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VN in NYT Book Review, 3-30: Sebald's _The Emigrants_ (fwd)
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From Larry Wolff's review of W. G. Sebald's THE EMIGRANTS:
Mr. Sebald's art of allusion culminates... in Luisa Ferber's memoir, when
she notices at Bad Kissingen "two very refined Russian gentlemen, one of
whom (who looked particularly majestic) was speaking seriously to a boy of
about 10 who had been chasing butterflies and had lagged so far behind
that they had had to wait for him." Butterflies, as well as a spectral
lepidopterist called "the butterfly man," flutter on the margins of all
these stories, but in this case the boy can be identified from Vladimir
Nabokov's autobiography, SPEAK, MEMORY, which describes this exact scene
taking place at Bad Kissingen; the boy was the young Nabokov. The spirit
of the great Russian writer, pre-eminent among literary emigres, presides
over Mr. Sebald's entire book.
(The book is translated from German and published by New Directions.)
Galya Diment
Mr. Sebald's art of allusion culminates... in Luisa Ferber's memoir, when
she notices at Bad Kissingen "two very refined Russian gentlemen, one of
whom (who looked particularly majestic) was speaking seriously to a boy of
about 10 who had been chasing butterflies and had lagged so far behind
that they had had to wait for him." Butterflies, as well as a spectral
lepidopterist called "the butterfly man," flutter on the margins of all
these stories, but in this case the boy can be identified from Vladimir
Nabokov's autobiography, SPEAK, MEMORY, which describes this exact scene
taking place at Bad Kissingen; the boy was the young Nabokov. The spirit
of the great Russian writer, pre-eminent among literary emigres, presides
over Mr. Sebald's entire book.
(The book is translated from German and published by New Directions.)
Galya Diment