The late W.G. Sebald wrote novels of elusive complexity, in which allusion, digression, and scholarly elaboration served to contribute small shards of meaning to what would become a mosaic of a plot. AUSTERLITZ is Sebald's finest example of this way of writing, in which the recovery of memory, dammed by repression and the passage of time, becomes the distant goal. Jacques Austerlitz is a retired art historian who, until he was fifteen, believed that he was Dafydd Elias, raised from the age of four by a dour Welsh minister. ...
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The late W.G. Sebald wrote novels of elusive complexity, in which allusion, digression, and scholarly elaboration served to contribute small shards of meaning to what would become a mosaic of a plot. AUSTERLITZ is Sebald's finest example of this way of writing, in which the recovery of memory, dammed by repression and the passage of time, becomes the distant goal. Jacques Austerlitz is a retired art historian who, until he was fifteen, believed that he was Dafydd Elias, raised from the age of four by a dour Welsh minister. Now, in conversations with the narrator, taking place over thirty years in railway stations, he reveals his search for his identity, finding himself to be the child of Prague Jews, one killed in the Holocaust, the other missing.
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You need to have a taste for the post-modern style of construction and also for Proust and for psychoanalysis to completely appreciate to the texture and beauty of Sebald's prose, and for the plot, elusive at first, but profoundly compelling by the mid-point surprise.
Eli L
May 1, 2014
Interesting read
Well written and interesting. Took nearly half the book to arrive at the where I expected the book to start, that is the kinder transport. but still we'll worth reading and probably very realistic. Beautifully written, thought provoking and good psychological detail.
