Reading the 20th Century discussion
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The Rings of Saturn
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The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald (June 2020)
Mod
I'd been wondering about Sebald's parents given his birth date of 1944. I'd agree too with the points about the wider scale of killing than Jews and also the cold mechanization of the system, the vast organisation that was implemented and which seems to have run so smoothly - there is something terrifying about that industrialised 'production line' of extermination.
It seems to me that Sebald is sceptical about not just human nature but the workings of the universe: look at his epigraphs at the front of the book, for example: the rings of saturn are the fragments of a moon already destroyed; we enter the book through this image of ruins.
Thanks so much for that info about the hospital bed! That gives substance to my instinctive feeling about the walk as a fiction to hold the narrative together.
What did you make of the photographs? Great that you're still reading, Elizabeth, and can think of them 'live', as it were.
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You're wonderful at highlighting some of the various meta levels of meaning.
Roman Clodia wrote: "What did you make of the photographs?"
Apparently adding photos is a trademark Sebaldian tactic
They really enrich the reading experience - the herring, and the church tower on Dunwich beach c1900 really stick in my mind. I suspect there is even more significance and thought behind their inclusion though.
What do you think?
Your question prompted a search and I came back with this rather wonderful article...
https://designobserver.com/feature/wg...
Be warned though. It will make you want to start reading Austerlitz immediately
Roman Clodia wrote: "Pure coincidence, but I reread Conrad's Heart of Darkness just a few weeks back so it's still vivid in my mind - another book which uses the motif of a journey that is physical as well as intellectual and psychological. Is Sebald conjuring up Kurtz's cry 'The horror! The horror!' without having to be so explicit or sensational?"
Yes. He is. Of course
Heart of Darkness is a wonderful comparison
You've done it again
I hit a chapter which I could just as well have done without - the Chinese and Swinburne. The best I could remark to myself in this was that I love the way Sebald writes, but what he had to say here was of so little interest I began to despair the chapter wouldn't end soon enough.Bu maybe you two have read into it more significance and can enlighten me.
Mod
As to why Sebald chose to include that section, when he writes about the death of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi he states...
Looking back, she said, she realised that history consists of nothing but misfortune and the troubles that afflict us, so that in all our days on Earth we never know one single moment that is genuinely free of fear
...which, perhaps, feeds into a broader narrative?
Likewise, Swinburne is someone about whom I am woefully ignorant and I was both amused and interested in that section. Some parts made me laugh out loud.
Throughout the book I was in awe of Sebald's learning and the way he wove so much interesting and disparate material into the book.
I now wonder about the extent to which this book is for you Elizabeth.
That chapter is fairly typtical of what lies ahead
I hope it picks up for you
Nigeyb wrote: "I now wonder about the extent to which this book is for you Elizabeth.That chapter is fairly typtical of what lies ahead"
Well, I'm far enough now there is no abandoning it. We'll see how it goes.
Mod
I also enjoyed that chapter and have long meant to read something about the opium wars. Nigeyb is spot on in terms of that quotation on history, destruction and fear. Isn't that also the chapter that introduces silkworms and sericulture, which will return later and create connections throughout the text.
And yes, it was nice to see Sebald in humorous mode :)
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Nigeyb wrote: "As to why Sebald chose to include that section, when he writes about the death of the Empress Dowager Tz’u-hsi he states...Looking back, she said, she realised that history consists of nothing but misfortune and the troubles that afflict us, so that in all our days on Earth we never know one single moment that is genuinely free of fear"
An outlook with which I cannot relate. I'm sure there are many, especially now, who might. It simply doesn't have anything to do with my life and I am now older than she was when she died (but not by much!).
Mod
Elizabeth, I am curious about your final comment - it simply doesn't have anything to do with my life - which suggests you have to be able to relate to something for it to interest you, or to resonate with you? Or have I misconstrued your comment?
I ask because one of the joys of reading, for me, is to gain insights into people with whom I have nothing in common and who don't necessarily share my sensibility, mindset, values, opinions etc
Nigeyb wrote: "Elizabeth, I am curious about your final comment - it simply doesn't have anything to do with my life - which suggests you have to be able to relate to something for it to interest you, or to resonate with you? Or have I misconstrued your comment?"No, I just completely disagree with the comment. The comment seems to indicate the outlook is universal, and I was saying it is not. I simply cannot imagine what it must be like to live in constant fear throughout one's entire life. I am not disputing that it must be so for others - at least one person has said so, and I'm guessing Sebald was in agreement, so that makes two.
