Reviews

The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald

earlyandalone's review against another edition

3.0

I really wanted to like this book. And I did find myself getting lost in the winding descriptions of history, but I was all too happy to find my way back by closing the book and going to do something else. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

opl's review against another edition

4.25

Structurally The Rings of Saturn might be W.G. "Max" Sebald's most complex book: after an extended hospital stay the narrator – presumably Sebald – embarks on a pilgrimage (or rather strannik), falling into reminiscences. While his previous prose works (Vertigo & The Emigrants) similarly explored history through intertextuality and auto-fiction, the separate parts the books consist of are never directly, only by themes and diaristic passages linked – whereas in Rings of Saturn, his penultimate work, Sebald seamlessly weaves narratives into his thanatourism across East Anglia; a distinctly sebaldian style that would culminate with Austerlitz. 

 

Throughout the novel Sebald's observations take on grotesque qualities; he's plagued, followed by memory and historical consciousness – towns turn into necropolises, a walk by the sea into a kafkaesque labyrinth. As Luke Jones from About Buildings + Cities puts it »The sebaldian way of looking is partly the trick of looking at things a little too long, allowing the process of free association to run a bit further than it should until it becomes strange, like looking for shapes in the clouds.« – the sebaldian way of looking. While defining this word may lend it a homological meaning, when distilling the countless interpretations, we essentially find 'sebaldian' to describe an act of flaneuring time and memory, a sort of elegiac travelogue. 

 

At first glance, the title bears only faint relation to its contents – Saturn is directly referenced solely in passing, paraphrasing Sir Thomas Browne (or are these Sebald's thoughts after all?) as he likens the setting of night's veil above the German Sea to the planet's scythe; a vague connection could also be found in Edward Fitzgerald's referenced translation – although it only loosely functions as such – of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (»Up from Earth's Centre though the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate […]«). In fact, we must rather understand the book's central metaphor as a state, in which history (in the form of a celestial satellite, the heading citation informs us) collapses onto itself: in the gravitational pull of the now, memory orbits around all, atomized and scattered. Sebald traverses this cosmos, focusing, so that these vestiges seemingly form concentric rings. 

 

There is, however, another in a way much clearer connection to the 'novel' itself; Sebald in one chapter references the Zivilisationsbruch of the Heeresgruppe E and one Kurt Waldheim's involvement –  Waldheim later on, as Sebald details, took on the role of delivering a greeting from beyond humanities grave of sorts, having a recording of his voice put aboard the Voyager II probe, during his tenure as UN state secretary. While on their infinite journey, its sister-craft would go on to take the now famous photograph pale blue dot.  

 

Some fifteen years later – five years after Sebald's passing – NASA's Cassini payed homage to this image, juxtaposing earth against the towering shadows of the Rings of Saturn, inadvertently bringing this chiffre full circle. 

 

Although Sebald had no way of knowing about this 'connection' of course, it encapsulates the essence of the book astoundingly well: a leitmotiv throughout his oeuvre is the Shoah, and, more broadly, genocide and cataclysmic violence, principally that perpetrated by the West. Whilst in other works these remain at the same time omnipresent as well as 'unerzählt', Rings of Saturn directly connects all these events, in this often exploring their roots in European imperialism and further alluding to the [generational] traumata they leave behind  – shown poignantly, for instance, in the tale of emigrant/lyricist Michael Hamburger, friend and collaborator of Max's. Inhumanity casts a deep shadow over the entirety of the narratives, looming as the concentric rings do over the pale blue dot; for Sebald »history is a nightmare from which [he's] trying to awake«. 

m7mdtonsy's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

funeraryarts's review against another edition

3.0

The erudition in history, the insights about memory, time, decay, violence and Sebald's artistically melancholic yet laberynthic voice (always branching into revealing tangents) are impossible to deny. However his tone is overwhelmingly pessimistic and nostalgic, he presents us a very dark side of history without the accompanying beauty that has been the better representative of human nature.

In opposition to Baudelaire who was capable of finding poetic beauty in the most wretched subjects, Sebald conjures up death and sadness out every landscape and memory he revisits during the Rings of Saturn. I feel that in his efforts to be comprehensive about a shared history of loss Sebald ends up sounding at times like wallowing in the misery of the human race without proposing any solutions and not even possesing any visible hope. That might be a failure of expectations on my part to assume he'd do something else other than lay out a comprehensive history of infamy.

