On the cover of W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz the Los Angeles Times is quoted, calling the book "A remarkable accomplishment." "To read" I feel compelled to add. Saying that Austerlitz is a "tough read" is an understatement. Sentences that run over six pages in length? Only for William Faulkner will I plow through anything like that. Specifics? Sebald mentions birds roosting in the cavernous ceiling of a railroad station. What follows is is a listing of every type of bird that may have ever appeared there. Quite often I felt I was trapped in Moby Dick, specifically the sections where Herman Melville catalogs the different types of whales. So why did I keep reading? I hoped/believed that such tedium would lead to a really emotional impact at the end of the book. Sadly, it didn't. But there were things I noticed. (BTW, the first surprise of Austerlitz was that the book was not named after the place. In Austerlitz, Austerlitz is the main character who searches the history of his own life in an attempt to understand the Holocaust.)
Stuff:
1) "… it is often our mightiest projects that most obviously betray the degree of our insecurity. The construction of fortifications … clearly showed how we felt obliged to keep surrounding ourselves with defenses, built in successive phases as a precaution against any incursion by enemy powers, until the idea of concentric rings making their way steadily outward comes up against its natural limits." (page 14) Interesting. All sorts of ancient forts come to mind. And even the Pentagon.
2) Related to the above: "Such complexes of fortifications… show us how, unlike birds, for instance, who keep building the same nest over thousands of years, we tend to forge ahead with our projects far beyond any reasonable bounds." (page 18) Does that make the score birds–1, humans–0?
3) Ponderings on animals: "We are not alone in dreaming at night for, quite apart from dogs and other domestic creatures whose emotions have been bound up with ours for many thousands of years, these smaller mammals such as mice and moles also live in a world that exists only in their minds whilst they are asleep as we can detect from their eye movements, and who knows, said Austeritz, perhaps moths dream as well, or perhaps a lettuce in the garden dreams as it looks up at the moon by night." (page 94) Okay. One reason vegetarians don't eat meat is because of the slaughter of animals. Perhaps a lettuce can dream. Now what? People will also give up veggies?
4) "A clock has always struck me as something ridiculous, a thoroughly mendacious object, perhaps because I have always resisted the power of time out of some internal compulsion which I myself have never understood, keeping myself apart from so-called current events in the hope, as I now think, said Austerlitz, that time will not pass away, has not passed away, that I can turn back and go behind it, and there I shall find everything as it once was, or more precisely I shall find that all moments of time have co-existed simultaneously, in which case none of what history tells us would be true, past events have not yet occurred but are waiting to do so at the moment when we think of them, although that, of course, opens up the bleak prospect of everlasting misery and never ending anguish." (page 101) After untangling the maze of words in that sentence, I'm pretty sure I found an interesting thought. BTW, that sentence pretty much illustrates the style of writing Sebald uses. (God, help us all!)
5) "… he waited with me in McDonald's until my train left, and after a casual remark about the glaring light which, so :evil: he said, aloud not even the end of the shadow and perpetuated the momentary terror of a lightning flash…" (page 113) Pretty cool description of a McDonald's, IMHO.
6) On language: "All I could think was that such a sentence only appears to mean something, but in truth he is at best a makeshift expedient, a kind of unhealthy growth issuing from our ignorance, something which we use, in the same way as many sea plants and animals use their tentacles, who grope blindly through the darkness enveloping us." (page 124) Yep. I often felt that way while figuring out which words best express an idea--or when reading this book.
7) And then there were the annoying moments when the writer wrote in French. Too bad, I guess, if the reader didn't understand. I also find it a ironic that the translator, translating from German to English, didn't bother translating the French. I guess those who read "literature" are expected to know many languages, one of which needs to be French.
8) A typical sentence: "This remarkably thin man—the first thing you noticed about him was that although he could not have been much over forty his head was wrinkled in fan-like folds above the root of his nose—went through the necessary formalities without another word, very slowly, almost as if he were moving in a denser atmosphere than ours, asked to see our visas, looked at our passports and his register, made an entry of some length on the squared paper of a school exercise book in laborious hand writing, gave us a questionnaire to fill in, looked in a drawer for our key and finally, ringing a bell, summoned as it seemed from nowhere a porter with a bent back, who was wearing a mouse-gray coat that came down to his knees and, like the clerk at the reception desk, appeared to be affected by a chronic lethargy which incapacitated his limbs." (page 208) Ick!
Words, lots and lots of words:
1) Dodecagon. "… we can see that towards the end of the 17th century the star-shaped dodecagon the high entrenches…" (page 15) Some sort of shape? "noun Geometry . a polygon having 12 angles and 12 sides." Okay. Actually, some sort of shape is good enough for me.
2) Casemate. "This casemate, in which you sense immediately…" (page 25) No idea. Something in a building? Yep. "noun. 1. an armored enclosure for guns in a warship. 2. a vault or chamber, especially in a rampart, with embrasures for artillery.
3) Defile. "… Through a narrow defile,…" (page 36) As a noun? No idea. Dictionary.com only has it as a verb. Anyone know?
4) Manse. "… in my narrow bed in the manse …" (page 45) A dwelling given to a priest, parson, etc.? Yep. I have of course read it many times and assumed I knew what it meant, but I thought I'd check it out and be sure.
5) Lanceolate. "… the lichen and the dried lanceolate willow leaves…" Apparently a type of willow leaf. "adjective 1. shaped like the head of a lance. 2. narrow, and tapering toward the apex or sometimes at the base, as a leaf." Hardly even close on that one—even if the word leaf is mentioned.
6) Palmate. "… towering cast iron columns with their palmate capitals…" (page 128) "shaped like an open palm or like a hand with the fingers extended, as a leaf or an antler" OK. Architecture was one of Austerlitz's passions.
7) Rank. "… underneath a taxi rank." (page 130) Stand? Dunno. Nothing in dictionary.com even comes close.
8) Rucksacks. "… carrying rucksacks or small leather cases." (page 141) A small leather case? Dictionary.com: "noun—a type of knapsack carried by hikers, bicyclists, etc." Just not of leather, I guess.
9) Anemones. "… these shade-loving are anemones…" (page 164) A shade-loving plant? "Any of various plants belonging to the genus Anemone, of the buttercup family, having petallike sepals and including several wild species with white flowers as well as others cultivated for their showy flowers in a variety of colors." I would have been just as happy with flower or plant.
10) Lapidarium. "On these occasions I usually visit to the lapidarium installed there in the 60s and spent hours looking at the mineral samples in the glass cases …" (page 180) A room designed to display minerals? Probably. Dictionary.com has lapidary mind as a person who works with stones. That's the closest word it had.
11) Stereometry. "… the rules of a higher form of stereometry …" (page 185) Absolutely no idea. Dictionary.com: "the measurement of volumes." Whatever.
12) Coloratura. "… into a positive verbal coloratura of medical and diagnostic terms …" (page 210) Dictionary.com: " runs, trills, and other florid decorations in vocal music." Okay. I knew what it was in music, but I thought maybe it had some other meaning when it came to language.
Overall? Not my type of book. Those who like description and highfalutin language might have a different opinion.