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But, based on what I know of her life experience, which is what Sebald wrote about in the book, I could quite understand why she would be of that opinion.
Anyone born into a royal family, especially someone who has to wield power and has responsibility, is unlikely to enjoy a particularly happy life.
Or so it seems to me.
That's the view I've formed from reading about various monarchs and royals.
It's that kind of insight, along with the geopolitics that Sebald describes, that I found interesting in that chapter.
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It certainly does. I'll be reading it after the four prose fictions: Vertigo, The Emigrants, Austerlitz & this one
I must now confess that in a moment of recklessness I have splashed out £18 on eBay to purchase a DVD of...
Patience: After Sebald
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012...
Here's the trailer which convinced me I must get a copy, and hang the expense...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pftG3...
...as did this clip....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYBUb...
How good does that look?
I cannot wait to get my mitts on it
Roman Clodia wrote: "Oh no, I just re-downloaded the book to my kindle and none of my annotations are there - blast! I highlighted so many passages both for myself and because they were things I wanted to bring to our ..."Can you change your settings and have them show up?
Nigeyb wrote: "one of the joys of reading, for me, is to gain insights into people with whom I have nothing in common and who don't necessarily share my sensibility, mindset, values, opinions etc"I agree with this about the joys of reading - well, mostly. I'm sure there are exceptions to that joy. An essay type format might be one of those exceptions. The wandering of his historical reminiscences is too disjointed, there is no continuity. He is outside himself. He doesn't relate anything he sees to himself. Or so it seems. And yet each place clicks something in his memory, something he's read or learned about.
Mod
That looks amazing - good find! Just in those snippets it's interesting to hear about the interconnections we've been discussing, and also the primacy of the Holocaust even though it's not explicitly mentioned.
It's nice to see that you're as taken as me with this first meeting with Sebald - I'm obsessing!
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I'd say that living in constant fear is not the same as "one single moment that is genuinely free of fear" - the latter, to me, means that there's never a moment of pure 100% joy or carefreeness, even if it's only 1% fear that mingles with it. And that fear can be anything - the loss of love or someone we love, political fears, anything.
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I can always see my highlights and annotations so just can't understand how this can have happened... I've tried downloading the book again from the Amazon cloud and no notes there. I also delete my 'my clippings' file immediately because my annotations are in the text... This is the first time this has ever happened.
Mod
See if you still feel like that by the end, Elizabeth.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "Can you change your settings and have them show up?"I can always see my highlights and annotations so just can't understand how this can have happened... I've tried dow..."
I'm so sorry. I know I would be horribly disappointed if such were to happen to me.
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That's good advice.
It's a book that felt more substantial and coherent after completion.
That said, I was also enjoying it as I read, which was a consequence of finding his little vignettes inherently fascinating.
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I was also in London and remember waking up during the night as the wind was so scary. My dad couldn't get to work because of fallen trees on the road and so he walked me to school but we got sent home as so many teachers couldn't get in. Sebald's image of the flattened trees having disappeared from the skyline is very powerful, I agree.
Sebald references forest fires. "... California, summer fires consume whole forests ..." First, this isn't true. There are forest fires, we've all seen them on TV. But it isn't whole forests. Sometimes those fires are arson, which is reprehensible of course, but more often they are started by lightning strikes. I remember some 25+ years ago there were huge fires in Yellowstone National Park which had started due to lighning. Some of them were simply allowed to burn. What was found is that the forest was healthier after the fires than before. Nature cleaned out its dead and dying and used it to add nutrients to the soil.
This isn't the same as what Sebald then goes on to observe, that about the early English settlers burning down whole forests so they could farm, and also the Amazonian fires for the same reason. When watching some documentaries, I have commented on the complete absence of trees in place in the UK and I'd always wondered why/how that came to be. Now I know. But I'll go on to say I don't understand why people don't plant trees. The Amazonian thing is different - or perhaps the same as the early UK settlers, just a later iteration. In any case, tropical forests are very fragile things no matter what they look like. The species are so interdependent that losing even only a few affects a great many more. I'm glad I'm not in a policy position trying to address poverty while trying to save a tropical forest.
