Product Description

Part fiction, part travelogue, the narrator of this compelling masterpiece pursues his solitary, eccentric course from England to Italy and beyond, succumbing to the vertiginous unreliability of memory itself. What could possibly connect Stendhal's unrequited love, the artistry of Pisanello, a series of murders by a clandestine organisation, a missing passport, Casanova, the suicide of a dinner companion, stale apple cake, the Great Fire of London, a story by Kafka about a doomed huntsman and a closed-down pizzeria in Verona?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15783 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-07
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It is not often that books receive the universal critical acclaim with which W.G. Sebald's work in English translation has been met. The Rings of Saturn, in particular, achieved the sort of plaudits which would enable most writers to die happy. Sebald's limpid prose is literally entrancing and has encouraged a serious, passionate and aesthetic response. His unique style was first employed in Vertigo, published in the original German in 1990 and now available in English. As in The Emigrants, Vertigo interweaves four narratives that develop an elegiac evocation of a transcendent theme--which, in this case, is that of memory. Beginning with Marie Henri Beyle (Stendhal), and his painful and unreliable recollections of the military campaign during which his rites of passage were won, the narrative elegantly traverses Sebald's own voyages through Italy. It journeys into the intersection of temporal and personal perspectives which is the stuff of all interpretations, both past and present.

As the book develops, it returns to the same locations: Milan, Verona, Venice and the Alps. In the course of this fractured meandering, the reader lives with a haunted Franz Kafka and admires the serene beauty of the stars above Lake Garda, before returning to Sebald's home in the Bavarian Alps ,where the author confronts his childhood memories.

Of all Sebald's works, his narrative style is perhaps best suited to the subject-matter of this book, for it is precisely the distorted and unfathomable essence of memory that his stumbling journey seeks to unravel. Thus in Vertigo, Sebald's integration of personal, historical and fictional perspectives, combined with the nature of his physical exploration, creates a vivid and lasting impression of the imaginative confusion that is inherent in any thought, recollection or projection. This style of writing requires deep integrity and it is impossible not to develop a picture of a deeply sensitive mind, which is aware of the very nature of its conceits and deceptions. "What is it that undoes a writer?", asks Sebald, when thinking of Stendhal. The question weighs over the rest of the book and indeed over much of Sebald's work.

In The Rings of Saturn he goes some way towards producing an answer, not just to this but indeed to the motivation of Vertigo as a whole:

"The fact is that writing is the only way in which I am able to cope with the memories which overwhelm me so frequently and unexpectedly. If they remained locked away, they would become heavier and heavier as time went on, so that in the end I would succumb under their mounting weight."

Paul Auster
‘One of the most original voices to have come from Europe in recent years’

Anita Brookner, Spectator
'Nothing like Vertigo is likely to be encountered in the course of one’s regular reading.'

Customer Reviews

A haunting, strange and totally original physical and metaph
'Vertigo' is well titled. There is a constant feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty in the narrative. There is suspense, but the narrator's combination of ultrasensivity and naivety is often comic. In the main section, 'All'estero', Sebald retraces Kafka's journey to the Italian Lakes in 1913. On a local bus, he sees twin boys who look exactly like Kafka. (It should be noted that Sebald is given to imagining present-day people to be historical figures.) He tries to explain his excitement at this coincidence to the boys' parents and asks them to send him a photo of the boys to his address in England. The boys gigle and the parents frown. Belatedly, Sebald realises that the parents think he is a pederast and hurriedly gets off at the next stop. Or in Verona where he eats alone in a dreadful pizzeria and is suddenly overcome with terror when he sees from the bill that the propietor is Sr Cadavero. At this point Sebald overhears him telling someone on the phone that 'hell is at the gates'. He flees. There is something of Kafka in these incidents. But M. Hulot is not far away either. In the last section of the book, Sebald describes his return to W., his home village in the Allgau,just across the border from Tyrol. Present experiences mingle with childhood memories. People, places, and incidents are unerringly recalled and placed. The mood here is dark, the season winter, and the lonely wanderer of Schubert's 'Winterreise' also comes to mind. The richness of allusion is typical of Sebald's work. The writing is clear, readable, and totally compelling. It's impossible to sum up Sebald's work - he's too much of an original for that - but his is a voice which is worth attending to.

Don't look down
W G Sebald isn't the most cheery author around. His later work, The Rings Of Saturn, was a somewhat gloomy jaunt around Suffolk (an area of England not known for its Barbados-like jollity). This collection does not disappoint. Sebald (or his alter-ego, at any rate), travels here and there, and doesn't seem to find joy in any place he goes to. Italian restaurants, his home town, nowhere is safe - he's a kind of anti-Bill Bryson. But all the time, his muses on existence are beautifully written and are genuinely thought provoking. He has a wonderful tone (helped, I'm sure, by the translation), and is genuinly unique.

He can also make you laugh - the first four pages of the final section are so utterly miserable I had to stop myself laughing. You really begin to wonder if he's playing to the crowd. But he does it so well, that you can't help but forgive him.

Excellent
I have only recently discovered W G Sebald. This is a fascinating book - highly recommended. A travel book of the mind.