Understanding W. G. Sebald (understanding Modern European And Latin American Literature)

Understanding W. G. SEBALD Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature James Hardin, Series Editor volumes on Ingeborg Bachmann Samuel Beckett Thomas Bernhard Johannes Bobrowski Heinrich Böll Italo Calvino Albert Camus Elias Canetti Camilo José Cela Céline Julio Cortázar Isak Dinesen José Donoso Friedrich Dürrenmatt Rainer Werner Fassbinder Max Frisch Federico García Lorca Gabriel García Márquez Juan Goytisolo Günter Grass Gerhart Hauptmann Christoph Hein Hermann Hesse Eugène Ionesco Uwe Johnson Milan Kundera Primo Levi Boris Pasternak Octavio Paz Luigi Pirandello Graciliano Ramos Erich Maria Remarque Alain Robbe-Grillet Joseph Roth Jean-Paul Sartre W. G. Sebald Claude Simon Mario Vargas Llosa Peter Weiss Franz Werfel Christa Wolf UNDERSTANDING W. G. SEBALD MARK R. McCULLOH UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS © 2003 University of South Carolina Published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press Manufactured in the United States of America 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCulloh, Mark Richard, 1955– Understanding W. G. Sebald / Mark R. McCulloh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57003-506-7 (alk. paper) 1. Sebald, Winfried Georg, 1944– —Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PT2681.E18 Z73 2003 833'.914—dc21 2002015452 In memory of J. S. Winkler This page intentionally left blank Contents Series Editor’s Preface ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv Chronology xxiii Chapter 1 Blending Fact, Fiction, Allusion, and Recall: Sebald’s “Literary Monism” 1 Chapter 2 The Emigrants: In Search of the Vividly Present Dead 26 Chapter 3 The Rings of Saturn: Signs of an Incomprehensible Order 57 Chapter 4 Vertigo: Return to the Beginning 84 Chapter 5 Austerlitz: The Mechanisms of Erasure and the Struggle to Recall 108 A Plangent Parting 138 Chapter 6 Notes 153 Bibliography 175 Index 187 This page intentionally left blank Series Editor’s Preface Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature has been planned as a series of guides for undergraduate and graduate students and nonacademic readers. Like the volumes in its companion series Understanding Contemporary American Literature, these books provide introductions to the lives and writings of prominent modern authors and explicate their most important works. Modern literature makes special demands, and this is particularly true of foreign literature, in which the reader must contend not only with unfamiliar, often arcane artistic conventions and philosophical concepts, but also with the handicap of reading the literature in translation. It is a truism that the nuances of one language can be rendered in another only imperfectly (and this problem is especially acute in fiction), but the fact that the works of European and Latin American writers are situated in a historical and cultural setting quite different from our own can be as great a hindrance to the understanding of these works as the linguistic barrier. For this reason the UMELL series emphasizes the sociological and historical background of the writers treated. The philosophical and cultural traditions peculiar to a given culture may be particularly important for an understanding of certain authors, and these are taken up in the introductory chapter and also in the discussion of those works to which this information is relevant. Beyond this, the books treat the specif