I appreciated his methods in the artistry of writing but this book is like conversing with someone interested in talking only about the worst aspects of people, tiring after a while. History itself might be harming the impact of this book. It might be that in 1995 the facts and themes touched here were uncomfortable for European and Americans world wide but in 2023 who hasn't heard of the evils of racism, antisemitism, colonialism or classism ad nauseam?

cobydillon14's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

j_wrathall's review against another edition

5.0

Melancholic beauty, fitting the bereavement of the later night. You can't tear your eyes away, as he could keep walking timeless Roman roads, shifting shores and through other people's tumbled lives.

jarichan's review against another edition

4.0

Aufmerksam gemacht wurde ich auf W.G. Sebald durch die "Zeitschrift für interkulturelle Germanistik", in der es einen Artikel über den deutschen Schriftsteller gab. Neugierig gemacht holte ich mir eines seiner berühmtesten Werke aus der Bibliothek: Die Ringe des Saturn.

Ein Mann, der spazieren geht. Klingt langweilig, ist es aber nicht. Tatsächlich fühlt es sich während des Lesens so an, als würden wir neben Sebald hergehen, uns die englische Landschaft anschauen und über Gott und die Welt diskutieren.

Denn genau das tut der Autor. Seine Beobachtungen bringen ihn auf immer neue Ideen, Zusammenhänge und Gedanken. Wir machen unterschiedliche Zeitreisen, lernen fremde Kulturen kennen und reisen einmal um die Welt, während wir durch das idyllische Suffolk flanieren. Gebannt lauscht der Leser den Erzählungen Sebalds, die mit ausserordentlich vielen Informationen aufwartet, teilweise biographisch angehaucht ist und manchmal auch ein paar Fantasiegebilde hervorbringt.

Ausgestattet ist das Buch sogar mit einigen Fotografien, die das Geschilderte darstellen. Damit hätte ich nicht gerechnet, aber es ist eine angenehme Überraschung. Da man sich so die Details, die Sebald erwähnt, besser vorstellen kann. Leider sind die Bilder bloss schwarz-weiss, sodass einige Kleinigkeiten in Tinte verschwinden.

Schriftstellerisch bewegt sich Sebald auf einem hohen, ausgereiften Niveau, jedoch ohne intellektuelle Hochnäsigkeit. Er drückt sich gewählt aus, verwendet auch viele Sach- und Fachwörter, sodass ich einige Ausdrücke nachschlagen konnte. Doch trotzdem wirkt diese Sprache passend, als ob sich der Autor auch persönlich im Alltag ihrer bedienen würde. Dies macht mir Sebald sehr symapthisch und es steht nicht ausser Frage, dass ich wieder zu einem Buch dieses Schriftstellers greifen werde.

sadiesargar's review against another edition

5.0

Where to even begin? This book is just as haunting to me now as it was when I first read it a decade ago. From my old marginalia, I can see that I had an entire system planned out in my reading, that like the silkweavers, I detected intricate patterns and was attempting to follow them, though for me it was enrapturing rather than enervating. I can’t say that I read it closely this time, but I think I may understand the book better — I think I feel a greater sense of time’s passing. When I was 25, I looked out at the world as though through a pinched aperture, and it limited how I could understand what I read here. Now, at 35, it’s easier for me to recognize that I bring myself to the text, which in turn makes it easier to let go of that a little bit. To be frank, I’m still not sure what Rings of Saturn is about, in the traditional sense. But I believe I’ll be reading it for the rest of my life — not so much to “get a grip” on it, but because it captures the sense of mourning and grief that comes with trying to make meaning in a world that often resists it. A beautiful book. My favorite book.

benhusting's review against another edition

4.0

Wonderful. Beautiful, clear prose. Loved the rambling style. The book is a bit difficult to explain, but essentially, it’s a bit of a travelogue/journal/rumination on the nature of time and decay that frequently slips into digressions on odd stories and myths and rumors of history - always with a surprising connective through line. Pretty great.

The reason it took me 8 months to read it is I started it after graduating from college, read it for about a week, enjoying it, before getting the sudden urge to revisit The Power Broker and give it one more try after I had read 100 pages of that book 2 years before and given up on it. Well, I got sucked in to The Power Broker, that was my book of choice all summer, then I moved to Chicago, returned to The Rings of Saturn, was back to enjoying it, I read the penultimate chapter the night before my first day of class - and then law school started and I didn’t read non-law material for a whole quarter plus winter break. Finally picked it back up and finished the dang thing this Saturday morning when I couldn’t handle it staring back at me from the coffee table for another day.

New year, new goal - for 2023, I’m gonna try to be way better about reading books outside of school this year. Gonna try to hit 20! (Although it would be funny if January 2024 rolls around and this is still my most recent post)

lini_pan's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0