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Fwd: W.G. Sebald's "Campo Santo"
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Dear List,
The NY Times Book Review ran an interesting piece
yesterday on a newly-published collection of essays by
the late (great) W.G. Sebald. The volume apparently
contains something on VN:
"'Campo Santo,'' Anthea Bell's translation of 16
literary and critical essays published in newspapers
and journals between 1975 and 2003, is just the latest
Sebald work to appear since his death. But unlike such
offerings as ''After Nature'' and ''On the Natural
History of Destruction,'' it is very much a
miscellany, and an often frustrating one. The early
essays, on Peter Handke, Günter Grass and others, are
written in a dense academic style and will be rough
going for those who haven't kept up with the authors
in question. By the mid-1990's, however, the familiar
Sebald approach emerges. In these later essays, he
doesn't so much analyze his subjects -- Kafka,
Nabokov, Bruce Chatwin -- as accompany them, turning
them into Sebald characters: melancholy men living in
a real or metaphorical exile, haunted by the past and
the inevitability of their own dissolution."
(If I remember correctly, the Nabokovian 'butterfly
man' who appears in Sebald's 'The Emigrants' is hardly
the kind of melancholic described here by the
reviewer.)
Here is a link to the review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/books/review/03SCHUSS.html
Best,
Jacob Wilkenfeld
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
----- End forwarded message -----
The NY Times Book Review ran an interesting piece
yesterday on a newly-published collection of essays by
the late (great) W.G. Sebald. The volume apparently
contains something on VN:
"'Campo Santo,'' Anthea Bell's translation of 16
literary and critical essays published in newspapers
and journals between 1975 and 2003, is just the latest
Sebald work to appear since his death. But unlike such
offerings as ''After Nature'' and ''On the Natural
History of Destruction,'' it is very much a
miscellany, and an often frustrating one. The early
essays, on Peter Handke, Günter Grass and others, are
written in a dense academic style and will be rough
going for those who haven't kept up with the authors
in question. By the mid-1990's, however, the familiar
Sebald approach emerges. In these later essays, he
doesn't so much analyze his subjects -- Kafka,
Nabokov, Bruce Chatwin -- as accompany them, turning
them into Sebald characters: melancholy men living in
a real or metaphorical exile, haunted by the past and
the inevitability of their own dissolution."
(If I remember correctly, the Nabokovian 'butterfly
man' who appears in Sebald's 'The Emigrants' is hardly
the kind of melancholic described here by the
reviewer.)
Here is a link to the review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/books/review/03SCHUSS.html
Best,
Jacob Wilkenfeld
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Make Yahoo! your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
----- End forwarded message -----