The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald (June 2020)

[Roman Clodia]

Yes, nice counter-example, Elizabeth.

Now I'm trying to work out why I don't think Sebald is negative, even though the book is so melancholic.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

You all are familiar with the area. I think you already had a positive feeling about it and I don't have that experience. I think we all bring things to our reading that aren't necessarily on the printed page. Although I can't identify what in my experience would see so much negativity in this beyond the printed page - I must have brought that with me as you did your positivity - I don't discount that I did.

[Nigeyb]

Expectation, mood, personal experience, tolerance for - and acceptance of - ambiguity, education, preferences, and much much more, will effect how each individual will react to a book

[Judy]

Nigeyb wrote: "Charlotte Ives and the Vicomte de Chateaubriand is another stunning little vignette"

I agree - this made me want to read some Chateaubriand! What an amazing life he had.

[Judy]

Roman Clodia wrote: "I wondered if it might be the other way around (and this goes back to the question of how fictional this book is): is the physical journey a fictional conceit that holds together the intellectual issues that Sebald is concerned with?..."

I think you are right, RC - to a large extent the digressions are the point, with various issues recurring in different shapes.

[Judy]

I have finished this now, and thought it was a magnificent book overall. I did struggle at first with the lack of paragraphs, but I agree with earlier comments that this may be a deliberate choice to show how one thought flows into another. I have lived in East Anglia most of my life and have visited many of the places discussed, so that was obviously an important part of the experience for me.

I felt this was a timely book to read at the moment, when there is a lot of discussion on the legacy of colonialism and oppression, which are such major themes for Sebald. I thought a key section was his account of Joseph Conrad visiting the Congo and seeing the brutal treatment of the workers, amounting to mass murder, and then feeling that the city of Brussels was built on a mountain of dead bodies - an image which also applies to other cities.

This also ties in with the underlying theme of the Holocaust which has been mentioned in the discussion. It seems as if quite a few of the fictional elements, as well as the factual ones, touch on the war and the Holocaust - the man who left his fortune to his housekeeper seems to have been a fictional character, as I mentioned in a previous post, and he is said to have become silent after being involved in the liberation of Belsen. I think the Somerleyton gardener who became obsessed with the bombings of Germany is also fictional.

[Nigeyb]

Thanks Judy


Amongst your many good points, I was struck by your comment about the timeliness of the read for you, given the current discussion on the legacy of colonialism and oppression. That's a really good point. The past is constantly leaching into the present.

[Roman Clodia]

Yes! One of the many things I underlined is this:

'This then, I thought, as I looked around me, is the representation of history. It requires a falsification of perspective. We, the survivors, see everything from above, see everything at once, and still we do not know how it was [...] Whatever became of the corpses and mortal remains? Are they buried under the memorial? Are we standing on a mountain of death? Is that our ultimate vantage point?'

[Judy]

I don't think this has already been posted, apologies if I missed it - a long profile of Sebald from the Guardian which includes some thoughts about these aspects:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...

[Judy]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Yes! One of the many things I underlined is this:

'This then, I thought, as I looked around me, is the representation of history. It requires a falsification of perspective. We, the survivors, se..."

Great quote, RC - I think this comes from a part where he looks at a painting showing a battle? That "mountain of death" theme definitely recurs.

[Nigeyb]

I've just started listening to...


Silverview (2021)

by

John le Carré


...which includes a lengthy namecheck for The Rings of Saturn. It is described in laudatory terms. Quite rightly.