|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Amazon
A meditation on memory and loss. Sebald re-creates the lives of four exiles--five if you include his oblique self-portrait--through their own accounts, others' recollections, and pictures and found objects. But he brings these men before our eyes only to make them fade away, "longing for extinction." Two were eventual suicides, another died in an asylum, the fourth still lived under a "poisonous canopy" more than 40 years after his parents' death in Nazi Germany.
Sebald's own longing is for communion. En route to Ithaca (the real upstate New York location but also the symbolic one), he comes to feel "like a travelling companion of my neighbor in the next lane." After the car speeds away--"the children pulling clownish faces out of the rear window--I felt deserted and desolate for a time." Sebald's narrative is purposely moth-holed (butterfly-ridden, actually--there's a recurring Nabokov-with-a-net type), an escape from the prison-house of realism. According to the author, his Uncle Ambros's increasingly improbable tales were the result of "an illness which causes lost memories to be replaced by fantastic inventions." Luckily for us, Sebald seems to have inherited the same syndrome. --Kerry Fried
From Publishers Weekly
Composed of four compelling portraits of Jewish emigres whose lives have been scarred by exile, dislocation and persecution, this unusual work of fiction is pervaded by a sensibility and a degree of circumstantial detail so authentic that it could pass for historical documentation. That Sebald has invested his fictional creations with both dignity and pathos is a mark of his achievement here. A narrator provides perspective on the lives he relates. Retired surgeon Henry Selwyn was born Hersch Seweryn and changed his name after arrival in England; his disclosure of his true origins to his Swiss wife causes an irreparable rift in their marriage and an essential loss of identity in the now aimless man. Paul Bereyter, fired from his post as schoolteacher in Germany because he is one-quarter Jewish, serves six years in the Germany army and is haunted by the bestial violence he witnesses. Ambros Adelwarth escapes Germany, finally settling in the U.S. Concealing his traumas from family members, he commits himself to a sanitarium at age 67 and undergoes electroshock therapy, longing for extinction. German-born artist Max Ferber, a recluse in Manchester, England, suffers claustrophobia stemming from the deportation and murder of his parents by Nazis. Though none of the protagonists is thrown into a concentration camp, they are all haunted by the effects of the Holocaust. Two of them eventually commit suicide, all suffer shame and guilt, claustrophobia and depression. Photographs interwoven with the restrained text add to the cumulative effect, which is that of an eerie memento. Long after the Nazis have fallen, these exiled individuals endure existential agony and emotional breakdowns. German novelist and literary scholar Sebald, who has lived in England since 1970, won the Berlin Literature Prize for this remarkable work.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
At the end of september 1970, shortly before I took up my position in Norwich, I drove out to Hingham with Clara in search of somewhere to live. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
At the end of september 1970, shortly before I took up my position in Norwich, I drove out to Hingham with Clara in search of somewhere to live. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
`Memory, he added in a postscript, often strikes me as a kind of dumbness.',
By J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Emigrants (Paperback)
There are five main emigrants in this book: Henry Selwyn (a doctor); Paul Bereyter (the narrator's teacher); Ambros Adelwarth (the narrator's great uncle, a butler); Max Ferber (a painter) and the narrator himself. The narrator's story is not told directly, but indirectly through its intersections with the other four. What do they have in common, these five European men who have survived World War II? Two of them are Jewish; one has a father who we are told is part Jewish, the other two are German. Each of the five of them is deeply affected by what he has survived. Exile and loss form part of each man's experience.This novel is presented as four separate biographies, incorporating photographs of people, places and artefacts. These photographs form part of the story being told: the photographs are of individuals, the stories are told as individual stories but they represent the dislocations of many. The memories may be shared, but each experience is unique. We are reminded that persecution takes many forms, and that emigration provides only one dimension of distance from experience. Two of the emigrants commit suicide and one dies in a mental institution. Arguably, emigration was not distance enough. Experiences cannot be escaped. I have read each of the four stories once, and two of them twice. I need to read them all again in order to try to make my own sense of it. I am sure that the butterflies (for example) have more significance than I first appreciated, and the image of restless souls searching (for what, I wonder) is one I find haunting. Who are these people, and who do they represent? And what is the significance of the references to Nabokov? This is not a book that can be read lightly. I found that there were limits to how long I could spend in the company of each emigrant without feeling overwhelmed by their stories. The prose is deceptively simple; the experiences being recounted are not. This is the first of Mr Sebald's novels I have read, I have added the others to my reading list. Jennifer Cameron-Smith
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A moving book,
By
This review is from: The Emigrants (Paperback)
"The Emigrants" firs appear to be mere accounts of four different Jewish emigrants in the twentieth century. But gradually the four narratives merge into a poetic evocation of exile and loss. Mr Sebald's precise, almost dreamlike writing - along with many beautiful photographs - works its magic. The account of the displacement of these four émigrés is both sober and delicate. Few books convey more about that complex and tragic fate. Michael Hulse's exquisite translation really makes this book a work of art.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good read for the melancholic,
By
This review is from: The Emigrants (Paperback)
This was my second book by Sebald and like Austerlitz, I experienced a deep, almost surreal sense of gloom as flashes of images kept playing in my mind. It was so hypnotic - I almost felt like I was floating in air. I attribute it to Sebald's unique talent -- he's able to lead readers to a totally new plane, so to speak, where the plot of the story becomes so secondary -- all that matters is the journey and the sense of how the characters' thoughts and pain become yours.That said, this book (and Austerlitz) isn't exactly for everyone. I've tried recommending it some friends who felt it was too "meandering and emotive". I didn't quite agree with them, but lately, I'm beginning to see their point -- you've got to be in a right frame of mind to enjoy Sebald. If you're a sucker for plot-drive, high-octane stories, then this may not be for you, but if you're more contemplative and patient, this could be the most rewarding book you'll read in a long while.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
