I’ve just read ‘Vertigo’ by Sebald and there’s nothing remotely like his books that I’ve ever read.
I found ‘Austerlitz’ terrifying on one level. It’s like being drawn into a revolving, repetitious nightmare with a feeling of evil lurking just away in the background.
Reading a book can be like an extended relationship but you have to give it time and learn to be quiet with it, to let it evolve. With a really good book, it’s a bit like prayer or meditation and can leave you feeling grounded, challenged and enriched.
If you’ve never read a Sebald novel, make this your New Year’s resolution. You won’t regret it.
Which are you recommending: ‘Vertigo’ or ‘Austerlitz’? His ‘On the natural history of destruction’ for me speaks directly to Gaza (inter alia). Unerring. Terrifying (quoting you).
Yes, everyone needs to read a Sebald book and this is the right time of year.
LL
Steve Murray
4 months ago
Against a backdrop of actual living and being with other people, there’s something to be gleaned here about the transition from immersion in literature and immersion in social media. I think what the author is describing is our attempt to cross a human threshold – or a threshold of human psychology – not hitherto experienced. This may only be possible by someone sensitive enough to have been engaged with those literary traditions known to the Western mind before the advent of the internet.
This has value. There’s an entire generation in the same boat, to a greater or lesser extent. When the writer speaks of a loss of remembering, he’s describing something akin to our collective loss of how the world was before electronic media, whether social or otherwise. How could an “internet native” explore their relationship with the world in the same way? They simply could not. This is something which mirrors the sense of remembering pre- and post-Holocaust, which is still being played out before our very eyes. Indeed, another article today by David Patrikarakos deals with it, as reportage, yet experienced by a world whose psychology has been shrunken by social media. There are consequences which we’re only just starting to learn to deal with.
On an individual level, one consequence is that being alone may never be the same again.
Your comment takes me (yet again) to Iain McGilchrist and the importance of attention
He views this as a moral act given the importance of attention in what we manifest in the world. The internet is rewiring our brains – we now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish and our understanding is fractured. We can no longer hold our perspective toether long enough to develop wisdom.
I’ve just read ‘Vertigo’ by Sebald and there’s nothing remotely like his books that I’ve ever read.
I found ‘Austerlitz’ terrifying on one level. It’s like being drawn into a revolving, repetitious nightmare with a feeling of evil lurking just away in the background.
Reading a book can be like an extended relationship but you have to give it time and learn to be quiet with it, to let it evolve. With a really good book, it’s a bit like prayer or meditation and can leave you feeling grounded, challenged and enriched.
If you’ve never read a Sebald novel, make this your New Year’s resolution. You won’t regret it.
Which are you recommending: ‘Vertigo’ or ‘Austerlitz’? His ‘On the natural history of destruction’ for me speaks directly to Gaza (inter alia). Unerring. Terrifying (quoting you).
They’re all brilliant, but if you want to read them in order, ‘Vertigo’ is first. That way you can leave the creeping dread of ‘Austerlitz’ til last.
Thank you.
Yes, everyone needs to read a Sebald book and this is the right time of year.
Against a backdrop of actual living and being with other people, there’s something to be gleaned here about the transition from immersion in literature and immersion in social media. I think what the author is describing is our attempt to cross a human threshold – or a threshold of human psychology – not hitherto experienced. This may only be possible by someone sensitive enough to have been engaged with those literary traditions known to the Western mind before the advent of the internet.
This has value. There’s an entire generation in the same boat, to a greater or lesser extent. When the writer speaks of a loss of remembering, he’s describing something akin to our collective loss of how the world was before electronic media, whether social or otherwise. How could an “internet native” explore their relationship with the world in the same way? They simply could not. This is something which mirrors the sense of remembering pre- and post-Holocaust, which is still being played out before our very eyes. Indeed, another article today by David Patrikarakos deals with it, as reportage, yet experienced by a world whose psychology has been shrunken by social media. There are consequences which we’re only just starting to learn to deal with.
On an individual level, one consequence is that being alone may never be the same again.
Your comment takes me (yet again) to Iain McGilchrist and the importance of attention
He views this as a moral act given the importance of attention in what we manifest in the world. The internet is rewiring our brains – we now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish and our understanding is fractured. We can no longer hold our perspective toether long enough to develop wisdom.
Who is this “we” of whom you speak?