On the Natural History of Destruction - Softcover

Sebald, W. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676975305 ISBN 13: 9780676975307

Publisher: VINTAGE CANADA, 2004

Synopsis

W. G. Sebald completed this extraordinary, important and controversial book before his untimely death in December 2001. It is a harrowing study of the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment in World War II, and an examination of the silence in German literature and culture about this unprecedented trauma. On the Natural History of Destruction is an essential and deeply relevant study of war and society, suffering and amnesia. Like Sebald's novels, it is studded with meticulous observation, moments of black humour, and throughout, the author's unmatched intelligence and humanity.

About this title

Review:

"Most writers, even good ones, write of what can be written; and move by their own angles into the discourse of their day. The very greatest write of what cannot be written; gravitating not toward the discourse but toward the silence. They break it, like the crust on untrodden snow. I think of [Anna] Akhmatova and Primo Levi, for example, and of W. G. Sebald, who died in 2001." -- Richard Eder, The New York Times Book Review

"Sebald is the real thing. . . . Sublime." -- The Globe and Mail

"On the Natural History of Destruction is an urgent portrayal of human life under the concussive blows of total war. It should be memorized." -- National Post

"With this short but perfectly balanced collection, W.G. Sebald puts postwar German literature on the scales and finds it wanting. In doing so, he writes with unflinching clarity and condemns with uncompromising vigour..... Sebald set out to awaken a deeply repressed national memory and to re-emphasize the standards an honest literature must meet; to achieve such things, perhaps he knew his patient required a good hard shake. To judge from the burgeoning debate in Germany, it seems he succeeded." -- Ottawa Citizen

"Powerful..... Sebald's essays could not be more timely." -- Edmonton Journal

"This is a beautifully written book.... It is overwhelming, thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, and worst, soul-disturbing." -- Winnipeg Free Press

"Resonates with an active mind and rigorous intellect." -- Georgia Straight

"Grounded in history and personal memory, enriched by grainy, black-and-white photographs, full of odd morsels of knowledge, Sebald's fiction blurs all sense of genre. It combines a scrupulous attention to fact and a probing intelligence with an intuitive understanding of the times when fact gives way to imagination." -- Mark Abley, Times Colonist

About the Author:

W.G. Sebald taught at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, for thirty years, becoming Professor of European Literature in 1987. His books won several international awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the Berlin Literature Prize. He died at age 57 in 2001.

About this edition

• Publisher: VINTAGE CANADA
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0676975305
• ISBN 13: 9780676975307
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224