Warwick’s review of Austerlitz > Likes and Comments

The vital importance of remembering, and also the complete futility of trying. And the futility also of expressing what we feel about it, because for Sebald language is always at best a poor approximation of reality, ‘something which we use, in the same way as many sea plants and animals use their tentacles, to grope blindly through the darkness enveloping us’.

What a powerful image.

Yes. So powerful it took me quite a while to realise that I didn't agree.

I'm glad I fell on this review via Beth's comment in my updates. I read this book quite a few years ago and it made a big impression. I remember being confused about whether I was reading fact or fiction and concluded that it mattered very little. Your review has clarified some of the mystery for me.

Glad I could help! Although it remains quite a mysterious book for me too.

It seems that you liked it more than you rated it

I don't know, ‘I liked it’ pretty much sums it up.

Great review! The fans of this book have got way more patience than me.

Yes I think a fair bit of patience is required, you’re right!

Your comment about leaving you feeling jet-lagged in a strange city is very accurate. Another professional reviewer wrote that it gave him ‘the sensation of spending my nights swimming through the opaquely lit waters of an old fish-tank’. It’s a strangely affecting novel whose unique atmosphere stays with you long after you finish reading.

True, it definitely has an atmosphere. It didn’t entirely win me over though.

I was very moved by this book, but being Jewish may have added a deeper meaning for me. I found it utterly haunting.