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alsira98's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism, Murder, Xenophobia, and Genocide
aegagrus's review against another edition
3.75
Merle Rubin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, called The Rings of Saturn "an extraordinary palimpsest". It's an apt metaphor for this series of meditations on decay, decline, and memory. The shoreline is a palimpsest. The mind is a palimpsest. The human project is a palimpsest, always being wiped clean and written over.
Sebald demonstrates great fluency in many different modes of analysis. He is comfortable writing sociology, natural history, literary criticism, biography, travelogue. He is always eloquent. At times I wondered how we were expected to engage with his reflections. Are we to pick out bits of relevance from this erudite catalogue of ideas? Or are the ideas themselves meant to be impermanent -- lapping upon our consciousness before withdrawing into the sea. I was also never quite sure of facticity, but I do not see this as unintentional: I admire Sebald's willingness to hunker down in his extended allusions, and the vivid imagination he brings to each.
I appreciated the strongly ecological dimension to Sebald's conceit, especially because it is not a straightforwardly apocalyptic or political one, as ecological messages today often rightly are. I also appreciated the various devices Sebald seems to use to describe his own task as a writer -- building a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem; toiling away at a loom; compiling a mental museum of invented curiosities. Perhaps the most resonant for me comes early on when Sebald describes the early modern writer Thomas Browne as a master of using exquisite prose to elevate the reader to a world of fundamental truths beyond those straightforwardly contained in the text. Having read some Browne, I agree. Sebald is gently critical but also admiring of this gambit. He knows it is a double-edged sword; he is keenly aware of its drawbacks. In The Rings of Saturn, he employs it regardless.
Sebald demonstrates great fluency in many different modes of analysis. He is comfortable writing sociology, natural history, literary criticism, biography, travelogue. He is always eloquent. At times I wondered how we were expected to engage with his reflections. Are we to pick out bits of relevance from this erudite catalogue of ideas? Or are the ideas themselves meant to be impermanent -- lapping upon our consciousness before withdrawing into the sea. I was also never quite sure of facticity, but I do not see this as unintentional: I admire Sebald's willingness to hunker down in his extended allusions, and the vivid imagination he brings to each.
I appreciated the strongly ecological dimension to Sebald's conceit, especially because it is not a straightforwardly apocalyptic or political one, as ecological messages today often rightly are. I also appreciated the various devices Sebald seems to use to describe his own task as a writer -- building a matchstick model of the Temple of Jerusalem; toiling away at a loom; compiling a mental museum of invented curiosities. Perhaps the most resonant for me comes early on when Sebald describes the early modern writer Thomas Browne as a master of using exquisite prose to elevate the reader to a world of fundamental truths beyond those straightforwardly contained in the text. Having read some Browne, I agree. Sebald is gently critical but also admiring of this gambit. He knows it is a double-edged sword; he is keenly aware of its drawbacks. In The Rings of Saturn, he employs it regardless.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Colonisation, Animal death, Murder, and Chronic illness
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