The Ingenious W.G.Sebald

Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


W. G. Sebald is an extraordinary writer. He takes his reader - quite literally - on a journey, through memories and speculations and hopes and terrors in a manner that can feel meandering and haphazard, but which in fact is ingeniously structured so as to leave you trembling and enriched with the sense of new insight into the world.

I apologise if that sounds melodramatic. You have to read 'Austerlitz' to understand that it is not remotely so. It is a haunting book, based around a character who at the age of 5 was sent to England on a Kinder-transport to escape Nazi atrocities, but who has blocked every trace of memory of that experience from his mind. The narrative is about the unblocking of this memory and all the confrontation with harrowing knowledge that this entails.

Austerlitz is like a man waking up from a bad dream, only to have to confront a far more terrible reality. All his life he has felt different, blighted, isolated. As his memories push back at him, remorselessly, triggered by places and by the relentless workings of his subconscious, making connections and forcing them to the front of his brain, Austerlitz starts to piece together the fragments of his scattered and tragic past. Understanding brings a sort of peace, but only to the accompaniment of the greatest pain.

The writing itself is mesmeric, at times defying conventions of syntax and grammar. This contributes to the powerful sense for the reader of being lost, with Austerlitz, in the fog of his search and his suffering.

I am getting goosebumps just from remembering it.

'Austerlitz' is not a novel for the faint-hearted. It makes for difficult reading on many levels. It requires a sort of courage and commitment. The rewards however, are on a scale that is hard, even for this wordsmith, to put into words. Writers like Sebald show the power of literature at its highest: they 'entertain' us, yes, but shake us to our boots as they go.



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