the symbolic one), he comes to feel "like a travelling companion of my neighbor in the next lane." After the car speeds away--"the children pulling clownish faces out of the rear window--I felt deserted and desolate for a time." Sebald's narrative is purposely moth-holed (butterfly-ridden, actually--there's a recurring Nabokov-with-a-net type), an escape from the prison-house of realism. According to the author, his Uncle Ambros's increasingly improbable tales were the result of "an illness which causes lost memories to be replaced by fantastic inventions." Luckily for us, Sebald seems to have inherited the same syndrome. <i>--Kerry Fried</i> 977291 book 1992 The Emigrants total:820|5:377|4:305|3:113|2:20|1:5| 820 3489 1277 71 5 29 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 12 23:55:27 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 14:45:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Feb 01 18:00:44 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 18:01:34 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Nov 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 19:58:44 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 20:21:25 -0800 2009
It was in the ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 07 14:10:50 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 07 14:34:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 16 10:47:17 -0700 2009 Sat Sep 19 07:37:14 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jul 12 12:29:19 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 12:49:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jul 30 08:56:19 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 08:56:46 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Oct 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 01:49:19 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 28 09:18:13 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 02 06:56:12 -0700 2008 Fri May 02 07:39:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 18 10:24:26 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 29 10:03:23 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 15:33:42 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 15:34:50 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Dec 17 08:52:41 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 13 00:25:56 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 28 20:45:51 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 28 21:01:04 -0700 2008
He's probably not for ever...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 11:25:32 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 11:31:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jan 12 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 00:43:05 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 00:44:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Sep 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 03 04:44:46 -0800 2009 Tue Sep 15 02:41:06 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Dec 21 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 07:41:33 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 21 07:47:03 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1998 Wed Jan 07 21:02:33 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 21:04:48 -0800 2009 RIngs of Saturn, this is easily Sebald's second best novel: a collection of four novellas about lives changed utterly by the Holocaust, though not in any of the ways conventional to mainstream fiction and movies. I first read it in 1998 (I think), then read it again last year.]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 01 10:09:24 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 10:13:08 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 14:23:57 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 14:23:57 -0800 2008
A story of four emigrants who fled the auto-da-fé of mid-century central Europe for other, if not necessarily, greener pastures.

The story of Sebald's great-uncle is particularly fascinating, tracing his long years as a...more...]]>