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Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com 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 More Spike email RSS Facebook Twitter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com to, is a fighting on the wrong front. Austerlitz’s opacity, then, is perhaps artistically necessary. If this is the case, it makes this novel at once a success – at least on its own terms – and a prelude to an impasse. With Austerlitz, Sebald has continued a remarkable run. He has produced four fascinating, often BUY W.G. Sebald books online from and mesmerising, novels in almost as many years. They are all far more interesting than those on this year’s Booker Prize shortlist. Yet one wonders how he will continue to dramatise the confrontation with what always resists direct approach without becoming boring and predictable. � 449 More Spike email RSS Facebook Twitter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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