All this is to also acknowledge that I love and respect forests. I live in the middle of the largest temperate rain forest in the world. If you have read we are clear cutting and thereby devastating our forest, please do not believe it. It is well and healthy and was never in danger of being decimated.
The whole section on FitzGerald I found interesting. There was more of a story here and some good characterization. I didn't need to have heard of this eccentric fellow. Sebald seems to have admired FitzGerald's refusal to live as his wealth would have allowed. But then we are given a photo and story about his ocean going yacht. Did anyone else find this a contradiction?I haven't finished this section yet, maybe there is more that I'll be told.
I think I will finish the book tonight ...
Mod
I loved Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám as a teenager. Here's a taster, one of his most famous stanzas which you might well recognise:
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
I'm not sure I'd have the same reaction now in terms of a possible 'orientalising' - and I have no idea whether or not Arabic poetry uses rhyme, especially these rhyming couplets of Fitzgerald.
No, not familiar with the verse. I think it is only in the last dozen years or so that I've even heard of Omar Khayam, but I might be wrong and that I'd just forgotten about him.
Mod
Ah, this goes back to the question of fictional novel or non-fiction, no?
"But then we are given a photo and story about his ocean going yacht. Did anyone else find this a contradiction?"
This is where I really miss my annotations... :( But there are other places where the text and photos don't gel and so prompt larger questions about their relations.
That they're in black and white even in the hardbook means they're always blurry and imprecise. Then there are the odd photos: one of the first is the window in his hospital room that shows us nothing. Quite late in the book there's one of the author leaning against a tree that is taken much earlier in time and has obviously been taken by someone else so is from a different journey all together - does this also cast doubt on the reality of the present journey?
Roman Clodia wrote: "Ah, this goes back to the question of fictional novel or non-fiction, no?"The line is definitely blurred. So much is obviously nonfiction, what I presume is history, not just recalled. But then perhaps it *is* a recollection and we all have things we remember clearly, but, unfortunately, clearly incorrect.
I have 2 more sections to read. I have begun thinking of Sebald as Mr. Gloom and Doom who has a very low opinion of humans in general and is, therefore, fearful. I suspect any review I get around to writing will include almost this exact wording.
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Haha, yes, there's a strong sense of melancholy and an awareness of all things decaying, whether it's a planet like Saturn whose ruined moon is the source of the fragments that comprise the rings in the epigraph, civilisations, places or material objects. This is, after all, the man who wrote a book called On the Natural History of Destruction.
On the other hand, there are moments of a mischievous humour, and memories of friendship and connection.
Also, the narrative 'I' doesn't necessarily have a straightforward and unambiguous correlation with Sebald the author - again, a fictional narrator?
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Roman Clodia wrote: "Also, the narrative 'I' doesn't necessarily have a straightforward and unambiguous correlation with Sebald the author - again, a fictional narrator?"I have remarked to myself that one has to pay attention. Sometimes "I" is the person whose biography he is narrating and who is telling his/her own story. And, yes, I would agree that even that observation aside, it may be that there is a third narrator of some sort - I haven't thought long enough about it to have a good context.
I have read that Borges story but it was too long ago to remember clearly.
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Not yet
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Ah yes. Of course.
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Roman Clodia wrote: "This is where I really miss my annotations... :( But there are other places where the text and photos don't gel and so prompt larger questions about their relations.
That they're in black and white even in the hardbook means they're always blurry and imprecise. Then there are the odd photos: one of the first is the window in his hospital room that shows us nothing. Quite late in the book there's one of the author leaning against a tree that is taken much earlier in time and has obviously been taken by someone else so is from a different journey all together - does this also cast doubt on the reality of the present journey?"
The photos really enrich the reading experience and a lot of thought has gone into them.
The blurry and imprecise nature is clearly intentional
Sometimes they illustrate a point, sometimes maybe contradict or subvert the narrative, and so on. There's a disertation to be written about them by an undergraduate with the time and the inclination.
Mod
One of the consequences of this preoccupation has been to upgrade my rating from four stars to five.
How could it be otherwise?
