I find the wonderful German writer W.G. Sebald so difficult to review that my treatment of his second novel, The Rings of Saturn, was no more than a long story about a trip I once made with my then partner to her home in Cornwall, during which, mostly on account of her parents, I lost my mind and my girlfriend. I’m not, of course, going to go over all that again, and I couldn’t even if I wanted to, for I have forgotten much of what took place; yet the disquieting thing is that what I can recall or bring back I now doubt the veracity of. For example, my girlfriend’s parents were very rich, but I am sure that it is not the case that their admittedly large home was backed by an even larger field, in which wild horses ran; yet that – the field, the horses, the house – is my strongest memory of the week I spent in Cornwall.Some years ago I was at college and my philosophy teacher told me a story about how he moved to the Czech Republic, on a whim so to speak, in order to be with a Czech girl he had met whilst she was on vacation in England. When he arrived at her house she showed him in and explained that he ought to say hello to her father. My friend agreed and so she directed him to climb the stairs, where her father could be found in the first room on the right. My teacher may have found this odd, but in any case he climbed the stairs and entered the room and there he saw the old man, sitting in a chair, listening to Wagner, with tears streaming down his face. Now, this did not happen to me. I know that well enough, so why is it that this memory now seems as though it belongs to me? Why is it that I am able to put myself in that situation, in place of my teacher, and see, not what he saw, but my own version of it, with as much assurance as anything that has actually happened to me in my life?As I sit here and think about those two trips, one to Cornwall and one to the Czech Republic, both of which are a strange mixture of fantasy and fact, the proportions of each unknowable to me, I feel extremely disorientated. This disorientation is, I believe, what Sebald called vertigo, a state that is characterised by the difficulty, or a belief in the difficulty, of putting one’s feet on the ground, of being sure of yourself and of the world around you. It is this mental, and physical, state that Sebald writes about in this book, the first of his four great novels. In it he tells a series of anecdotes and stories, involving both fictional characters and real people, including himself.Sebald’s first vertigo-sufferer is Marie-Henri Beyle, who we are told was a soldier in Napoleon’s army; he was also a writer, and is better known as Stendhal. Throughout his life Beyle’s memories and perceptions, according to Sebald, consistently played tricks on him. For example, he was convinced that the town of Ivrea, through which he once passed, would be indelibly fixed in his mind, only to find, some years later, that what he actually remembered was nothing but a copy of an engraving called Prospetto d’Ivrea.Beyle writes that even when the images supplied by memory are true to life one can place little confidence in them.For Beyle, the distinction between truth and fiction, reality and imagination, was tenuous at best. Probably the most wonderful, the most moving anecdote Sebald shares with us in this regard involves Beyle’s relationship with a possibly imaginary woman, La Ghita. Beyle, writes Sebald, claimed to have been travelling with La Ghita, to have had involved conversations with her, and to have eventually broken from her, and yet there is no definitive proof that she ever existed; in fact, the likelihood is that she was a composite of numerous women the Frenchman had known.As with all of Sebald’s work, in Vertigo he is concerned with melancholy outsiders, or eccentrics. Most people do not have a troubled relationship with reality, like Beyle does, but the few that do tend to not be particularly happy [or mentally stable]. This appears to be borne out when, at the beginning of the second section of the novel, Sebald, or the narrator who so closely resembles Sebald, discusses his own mental breakdown, which occurs when travelling through Vienna, Milan, Verona, Venice and Innsbruck. The narrator’s vertigo manifests itself as a kind of dread or neurotic fear, and by a sense of the uncanny. For example, at one point he tells the story of Casanova’s imprisonment and notices that the day the Italian had set for his escape is the day that he [Sebald] had visited that same prison, Doge’s Palace. When he leaves each town or city he does so as though trying to outstrip his anxiety, as though he is on the run from himself [and possibly the two shadowy figures he believes may be following him]. In the second half of this long second section, Sebald returns, seven years later, to make the same trip and visit some of the same places. This trip is a tour of his memories of those places as much as it is an actual tour of them.Like Beyle, Sebald is hyper-sensitive; the things that he reads and the art that he engages with often break into reality, the everyday world is often transformed by his imagination [or madness]. At one point in the book he thinks that he is following Dante, at another he mentions that he was once convinced that a black limousine driver was Melchior, one of the three magi [or wise men]. Throughout, there hangs over the book the question, What is reality? Are Sebald’s strange experiences reality? Instinctively one would want to say no, because Dante was dead at the time the narrator claims to have seen him, and yet, for me, the issue is far from clear-cut; what someone experiences, regardless of how impossible it may may seem, is their reality, is as real as anything we would accept without raising an eyebrow. The truth of the world, I once wrote, is like a cloud of blue smoke on a windy day.Over the years I had puzzled out a good deal in my own mind, but in spite of that, far from