Subject
VN in W.G.Sebald's THE EMMIGRANTS
Date
Body
W.G. Sebald, who is German, teaches at the University of East
Anglia. Although he has liven in England for thirty years, he writes in
German. His new novel, THE EMMIGRANTs, is now available in an English
translation by Michael Hulse [New Direction Paperback 853]. Widely praised
by the literary community, it is, as one reviewer describes it "[A] short,
chastely lyrical novel [that] is also an archive of family photos, a
documentary of German Jewish life from the late 19th Century to the late
20th, a deconstruction of fairly tales and a somber quarrel with Proust.
It is a spell-binding work of memory..." The novel takes the form of four
"biographical sketches" accompanied by the narrator's pursuit of his
subjects -- (almost) all members of his extended family.
As several reviewer remarked, Nabokov is one of the presiding
deities of the novel -- even appearing as a character. One of Sebald's
subjects, a naturalist, is described in terms of a picture of VN in
pursuit of butterflies in the Alps. The VN photo is reproduced (16). One
of the novel's other subjects meets another as he sees and comments on her
reading SPEAK, MEMORY (43). On a mountain side overlooking Montreux's
Lake Geneva, another character, Ferber, is so drawn by the landscape below
he is on the point of leaping into it when he is distracted by "a man of
about sixty...carrying a large white gauze butterfly net..." Later at a
German spa, Ferber notices two Russian gentlemen, chastising a
ten-year-old boy for distracting them from their stroll his butterfly
hunting (212),
Nabokov clearly stands as an emblem of exile, memory, and art in
Sebald's novel.
------------------------------------
The thought occurs that a book could be written the uses (e.g.
Sebald, Don Harington's EKATERINA) and abuses (e.g. A.A. Holmes & Pia
Pera) of Nabokov in literaure.
D. Barton Johnson Department of Germanic,
Slavic and Semitic Studies Phelps Hall University of California at Santa
Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825 Home Phone:
(805) 682-4618
Anglia. Although he has liven in England for thirty years, he writes in
German. His new novel, THE EMMIGRANTs, is now available in an English
translation by Michael Hulse [New Direction Paperback 853]. Widely praised
by the literary community, it is, as one reviewer describes it "[A] short,
chastely lyrical novel [that] is also an archive of family photos, a
documentary of German Jewish life from the late 19th Century to the late
20th, a deconstruction of fairly tales and a somber quarrel with Proust.
It is a spell-binding work of memory..." The novel takes the form of four
"biographical sketches" accompanied by the narrator's pursuit of his
subjects -- (almost) all members of his extended family.
As several reviewer remarked, Nabokov is one of the presiding
deities of the novel -- even appearing as a character. One of Sebald's
subjects, a naturalist, is described in terms of a picture of VN in
pursuit of butterflies in the Alps. The VN photo is reproduced (16). One
of the novel's other subjects meets another as he sees and comments on her
reading SPEAK, MEMORY (43). On a mountain side overlooking Montreux's
Lake Geneva, another character, Ferber, is so drawn by the landscape below
he is on the point of leaping into it when he is distracted by "a man of
about sixty...carrying a large white gauze butterfly net..." Later at a
German spa, Ferber notices two Russian gentlemen, chastising a
ten-year-old boy for distracting them from their stroll his butterfly
hunting (212),
Nabokov clearly stands as an emblem of exile, memory, and art in
Sebald's novel.
------------------------------------
The thought occurs that a book could be written the uses (e.g.
Sebald, Don Harington's EKATERINA) and abuses (e.g. A.A. Holmes & Pia
Pera) of Nabokov in literaure.
D. Barton Johnson Department of Germanic,
Slavic and Semitic Studies Phelps Hall University of California at Santa
Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106 Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825 Home Phone:
(805) 682-4618