Review: The rings of Saturn
Redaktioneller Bericht - Kirkus ReviewsLike his much praised novel The Emigrants (1996), this new work by Sebald is steeped in melancholy. It's also highly idiosyncratic, beginning as the record of a fictional walking tour along the coast of Suffolk in southeast England before turning into a broad, rich meditation on Britain's past and the power of history. Observations en route link with psychological and historical elements to form a kind of dreamscape, the boundaries of which become increasingly hard to define, though the 17th-century naturalist and physician Thomas Browne acts as fixed point of reference. The walk starts at the remains of the fairy-tale palace known as Somerleyton Hall, once a Victorian railway king's monument to extravagance. On the nearby coastline are other ruins, from the recently foundered town of Lowestoft (where Joseph Conrad first made landfall in England), a wreck after the Thatcherite bubble burst, to the more spectacular ghost of the once-mighty port of Dunwich, which over several centuries toppled inexorably into the North Sea. Each of the sites prompts stories of Britain's past. A railway bridge, for instance, leads to the story of the odd train that once ran over it and of the train's unlikely connection with the Emperor of China and the silk trade. Turning inland, the trail leads to writer Michael Hamburger (a number of writers, most long dead, figure in the journey), whose story of flight from the Nazis in 1933 resonates with the narrator's own more recent history, and on to a disorienting sandstorm among the remains of a forest uprooted by the freak hurricane of 1987 before turning back to the history of Britain's colonial involvement in the silk trade, which binds many threads of this trek together. Erudition of this sort is too rare in American fiction, but the hypnotic appeal here has as much to do with Sebald's deft portrait of the subtle, complex relations between individual experience and the rich human firmament that gives it meaning as it does with his remarkable mastery of history.
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Harrison - GoodreadsSebald is a great writer and the historical knowledge he weaves together is both amazing and obscure. I appreciate this book for its unity of ideas that are maintained and explored for all 300 pages ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Jack Waters - GoodreadsSebald writes gorgeously. This book is the one-stop shop for learning about the silk industry in Norwich, which in and of itself should drive hordes into reading it, right? I know, that doesn't sound ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Justin - GoodreadsA melancholy meditation on the transience of life and a voyage into the imagination of the writer. Sebald takes us on an extraordinary journey. It is rambling on an epic scale. I particularly enjoyed ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Tim Cawkwell - GoodreadsBeautifully written but given a choice between the glass being half-full or half-empty, Sebald will always go for the half-empty. This gets wearing. However, I know the landscape he writes about quite well so this adds to the interest - and starts filling the glass again. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Rosie Dempsey - GoodreadsI am completely unsure of what I think of this book. It's an incredibly fast read, but when I closed the book, I realized I couldn't describe a single thing that happened. The book is virtually ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Ian - Goodreads"I suppose it is submerged memories that give to dreams their curious air of hyper–reality. But perhaps there is something else as well, something nebulous, gauze–like, through which everything one ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Edie Folta - GoodreadsFantastic dreamlike meditation on the past and present, and decay and destruction. Vollständige Rezension lesen
Review: The Rings of Saturn
Nutzerbericht - Jeff - GoodreadsA quick note on the absurdity in Sebald's text. Sebald makes a connection, in Chapter VI, between the River Blyth train, discovered on one of his walking tours of Northeast England, with its heraldic ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
