Friday 23 February 2007

Has anyone read Austerlitz by W G Sebald? What did you think?

8 comments:

Wendy said...
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Wendy said...

I've not read Austerlitz, but would like to. Ive read The Rings of Saturn and The Emigrants, and am reading Vertigo. Sebalds writting at first both entraled and frustrated me, because I was constantly seeking out what was truth and what was fiction. As I learnt to accept my inability disern this I became completly immersed.
It reminds me of a quote I found by Anselm Keifer:

All that artists do is re-organise remnants. For this reason I try to explain what I mean with liquefying history, liquefying objects. The history is like the heap ruins and the history goes and the heap of ruins becomes bigger and bigger and the art is in the front of this heap of ruins. And the artist goes back to the future.

What did you think of Austerlitz?

Julia Tester said...

Hi Wendy, Thank you for responding to my question, sorry to take so long to respond.

Julia Tester said...

Like you Wendy, I found the style of this writer fairly difficult at first. Sentences were often half a page long, with many diversions and imagination and "reality" often merge. That of course begs the question as to which is real.....
Ifound your quote from Anselm Keifer very useful. I love the idea of history as a heap of ruins. It has relevance to my current work too.
Anyway, I loved the book, it took me over for a while. Sebald manages to draw you in to his head. I suppose you have to call it Stream of Consciousness.
I`m now into Rings Of Saturn, but it hasn`t yet held me as Austerlitz did.
I suspect it is autobiographical. It is dealing with the holocaust,though indirectly. The style suits the material in that the truth seeps out, as it did after the War. And it is still going on.

Wendy said...

I'm glad you enjoyed Austerlitz - its definately on the list. I'll look up the quote - My computer has just died, with the essay on, but I'll look up my copy at the weekend. I suspect its from a book on him by Mark Rosenthal, they have it in the library or I have a copy - its a fantastic book, with fantastic images spanning multiple pages!

tim said...
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tim said...

I've not read any of sebalds books as yet, despite Wendy having given me a copy of vertigo but going along similar lines you may enjoy 'last year in Marienbad'. Its a film by alain resnais and the script was written by Alain Robbe-Grillet (who is a great writer too). The film was shot in a massive baroque hotel and the plot echoes ideas from previous comments on the nature of truth and fiction. The lead male tries to persuade the lead woman that they had met the previous year and were in-fact romantically involved.
I can lend you my copy of the film and I've got some Grillet books if you're interested.

Wendy said...

Hey julia, sorry for the long wait, the quote was from a video they have in the library called Anselm Kiefer: Operation Sealion, part of Arena series. 01/02/91 BBC 2. Take care, x