The Rings of Saturn
"Perhaps the deeper we get into our work, the more we lose the overall view of things, and perhaps for that very reason we tend to confuse the increasing complexity of our own spiritual constructs with advances in knowledge..." With such thoughts in August, the month that is under the sign of Saturn, W.G. Sebald set out on a tour of Suffolk County. The bare and dull landscape of these parts is the canvas for the author's pessimistic philosophy of life, which conjures up incredible stories of the past, telling of the genius of Thomas Browne, the doom of Victorian castles and fishing, the life of Joseph Conrad, the incredible love of Chateaubriand, or the unhappy Swinburne. Synchronizing the trajectories of history, environment, and memory, Sebald also brings the catastrophic consequences of man's violent intervention in nature into the focus of his narrative. The Rings of Saturn thus becomes a melancholic literary journey through the history of the decline of culture and nature, a profound reflection on the fate of civilization.
A writer of indescribable originality whose voice we recognise as indispensable and highly significant for our times.
New York Times
W. G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald was a German writer and academic. His works are largely concerned with the themes of memory and loss of memory (both personal and collective) and decay (of civilizations, traditions or physical objects). They are, in particular, attempts to reconcile himself with, and deal in literary terms with, the trauma of the Second World War and its effect on the German people.
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