Austerlitz
Jul 21, 2022
Review of novel by W. G. Sebald
Intricately narrated tale of forgetting and remembering, a delayed holocaust story Raised by foster parents in Wales, the narrator, as an adult, discovers his true name and origin and uncovers the fate of his parents. Some of the passages are brilliantly stated.
For instance,
triggered by moths flying around a lamplight — “… the sudden inclusion of unreality into the real world, certain effects of light in the landscape spread out before us, or in the eye of a beloved person, that kindled our deepest feelings, or at least what we took for them.” p 931
“We are not alone in dreaming at night for…perhaps moths dream as well, perhaps a lettuce in the garden dreams as it looks up at the moon by night.” p. 94