becoming clearer, things now appeared to me more incomprehensible than ever. The more images I gathered from the past, i said, the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past actually happened in this or that way.According to many of the reviews and articles I have read, Vertigo is the weakest of Sebald’s four novels, but that is not an opinion I share; for me The Emigrants is the least engaging of the bunch. However, what does distinguish this novel from the others, and perhaps accounts for some of the indifference towards it, is that it wears its influences more brazenly. Sebald’s other work all tastes subtly of Marcel Proust and Jorge Luis Borges, but here the flavour is very, very strong. The prose style, involving long complex sentences, with multiple clauses, is recognisably Proustian; and some of the ideas contained within Vertigo are not only similar to some of those found in In Search of Lost Time, but actually appear in it. Furthermore, the structure of this book, in comparison with Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn in particular, is far from sophisticated. For example, while the opening Beyle section is thematically connected to the rest of the work, it still essentially stands alone. Later in his career Sebald would work his anecdotes and stories into his overall narrative and that gave them a satisfying flow that Vertigo does not have.Yet there are also positive aspects of the book that one will not find in Sebald’s more sophisticated work. First of all, it is at times pretty funny. There is a refreshing lightness of touch, or lightheartedness, in certain passages. Two incidents stand out or me in this regard, there is Sebald possibly getting hit on in a bar in Italy and a scene on a bus when he spies two kids who he thinks are dead-ringers for Franz Kafka. Here, our intrepid narrator approaches the boys and their parents, but receives a frosty reception; he asks for a photograph of the children but is turned down. They probably thought I was a pederast, Sebald notes. Ha! Martin Amis once said that all great writers are also comic writers, and I believe there is some truth in that. A comic writer does not have to mean someone like P.G. Wodehouse, but, for me, and Amis too, includes the likes of Tolstoy and Kafka. The idea is that if you understand the world, and the human condition, you cannot help but be, on occasions, funny, because life is funny; so it pleases me that Sebald has shown that he, too, could be humorous. The story of the Kafka kids also highlights another pleasing aspect of Vertigo, which is that it is more obviously fictional than the novels that came after it. One may in fact see that as a negative, but it was nice, in my opinion, to encounter a more relaxed Sebald, one trying stuff out, even some goofy stuff.
I think there's a strong argument to be made that this is a five star book; Sebald will routinely, with a seemingly quotidian sentence, compel you to feel almost breathtaking pain and loneliness--it's a crazy trick. And the last several pages are jaw-dropping in a way I won't spoil. The front of my copy of Vertigo calls Sebald "memory's Einstein," and this pretty much has to be true since it's well established that Sebald can write a great book (or more than one) about what is essentially a walking tour, just by interpolating little historical or autobiographical side notes.So why the vertigo? Well, vertigo is really just a change in perspective--it's what happens when you've been looking at the ground beneath your feet, but then are forced to notice the immeasurable chasm two feet to the left. And it's an apt metaphor for what the book does; it wrenches you from your narrow perspective of history or geography or the human psyche, and forces you to confront a broader one: the madness of large-scale battle, or the effect of a secret rape on a small town, or the loneliness of maybe never being able to know love. A couple demonstrative quotes:"There is something peculiarly dispiriting about the emptiness that wells up when, in a strange city, one dials the same telephone numbers in vain. If no one answers, it is a disappointment of huge significance, quite as if these few random ciphers were a matter of life and death. So what else could I do, when I had put the coins that jingled out of the box back into my pocket, but wander aimlessly around until well into the night."Or, from near the end, on a train trip: "There was no room for doubt, however, about the reality of my poor fellow travelers, who had all set off early that morning neatly turned out and spruced up, but were now slumped in their seats like a defeated army and, before they turned to their newspapers, were staring out at the desolate forecourts of the metropolis with fixed unseeing eyes."And my big problem with Vertigo and maybe even Sebald in general is this incorrigible, pervasive, European-style world-weary fatalism. A wise viewpoint from an older person, especially a European (Sebald's historical reveries provide good evidence for fatalism as a philosophy, or at least I thought so), and in fact he makes it pretty hard to argue with him without sounding like a petulant American child. But you know what?I reject fatalism. I don't believe that what we have is the best we're going to get. I don't just want wisdom; I want truth. I don't just want sex; I want love. I don't just want law; I want justice. And I refuse to believe that these things can't be found. I claim the right to bite off more than I can chew, and to gleefully spit it all back into the sneering faces of the naysayers. I claim the right to disturb the comfortable, and in return I will do my best to comfort the disturbed. And though I am cynical, I cannot--will not--let cynicism govern my actions.And when I'm older and smarter and inevitably have accomplished so much less than I expected, I'll come back and read this again, and I'll doubtless find Sebald to be better company.
