Review: The Emigrants
Redaktioneller Bericht - Kirkus ReviewsAn evocative work by a prize-winning German author, now England-based, consists of four distinct stories of Jewish emigration over the last century: in each piece, not only the personal drama but the zeitgeist of the occasion is cannily, compellingly revealed. Bending each narrative into a form of personal reminiscence, complete with photographs woven into the text, the tribulation of each elusive subject is patiently uncovered by the narrator, starting with old Dr. Selwyn, whom the narrator meets in the garden of an English country house. In a unique confessional moment, this friendly if distant neighbor reveals his lower-class Lithuanian origins and the process of his assimilation into British society, which in his retirement he finds increasingly foreign. Soon after this confession, he shoots himself. Similarly, Paul Bereyter, the narrator's retired and reclusive grade-school teacher, ends his life by lying down in front of a train, prompting his ex-pupil to explore his past, discovering Bereyter's consuming and destructive relationship with Nazism. The life of Ambros Adelwarth describes a more colorful but no less destructive arc as the young manservant (the narrator's great uncle) finds employment with one of the most prominent ‚migr‚ families in New York. The personal companion of the family scion, he travels the world with his charge, as an equal, in the years before and after WW I, but the scion slowly succumbs to madness and dies institutionalized; Ambros, eventually overpowered by his memories, voluntarily enters an asylum, where he dies as a result of shock therapy. Finally, an encounter with the artist Max Ferber in the decaying English port of Manchester during the narrator's college years prompts him to return much later, when he learns how Ferber escaped from the Nazis but lost his entire family in the Holocaust. The pervasive melancholy in these lives that are locked in tragedy is formidable, but at the same time the lyricism and immediacy of the narratives are marvelous to behold: a profound and moving work that should leave no reader unaffected.
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Dermo - GoodreadsSebald's beautiful prose weaves a charm which his insight brings forward, often being inadvertently (or possibly intentionally) hilarious. On the other side, the subjects he describes are often sad ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Neil - GoodreadsProfound and moving: stories of loss and displacement with a dreamlike quality. A highly recommended introduction to the work of Sebald, an author I want to revisit as soon as possible. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Hugh Mahoney - GoodreadsBrilliant. The greatest writer of his time (and any time) which was cut far too short. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Inderjit Sanghera - GoodreadsTwo images flashed through my head when reading Sebald's 'The Emigrants'. The first one was a character's statement that reading his mother's memoirs was like an evil German fairy tale that once you ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Ayelet Waldman - GoodreadsIt is an utter catastrophe that this man died so young. He is a great writer...and I mean great. As in people will be reading him in 2 Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Charlie - GoodreadsMy favorite lines from the novel: "The powdery veils that rose silently from the roar of the [Ithaca] Falls drifted into my sleep like white curtains blown into a room black with night" (108 ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - James - Goodreads...a novel about departures and uncertain arrivals, about looking back upon the groundless vistas of memory divorced from any true centre of self and world, and about how this parallax position ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Susan - GoodreadsThis is a beautiful translation of a lovely little gem of a book. Sebald is exquisite. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Emigrants
Nutzerbericht - Tom Lichtenberg - Goodreads"The Emigrants", like "Austerlitz" has a way of quietly illuminating unexpected corners, of dragging shadows into light with soft but persistent tugs. I was especially struck with his revelations of ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
