Why You Should Be Reading W. G. Sebald

A 2011 article from The New Yorker

W. G. Sebald

Mark O'Connell (New Yorker) on why you should be reading W. G. Sebald (link via David Pearce): 'It is probably too early to predict the extent of the influence Sebald’s hybrid books will exert on the shape of the novel, but it isn’t an exaggeration to say that he erased and redrew the boundaries of narrative fiction as radically as anyone since Borges. British writers like Will Self and, in particular, Geoff Dyer, have been inspired by Sebald’s figurative and literal rambling. Dyer’s work—part essay, part travelogue, part fiction—sometimes reads like a less melancholy, more comic (and more English) variant of Sebald’s peregrinatory prose. One of this year’s most impressive novels, Teju Cole’s debut “Open City,” owes a clear debt to Sebald. James Wood, in his enthusiastic review in the magazine, commented on the way in which Cole moves “in the shadow of W. G. Sebald’s work.” On a more superficial level, Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” adopted the trademark Sebaldian tactic of integrating photographs into its text.' [Read More]

Also at A Piece of Monologue:

• The Making of W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn
• Grant Gee, Patience (After Sebald)
• W. G. Sebald, Across Land and Water
• W. G. Sebald as Academic
• W. G. Sebald: Writing Pictures
• W. G. Sebald Interviewed on Bookworm
• Coetzee on Sebald and the Uncanny
• James Wood on Sebald's Austerlitz

The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death

What is death and how does it touch upon life? Twenty writers look for answers

The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death
(ed. David Shields & Bradford Murrow)

As a pleasant distraction from a busy work schedule, I've been reading a recent collection of twenty essays (or are they short stories?) about death. Edited by David Shields and Bradford Murrow, The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death approaches that tall, dark stranger from a variety of perspectives. David Gates opens the series with a rumination on illness and deterioration. Jonathan Safran Foer's contribution adopts what he calls 'the silence mark', an empty square figuration in the text that 'signifies an absence of language', an absence, Foer reveals, that punctuates 'every page of the story of my family life'. And Joyce Carol Oates revisits the territory of A Widow's Story, the grief that follows the loss of a husband, and the way those who are gone continue to haunt our day-to-day lives. It's an interesting, entertaining and at times quite moving book.

Contents

David Shields and Bradford Murrow, Introduction
David Gates, Death Watch
Kyoko Mori, Between the Forest and the Well: Notes on Death
Robert Clark, Bayham Street
Sallie Tisdale, The Sutra of Maggots and Blowflies
Jonathan Safran Foer, A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease
Diane Ackerman, Silence and Awakening
Melissa Pritchard, A Solemn Pleasure
Christopher Sorrentino, Death in the Age of Digital Proliferation, and Other Considerations
Joyce Carol Oates, The Siege
Robin Hemley, Field Notes for the Graveyard Enthusiast
Peter Straub, Inside Story
Kevin Baker, Invitation to the Dance
Margo Jefferson, Death in Negroland
Greg Bottoms, Grace Street
Lynne Tillman, The Final Plot
Lance Olsen, Lessness
Mark Doty, Bijou
Brenda Hillman, Cézanne's Colors
Geoff Dyer, What Will Survive of Us
Annie Dillard, This Is the Life
Acknowledgments

Reviews

Starred Review. A wonderfully speculative patchwork quilt on the meaning of life and death.

Kirkus Reviews

[A] diversity of views, yet a consistently high level of thought. Their eloquent introduction sets up these pieces, several of them previously published. Suffusing the collection as a whole is the humility expressed by Lynne Tillman at the end of her essay: "Of death, mortals are absolutely ignorant. The dead, fortunately, are beyond caring." Ultimately, these readings may bring the reader some comfort to realize, perhaps again, that we are all in this together.

Alan Moores, Seattle Times

Website

• W. W. Norton & Company

Disjecta: This week's links

[Image: Albert Exergian's modernist TV poster for Twin Peaks]

This week has seen new developments in the world of the e-book: Apple has introduced the new iPad, while Amazon has fallen out with Macmillan publishers over retail prices. Jonathan Safran Foer promotes his new book, Eating Animals. A new art exhibition pays homage to the work of J. G. Ballard. And Martin Amis makes the provocative but questionable statement that J. M. Coetzee has 'no talent'. The deaths of historian Howard Zinner and writer J. D. Salinger have also loomed large in this week's headlines, and a selection of links have been included below.

Literature:

Philip Roth: In praise of phone books (and Philip Roth)
Jonathan Safran Foer: On his new book, Eating Animals
Will Self: An introduction to the Book of Revelation
Gabriel Josipovici: New story, 'Love Across the Borders'
J. M. Coetzee: Amis claims Coetzee has 'no talent'
J. G. Ballard: An art exhibition pays homage
Don DeLillo: On DeLillo's 'glacial aesthetic'
J. D. Salinger 1919-2010: More on A Piece of Monologue
Literary Journals: Are literary fiction magazines and journals in decline?
Bookshelves: Lee Rourke on building your own
Amazon/MacMillan: Amazon pulls Macmillan titles in e-book skirmish
Apple iPad: First review of new e-book reader
William Burroughs: John Coulthart on Burroughs The Movie

Philosophy & Critical Theory:

Jean Baudrillard: L'Espirit du Terrorisme

Slavoj Žižek: Welcome to the Desert of the Real

Fredric Jameson: The Dialectics of Disaster

Slavoj Žižek: The world according to Žižek

Jacques Lacan: Desire and the Interpretation of Desire in Hamlet

Howard Zinn 1922-2010: Renowned American historian

Music:

Bob Dylan: Dylan to perform at the White House
Krautrock: BBC documentary, 'Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany'

Television:

Modernist TV Posters

Art:

Harry Diamond 1924-2009: Photographer of Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon

Etc.:

Garry Kasparov: The Chess Master and the Computer
Holocaust Memorial Day

Thank you to all link contributors, who can be found on the A Piece of Monologue Twitter page.