Do You like book Vertigo (2001)?
W.G. Sebald was widely heralded before his unfortunate early passing. What's most striking to me is that his novel-memoirs are translations; the prose is so eloquent and so smoothly rendered into English that it's hard to believe the original text was German (French translates very well into English, but German always sounds stilted and cluttered, overly packed with odd grammar, awkward phrasing and far too many adverbs). I've recently learned that Sebald became heavily involved in the translation process, ensuring that the English versions closely reflected his original intent.Compared with "The Rings of Saturn," "Vertigo" is slightly more structured, and although Sebald wanders somewhat aimlessly through Central Europe, his destination always seems to be the small German town in which he was raised -- a place that is familiar, somewhat comforting, though largely macabre. His childhood home is like a cross between Grover's Corners and Transylvania, and as ardently as he pursues his fading memories, Sebald also seems tormented by these biographical echoes. Susan Sontag was particularly enamored of his pictorial digressions -- washed-out photographs, prints and paintings that embellished the text. Critics point out that the pictures don't simply illustrate the story; they complement the writing in ghostly ways. You can almost feel the cold cloud of a poltergeist seeping through you to turn the next page. Sebald's work is tortured and haunting, but it's also beautifully portraited. Nervous breakdowns were never so romantically described.
—Robertisenberg
Perhaps one of the reasons I do not read as many contemporary writers is that I find myself somewhat at sea as each one works his or her own strange magic on me. There is something comforting about reading a Balzac or a Trollope. I know their worlds and feel at home in them. Poor W G Sebald, on the other hand, suffers from a sense of Vertigo as he travels around Europe, bringing up memories and strange historico-literary coincidences involving Stendhal, Kafka, Casanova and others -- and many somehow connected with that fateful year 1913. Living in England, he travels through Italy and Bavaria, ultimately returning to his childhood home of W., where everything has changed.In a conversation with the last surviving person from his childhood, Lukas, the following observation is made:He particularly agreed when I said that over the years I had puzzled out a good deal in my own mind, but in spite of that, far from becoming clearer, things now appeared to me to be more incomprehensible than ever. The more images I gathered from the past, I said, the more unlikely it seemed to me that the past had actually happened in this way or that way, for nothing about it could be called normal: most of it was absurd, and if not absurd, then appalling.Touché! I see it in myself, as I examine my past life, that I all too frequently rely on personal myths I have concocted to explain my life to myself. But when I check with old friends, I see that they do not remember me in that way at all.Sebald has an interesting habit of interspersing black and white photos and other illustrations among the text, some more relevant than others, but all suggesting a kind of strangeness that goes well with the author's meditations on the past and on his memories of childhood. In the end, I think I can read some more Sebald and feel good about it. Maybe a little vertiginous in my own way, but perhaps that feeling is also a part of my own life.