Two new themes have also come to mind: alienation and decay
Many of the people we encounter live outside everyday society and are obsessed, depressed, manic etc.
The haunted East Anglian landscape is characterised by decay and impermanence
Now, to pick up on one of Elizabeth's points...
Elizabeth (Alaska) wrote: "I have begun thinking of Sebald as Mr. Gloom and Doom who has a very low opinion of humans in general and is, therefore, fearful"
The book is unquestionably tinged with melancholy and yet the knowledge he shares, and his obvious innate curiosity, are not typically features of a depressed or fearful personality.
His wonder at the world around him, at art, at history, at the environment, offsets any sense that he is a gloomy or fearful companion.
Quite the opposite.
I would love to have spent time in his company, and, based on the book, find it life reaffirming in spite of the book's maudlin qualities.
What do others think about this?
I finished the book last night and want to make a few comments before further discussion of the book in general.I have a sticky note that I thought the Ashbury's were mentally ill.
In the O'Farrell conversation (or maybe it was on a review), I commented that there were many Irish Troubles, but was corrected to have me believe only that of the 1970s is now referred to as The Troubles. I just want to note that in this book, again the 1920s are referred to as The Troubles.
And after that I left no stickies. Did I just read and not make any connection? I'm not sure. But I ended the book thinking that now I know more about the propagation of silkworms than I ever thought I wanted or needed to know.
Nigeyb wrote: "I would love to have spent time in his company, and, based on the book, find it life reaffirming in spite of the book's maudlin qualities.What do others think about this?"
LOL, well what do you suppose my reaction is? No, I have now spent about as much time in Sebald's presence as I'm up for. I will not be removing Austerlitz from my wish list, but it may be quite some time before I get to The Emigrants, which I have. I have not yet written my review, but phrases have already been circulating in my brain and I'll get to it a bit later.
I do not think that even if I still remember a book months or years later that means I liked the book, which is, after all, what my rating reflects. (I still remember parts of Gulliver's Travels, a book I got around to reading 9 years ago, but which I abhorred.) I may remember this one for some time - or not. But I think I'm more likely to remember it due to the opportunity to discuss it rather than what Sebald had to say.
Mod
Many of the people we encounter live outside everyday society and are obsessed, depressed, manic etc."
Ooh, yes - alienation - nice catch! And it links with the idea of exile and a form of drifting homelessness, maybe even the walking/wandering that the narrator does which holds the narrative together.
Ruins, decay and destruction - yes, that was the most prominent idea that I had.
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The book is unquestionably tinged with melancholy and yet the knowledge he shares, and his obvious innate curiosity, are not typically features of a depressed or fearful personality."
I think I'd describe him as sceptical and doubtful but not as fearful. I also love his curiosity and a sort of generosity of spirit - he looks outwards rather than inwards at himself.
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Haha! Well done on finishing the book and being interested enough in discussing it despite that!
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True, that - I can also remember a book I loathed in far too much detail (The End of the Affair springs to mind - sorry Nigeyb ;)) )
But I do agree that a book which is still swirling around in my head as this one is has managed something very special.
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Me too. He comes over to me (beyond the figure of the narrator) as a very wise and generous soul.
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Yes, I've heard that term before in a 1920s context as well - isn't it used in relation to Bowen's The Last September?
Roman Clodia wrote: "isn't it used in relation to Bowen's The Last September?"I am planning to that after the Celia Fremlin read for the 15th. But it is specifically the subject of J.G. Farrell's Troubles.
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Roman Clodia wrote: "Oh yes, of course - I haven't read Farrell but have been meaning to try him."I think you cannot go wrong. I'll just say that my favorite of the three was The Siege of Krishnapur.
Reading the 20th Century
Books mentioned in this topic
Silverview (other topics)The Rings of Saturn (other topics)
Searching for Sebald: Photography After W.G. Sebald (other topics)
The Rings of Saturn (other topics)
Lord of the Flies (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
John Le Carré (other topics)Lise Patt (other topics)
Jorge Luis Borges (other topics)
Jorge Luis Borges (other topics)
Adam Hochschild (other topics)
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That really is the nub RC
It's only as I reflect on it that I realise you are probably right
What seems to be meandering and discursive is (a bit like the walk itself perhaps?) actually coherent and precise