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Both the narrator and Austerlitz spend time describing
events in their lives in which, with curious regularity,
they “lose themselves” in reveries of engagement or
nauseous confusion. Indeed, it happens in all Sebald’s
novels; the first is even titled after such an episode:
Vertigo. It’s as if these moments stand in place of the
revelations the characters are seeking. For example,
Austerlitz loses himself in the small print of works he
is reading in a Paris library as he seeks references to
his father. He doesn’t find any details but discovers,
instead, “the most varied and impenetrable of ramifications”
as he calls it. Rather than finding conclusions,
the possibilities become almost infinite. He is released,
albeit briefly, from his obscure torment. Perhaps this
is why the narrator and his friend are so similar: they
need just a glimmer of otherness to illuminate their
individual darknesses.
We too experience this in the otherwise inexplicable
use of photographs and drawings throughout Sebald’s
novels. In the many reviews of the novel, very little
has been made of them, perhaps it is assumed they
are merely illustrative. Yet as they are uncaptioned,
the reader instinctively wonders what the connection
is between them and the words. It creates one’s own
moment of vertigo. This had a tremendous effect in The
Emigrants, Sebald’s second novel (though the first to
be published). For those new to his work, it will probably
have the same affect. However, by this, the fourth
BUY W.G. Sebald books online from and
time, the power is diminished. Wonder becomes indifference.
The same goes for the character of Austerlitz
himself. His similarity to the reticent narrator means he
is similarly opaque despite speaking for the most of the
418 unparagraphed pages.
Yes, you read correctly. There are 418 pages without
a paragraph break. This a famous aspect of the work of
the late Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, for whom
Sebald has professed great admiration. Bernhard,
however, created unforgettable characters even if
they seem indistinguishable from the morose author.
Perhaps it is significant that not one of Bernhard’s novels
are named after the main character (that is, if one
understands Wittgenstein’s Nephew as autobiography).
It suggests that Sebald’s concern in Austerlitz is for the
mystery of suppressed histories, not for attacking the
suppression with vituperative glee, like Bernhard. In
both uses of unrelenting monologue, the question of
what’s being left out is begged. In Bernhard this has
a painfully comic affect, while here it is more tragic.
Sebald’s empathy is thwarted as a result because, like
Austerlitz’s own attempt to get closer to what remains
unclear to him, it always produces “varied and impenetrable
ramifications”. That Austerlitz is an imagined
character reasserts the fact, and indicates that the novel
as an art form suppresses as much as it illuminates, no
matter how much light is beamed into the darkness.
The “war against cliché” like the other war it alludes
448
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