—Jim
MIND THE GAPL’io narrante di Sebald è quasi sempre in un periodo delicato e doloroso della vita – conosce la desolazione degli ospedali, ha frequentato anche quelli psichiatrici – è immerso nella malinconia, ma direi anche in qualcosa di molto prossimo alla depressione. E’ alle prese con una forza con la quale ingaggia una lotta muta, ma strenua.Immagino che quella forza sia il ricordo: ricordare o dimenticare fa ugualmente male, è un peso dal quale non ci si libera. Ma è qualcosa che si deve fare, che non si può trascurare. Anche conservare memoria perfetta di una lacerante amnesia è preferibile al completo oblio. Ma le immagini che la memoria riconduce, per quanto fedeli al proprio vissuto, possono essere prese come dati di fatto, sono davvero affidabili? Quante più immagini del passato riesco a raccogliere, tanto più mi sembra inverosimile che si sia svolto proprio in quel modo: nulla in esso può definirsi normale, la maggior parte di quanto vi è accaduto è ridicolo, e là dove non è ridicolo suscita orrore. L’orrore è l’eredità dell’heimat, nasce da quei dodici anni che durarono mille, durante i quali Sebald e il suo io narrante videro la luce: e, anche, dall’essersene andato via, avere abbandonato la terra natia, un gesto sentito come aver voluto dimenticare e rimuovere quel passato (ma si è comunque portato dietro l’infezione nazista, proprio come Stendhal nel primo racconto, sotto l’alias di Beyle, si porta dietro la sifilide nel suo peregrinare per l'Italia settentrionale). Perché, in fondo al ricordo, c’è sempre dolore, c’è sempre una colpa. Il ricordo è ‘vertigine'.L’io narrante di Sebald parla in modo accurato, dotto, forbito, ironico, ipnotico. Parla col silenzio. Parla attraverso gli spazi geografici e temporali che percorre. Parla di paesaggi di rarefatta solitudine. Traccia linee di collegamento tra la mano di una donna che potrebbe essersi poggiata sulla sua spalla nella hall di un albergo di Limone sul Garda con il ricordo di anni prima a Manchester dove un’ottica cinese gli riparò gli occhiali giungendo a una vicinanza fisica quasi simile. Sembra sempre circondato di simboli, ha visioni, vede persone morte da tempo, fa incontri strani, è perseguitato da atmosfere gotiche, cupe, sospese, desolate. Si ferma a scrivere dove capita, anche nel corridoio del treno o davanti alla stazione di Desenzano, prende appunti con la matita su taccuini dimenticando tutto tutti e se stesso: scrive e afferma di non sapere cosa scrive, …ma di avere sempre più la sensazione che si trattasse di un romanzo giallo.L'io narrante di Sebald parla attraverso racconti che sono romanzi che sono memoir che sono saggi che sono autobiografia, diario di viaggio, ricordi personali, diari altrui, lettere, articoli di giornale, confidenze (romanzo giallo?)… Parla di storia e geografia e arte e botanica e architettura e musica e … Parla di viaggi, nel tempo e nello spazio. Sono viaggi dell’anima, che il corpo asseconda: Entrato in chiesa, mi sedetti un attimo per slacciarmi le stringhe delle scarpe e all’improvviso, come ricordo ancora con immutata chiarezza, non seppi più dove fossi. Nonostante il faticosissimo tentativo di ricostruire lo svolgimento delle ultime giornate – quelle che mi avevano condotto lì - non avrei neppure saputo dire se mi trovavo ancora nel mondo dei vivi o in un Altrove.Parla, e sembra tacere. Parla piano, parla col silenzio e in silenzio. Respira e mi trasmette libertà: non solo perché è oltre la costrizione di qualsiasi genere letterario. E’ proprio questa forma di quiete che ha il profumo di libertà.La mia sensazione è che segua una linea più sinuosa che retta, più periferica che tesa al centro: potrebbe ridisporre queste quattro sezioni (racconti?) in un’infinita varietà di combinazioni. Non è in fondo questo che il narratore di Sebald afferma quando nella biblioteca civica di Verona sfogliando le raccolte dei giornali locali risalenti all’agosto e settembre 1913 scrive: …storie senza né capo né coda che, pensavo tra me, sarebbe stato opportuno approfondire? E ancora:…con le mie annotazioni mi trovavo ormai arrivato al punto in cui si trattava di andare avanti non si sa fino a quando oppure di lasciar perdere.Perché in tutte le opere di Sebald ci sono le fotografie, cosa significano? Sono abbandonate tra le pagine come in un diario, per ricordare qualcosa, un momento particolare? Ma anche se si trattasse di un diario, è un diario pubblicato, la foto è stampata in un posto e un ordine precisi: vuole avvalorare il testo, confermarlo, dargli più verità? O siamo nel campo della letteratura postmoderna, e Sebald sta cercando di ricordarci che si tratta di un’opera di finzione, una sua invenzione (come l’attore che improvvisamente volta le spalle al palcoscenico e parla rivolto allo spettatore, squarciando il velo): in fondo, la foto non dimostra nulla, può essere quella o un’altra cosa, non abbiamo prove per collegarla al testo, se non una specie di verosimiglianza. Lavoriamo al buio - facciamo quello che possiamo, diamo quello che abbiamo. Il nostro dubbio è la nostra passione e la nostra passione è il nostro compito, così Henry James sintetizza il lavoro dell’artista: sono parole che si applicano anche al lettore, sicuramente a me, perché quando incontro una vera e propria opera d'arte, come gli scritti di Sebald, è come leggere al buio, non posso mai sapere dove mi porterà.Ecco perché, quando posso, io cerco rifugio nella sua prosa, come in un cinema: quando inizio a leggerlo, è come se si spegnesse la luce e io prendessi il largo.
—orsodimondo
